Mr. Speaker, last week the federal Liberal government wined and dined over 100 hand picked delegates gathered in Ottawa for a three day national conference. The aim was to have these youth delegates help provide solutions to growing problems faced by young people in Canada today.
The problem is the federal government did not invite any student groups, where corporations were welcomed with open arms, showing once again how this government believes that only the wealthy and large corporations really matter.
Obviously the government believes that rising tuition costs, decreasing quality of education, high student debt, chronic student unemployment and decreased accessibility to university education are irrelevant and trivial issues for the youth of today.
The chair of the conference conveniently forgot to mention the government is backtracking on the Liberal Party's red book promise to fund a $100 million youth core program to employ 10,000 youth every year. He also neglected to mention the government's plans to privatize Canada's student loan program and the $7 billion cuts to provincial social transfer payments.
The corporations and the government were so successful at pulling off this farce that Canada's second largest bank, the CIBC, has generously offered to host the second national conference on youth next March. And why not? The government has already abandoned middle class and working people for banks and big corporations.