Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow up on a question which I asked at the beginning of October concerning the very difficult situation facing Canada's young people, in particular the absolutely unac-
ceptable level of unemployment which in real terms is in excess of 20 per cent for young people.
Members of the House will recall that a little over three years ago the Liberal government was elected on a promise of jobs. The red book promised jobs and a new hope for change from the Conservative government. Instead, what we have seen are levels of unemployment particularly among young people which are even higher than they were when this government was elected. In fact in September alone over 19,000 jobs were lost in the age group of 15 to 24.
There is a growing insecurity which young people are facing as they look at their futures. The very tragic unemployment situation is completely unacceptable.
I spoke earlier today at the conference celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Canadian Federation of Students. The chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, Brad Lavigne, spoke out strongly earlier this year on this issue. He said: "Where are the red book promises of jobs, jobs, jobs? Instead of creating jobs, the Liberals have made cuts to the public sector and pursued a destructive high interest rate policy. That is not a long term approach to jobs".
Young people today are facing soaring tuition fees, except in the province of British Columbia. The New Democratic government in that province has actually frozen tuition fees for this year, next year and the following year. Students are facing increasing debt loads. The average debt load of a graduating student is about $24,000.
There have been cuts in research and development. That is not what the Liberal government was elected to do, certainly not to cut funding for example in research for environmental technologies. There has been no renewal of the national AIDS strategy.
Cuts have been made in arts and cultural programs and to the CBC.
All of this has directly affected the opportunity of young people to find meaningful jobs in our economy.
Young people are looking for tax relief in the education system. I appeal to the government to listen carefully to the Canadian Federation of Students' request for tax relief and also for an academic component to any infrastructure program.
The fact is that there are too many young people who not only cannot find work but who are underemployed. For example, there is the physicist who is driving a cab in Toronto and cannot find any other work and the historian who is delivering pizzas.
There is a tremendous amount of insecurity, not only about jobs, but because of the growing number of part time jobs, contractual jobs and temporary jobs, more and more young people do not have jobs which will provide them with decent pensions. At the same time, the Canada pension plan is under attack. The Reform Party suggests that we wipe out the Canada pension plan and replace it with super RRSPs. The Liberal Party talks about cutting the benefits of the Canada pension plan and increasing the age of retirement. Now is the time for us to be reaffirming our support for the Canada pension plan and strengthening it as a very important social insurance program.
There are fewer summer jobs for students. There are fewer part time jobs. There is a lot of pressure on them.
What this country needs is a government that is committed to full employment, committed to putting jobs at the heart of its economic strategy. There are many ways of doing that. One is a fair tax system. The national leader of the New Democratic Party, Alexa McDonough, has been travelling across the country getting out the message that there are alternatives.
It is time that this country had a government that did not just listen to the wealthy and the powerful. It is time that we had a government that put young people and employment of young people at the heart of its economic policy.