Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about an important measure the government has taken, a concrete measure to create jobs.
Industry Canada together with Dalhousie University and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has begun the student connection program. This program will send out 2,000 senior university students across the country to introduce small and medium size businesses and voluntary organizations to the Internet. They will train people in middle and upper management in these businesses to use the Internet to support their own decision making processes. They will be taught how to use Internet sites like Strategis, the largest Canadian source of information on business on the information highway.
All Canadians are concerned about jobs, especially the young. This program is aimed not only at helping business use information technology but at creating jobs for young people, a very worthwhile goal.
Since we took office as a government the economy has created 636,000 new jobs in Canada. The student connection program alone will directly create 2,000 work term jobs.