Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to enter this debate.
The motion by the New Democratic Party talks about the immorality of the government in reducing its deficit and debt. The previous intervener talked about dinosaurs. It seems to me that every time the NDP brings something to the floor of the House I have heard it before, usually about 20 or 25 years ago.
We had to deal with the deficit and debt problems. We have done that ferociously, so much so that interest rates in the country are at an all time low.
These are some of the basic fundamentals of economics which create jobs. In the last nine months 297,000 new jobs have been created. Only in the last couple of months 63,000 of those jobs were filled by young people.
Why is it difficult to set targets, as the motion entertains? It is because of something called the elasticity of labour. As people begin to seek and find work in the economy more people offer themselves for those jobs. Even though there has been a tremendous amount of job increase, a number of people are seeking employment. It is very difficult to determine who is going to seek new employment. As more and more people reach the labour market their friends, who are at home for one reason or another, may decide they also want to enter the labour market. It is a very difficult problem to solve because it is always changing.
One part of this motion deals specifically with education, which I find interesting. The Conference Board of Canada recently issued a report. I suggest the members of the NDP take some time to read it. Despite its motion, which talks about the dismal failure of the government to deal with matters of education, the Conference Board of Canada states that in 1993 Canada spent 7.6% of its gross domestic product on education. That is more than in the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy or the United Kingdom. Nearly two-thirds of all Canadians aged five to 29 are enrolled in educational programs, a record exceeded by only three other OECD countries.
Despite Canada's spending, its grade 8 students placed only in the middle of a pack on standardization in international tests in science and mathematics. Domestic testing confirms these disappointing results.
What is being said here? It is saying that increased spending does not necessarily get results. This flies in the face of the rhetoric of the NDP whose members believe that they can solve all problems simply by cranking out cheques.
I was amazed to notice in this survey that in the area of post-secondary education, Canada spends 2.8% of its GDP. That is the highest in the world. The one area for which the federal government has some responsibility, post-secondary education, Canada is spending the highest amount of any country in the western world.
The NDP members say that we are not doing enough. Are we supposed to be spending three times more money than every other country in the western world? I would have thought the NDP would have been concerned about giving people basic skills to get high paying jobs. I would have thought that they would be trying to find ways in which to make that spending more effective, not just to crank out more dollars. In fact, I suspect less money can actually be spent while getting better results, that is, if we take a little more of an approach to managing the way we are spending some of our money today.
At the same time as this spending is going on, Canada's literary skills are only middle of the pack in the western world. I am proud to be part of a government that recognized that two years ago, before many of these members showed up here, increasing the budget by over $50 million in the area of literacy skills.