Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of this motion. I would like to congratulate the member for Madawaska—Restigouche for bringing forward what I think is a very thoughtful and reflective motion which needs to be seriously addressed by this House and certainly by the Government of Canada.
It was surprising to hear the government member across the way say earlier that this motion is not necessary. I was very surprised to hear that.
Is it possible that they believe the motion is not necessary because it would actually be an embarrassment for the Liberal government to go forward and, as this motion states, overhaul all of its programs for young people in order to evaluate their impact and performance and in order to ensure that all funds for such programs maximize young people's chances of joining the labour force? Who could disagree with that?
It was very surprising to hear the Reform member and the Liberal member actually speak against this motion, which I think is something that could well be done and from which we would get a lot of benefit.
In looking at this motion I think it is incumbent upon us to actually look at what is the situation for young people in Canada today. Unfortunately, the facts present a very gloomy picture for young people.
When the government announced its youth employment strategy in February 1996 there were 2,065,000 youth who were employed. But the StatsCan figures for November 1997 show that there were 2,039,700 young people who were employed. That is a drop of over 26,000.
In fact youth unemployment is at 16.8%, up from 15.7% in February 1996. As we all know, those are only the official numbers. The real numbers are much higher.
Since February 1996 when the government first announced its major youth employment strategy, and we heard today a very rosy picture about that, the reality is that 48,300 more young Canadians are out of work. It is not a rosy picture at all.
Even according to the CIBC, one of the major banks in Canada, about one in four youth, aged 15 to 24, has never held a job. That is more than double the rate in 1989.
How can government members stand here today and tell us that we do not have a crisis? This motion should be supported today because there is a crisis in this country for young people.
In December 1997 the proportion of the youth labour force with no job experience was 24%. That is up from 9.8% in December of 1989. There are so many statistics that it is just mind-boggling. What the trend really shows is that throughout this decade there has been a continuing drop in the participation of young people in the labour market. There is persistent high youth unemployment. There is just no getting away from it.
As well, there has been growth in involuntary part time employment. At the same time there has been a decline in real wages.
What has often been characterized as the recovery from the 1990s has basically bypassed young people. They are still, to a great extent, very marginalized and do not have the kinds of opportunities that we hear in the rhetoric and the propaganda coming from government members.
We have to ask the question of how we address youth unemployment. We in the NDP believe that two key issues need to be addressed. One is through education and the second one is through a comprehensive youth employment strategy.
If we agree—I think all members would agree—that education is the key for our young people then we also have to ask why the government is attacking post-secondary education. As my colleague from the PC who presented this motion pointed out, the attack and the assault on post-secondary education is simply unprecedented.
The Liberal youth strategy must be seen in the context of the massive cuts to post-secondary education in Canada. It becomes just an empty promise for the government to say that it wants young people to get jobs. It knows they have to go on to post-secondary education to obtain jobs, but it does not really care that tuition fees have skyrocketed, that student debt has gone up and that university and colleges are less and less accessible. That is the reality facing young people when it comes to education today.
Even Human Resources Development Canada tells us that 45% of new jobs by the year 2000 will require post-secondary education. The reality is that the ability of young people to get into post-secondary education is more and more limited, particularly for low income Canadians.
Since 1995 the federal Liberals have cut $1.5 billion from federal funding for post-secondary education. Since 1980 the Liberal and Conservative governments—we have to put this on record and look at the historical context—have cut federal funding from $6.44 for each dollar of student fees to less than $3. We see the real decline in support for post-secondary education.
Tuition fees over the last 10 years climbed by 240%. What an absolutely shocking statistic. Tuition fees in Canada have reached a national average of $3,100. That is higher than the average tuition fees of publicly funded universities in the United States. The story goes on and on. Student debt is up from $13,000 in 1993 when the Liberals took power to $25,000 now. Student bankruptcies have increased 700% since 1989. The picture is very grim. Given this situation, one would hope that the government would be assessing and reviewing its commitment to support post-secondary education.
What did we have yesterday? The Minister for International Trade attended the second annual Canadian education industry summit and actually talked about further industrialization and privatization of post-secondary education.
What is quoted in the Toronto Star today is the minister saying that education is an industry and that Canada needs to improve its marketing. This is how the government sees education now. It does not see it as a social investment, not as something that we provide as a societal responsibility to our young people, but simply as a marketing strategy, as something that the private sector wants to get its hands on.
The minister said that we need to identify our markets, develop and promote our products, differentiate them from those of our competition, and create business plans to bring all those elements together. Does this sound like we are talking about post-secondary education? It sounds like we are talking about the private sector to me, but that is what one of our cabinet ministers is saying.
The second part of a comprehensive strategy is a youth employment strategy. We have to point out that $129 million of the $345 million allocated to youth job creation programs go to short term summer jobs. There is no emphasis on the long term investment that needs to be made for young people. Virtually none of these programs are targeted at economically and socially disadvantaged youth.
Research has shown that to help such young people the programs must be targeted specifically and be designed to meet their very unique needs. Unfortunately these programs do not exist. Most of the Liberal youth programs benefit the most highly educated young people, which cynics say is more about cheap labour than real opportunity.
What should be done? We can learn by example from my province of British Columbia where our premier, Premier Clark, has made a personal commitment to make youth a priority. We have an extensive summer job program. We have environmental youth teams and environmental youth groups. We provide first jobs to graduates in science and technology.
There is entrepreneurial training for young people. There are thousands of jobs that have been created in B.C. crown corporations. In fact the B.C. government's record when it comes to supporting post-secondary education has been superlative in comparison to what the Liberal government has done. In fact our B.C. minister has called for a national tuition freeze on national grants program.
In conclusion I say that this is a very good motion. It deserves our support. We need to make that commitment to the young people of Canada, to evaluate the Liberal programs and to expose the fact that they are not helping the young people of Canada.