Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter this debate on this very important subject. I am especially happy to have a chance to outline the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Government of Canada's youth programming.
There is no question Canadians have a right to expect the best possible performance from Government of Canada investments. Certainly young Canadians are looking for results. They deserve and expect results.
I assure the member for Madawaska—Restigouche that the monitoring and evaluation of the Government of Canada's youth programs is already underway. When it launched the youth employment strategy the Government of Canada instituted a comprehensive strategy to monitor the performance of its programs for youth and to evaluate their impacts.
Even more assuring, our youth employment initiatives are producing concrete results. Thousands of Canadian youth know from their own experience that the Government of Canada's youth employment strategy is working to help them find work.
I want to explore these two important points one issue at time. The first is a matter of program monitoring. As I mentioned, the Government of Canada's youth employment strategy has a built-in system to measure the strategy's success. This system includes participant follow-up surveys, longitudinal studies and individual program evaluations.
I will do a quick review of some of our key findings to date. I think they will be found very important. Youth internship Canada, a program that provides wage subsidies to employers who create work experience opportunities at home and abroad for youth, has a stellar record. This program will create 25,000 internships in the current fiscal year. Each year Human Resources Development Canada conducts follow-up surveys with former youth internship Canada participants to assess the results of the program.
The most recent survey was in November 1997. That indicated that 88% of former project participants are now employed or have returned to school. The youth service Canada program has an equally impressive record. This initiative provides funds to community organizations to help higher risk youth find their place in the workforce.
This year some 5,000 young people will receive youth service Canada support.
The 1997 survey of the youth service Canada program found that 6 to 12 months after taking part in a youth service Canada project 85% of the youth are employed or have returned to school, and that is very impressive. Incidentally, this year Human Resources Development Canada will be going ahead with an in-depth evaluation of youth service Canada.
The Government of Canada student summer job action has enjoyed similarly positive results. Like other youth programs, this initiative is reviewed periodically through follow-up surveys with young Canadians. The 1996 survey found that 55% of placements provided work experience in the student's area of study and, just as important, we discovered that 69% of employers would not have hired a student without the Government of Canada subsidy.
Findings like these demonstrate that we are on the right track. But let me assure my hon. colleague this government is not about to rest on its laurels in this matter. In addition to the measures I have already outlined, all federal departments and agencies involved in all our 250 youth programs under the youth employment strategy are required to conduct and report on the evaluation of their youth employment strategy initiatives.
To give members some sense of our commitment to quality of this program let me profile just one department. Human Resources Development Canada alone is conducting an interim formative evaluation as well as a final summary evaluation of its youth employment strategy initiatives. The formative evaluation is already in progress. We should be able to report back to this House on its findings by the fall of next year.
Equally valuable, all these review activities are being incorporated into longer term evaluations of the Government of Canada's youth initiatives. Human Resource Development Canada has developed an evaluation framework to integrate the results of individual departmental evaluations into an overall evaluation of the youth employment strategy. This massive undertaking will be completed within two years.
Even the newest initiatives such as those developed for youth at risk are going under the microscope. These initiatives which provide work experience and assistance to young people facing multiple barriers to employment are currently being assessed as part of the comprehensive evaluation of the youth employment strategy.
I point out that all the major initiatives under the youth employment strategy grew out of our experience with early youth programs such as youth internship Canada and youth service Canada. Our new programs are built around feedback and refinements to these pioneering programs.
Clearly there is no shortage of opportunities to identify any program weaknesses, nor is there any lack of willingness to address them properly should problems be found. That is important to note.
The fact that our youth programs enjoy such remarkable ratings, however, reinforces that Canada's youth employment strategy is meeting is commitment to help young Canadians find their way in the world of the job market. Yet we are still not content that enough is being done. That is why this year we added the Canadian opportunities strategy as well.
The Canadian opportunities strategy provides Canada study grants, Canada education savings grants, the Canadian millennium scholarship fund, tax measures for interest on Canadian student loans, part time student and child care expenses as well as more funding to university granting councils. We are making these investments in young Canadians because we know there is no better investment in the future. Learning is the absolute best guarantee for better jobs in the new millennium and the new economy. I was happy to hear the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche acknowledge in his speech early on that the government is making an enormous investment in our young people.
If there is any lingering doubt about this government's ability to maximize young people's chances of joining the labour force let me bring my fellow parliamentarians up to date on our overall success. I point out that youth service Canada has helped 12,000 young Canadians in three years. Youth internship Canada has given work experience to more than 89,000 young people since 1994. I also point out that student summer job action had over 75,000 participants this last summer. I finally point out that approximately 100,000 work experience opportunities are provided each and every year. Anyone looking for evidence of the effectiveness of the Government of Canada's youth employment initiatives need look no further than these figures.
Do not get me wrong. This government is always receptive to new ideas about ways to improve our youth programs. We regularly consult with our public and private sector partners who help us to implement the youth employment strategy. Partnerships and collaboration form the cornerstone of our approach to youth programs and are the primary reason for the strategy's overwhelming success.
I do not want the hon. member to conclude that we are not open to his input and support. We are. I hope he will recognize that his motion is not necessary. This government is already doing its job of ensuring that our programs to put young people into jobs are fulfilling their mandates. That is in the best interests of young Canadians and all Canadians and in the best interests of this great country of ours.