Madam Speaker, the Atlantic groundfish strategy was designed to cope with an extraordinary situation, a crisis of major proportions. It had to be implemented within very tight time frames at a time when the government was facing severe fiscal constraints.
Under the circumstances, the Minister of Human Resources Development's first priority was to ensure that basic human needs were met, so we directed our efforts at ensuring that individuals who had lost their livelihood and source of income received income support.
On this score TAGS has been successful. More than 40,000 clients were able to count on Human Resources Development Canada to provide them with income support in a timely matter.
Having said that, it is very clear that TAGS was far from a perfect program. With the benefit of hindsight, many things could have been done differently but TAGS has helped Atlantic fishery workers. Some 14,800 TAGS clients have adjusted outside the groundfish fishery and found employment outside the industry. Over 16,000 TAGS clients received job counselling and over 10,000 TAGS clients had the opportunity to improve their job skills through various types of training, including literacy and basic skills improvement.
TAGS is expected to end in August 1998 and the Minister of Human Resources Development has just received a post-TAGS review report prepared by Mr. Harrigan. The objective of Mr. Harrigan's report was to get a sense of how the end of the TAGS program would impact on individuals, families and communities.
This is a very good report that brings out a number of important factors. For instance, it confirms that we cannot have a one size fits all solution. The end of TAGS will have a great impact on some families but very little on others.
As I said, the report gives the government a useful basis for discussion. We look forward to the discussion with the stakeholders in order to come up with a solution for the long term.