Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in answering the question asked by the member for St. John's West.
The summer career placement program is a program that provides wage subsidies to employers in the private, public and not for profit sectors to create career related summer jobs for students.
Employers gain by hiring high school, college or university students from 6 weeks to 16 weeks. Students benefit by gaining career related summer work experience and by earning income to further their education and thereby prepare for future entry into the labour market.
The minister understands that some municipalities have raised concerns about changes to wage subsidy levels under this year's summer career placement program. The SCP program is very popular and each year the total demand exceeds the total amount of funds available.
Besides, in the riding of Laval West, which I represent in the House of Commons, this program will have helped over 300 students find gainful employment this summer.
Because the SCP program is so popular, the Government of Canada looked at new ways of allocating SCP funds to help even more students get summer jobs. That is why the public sector SCP wage subsidy was changed to match the private sector SCP subsidy, which is up to 50% of the provincial minimum wage.
To be fair to all applicants, we are treating public sector employers the same as private sector employers. The difference in wage subsidy to employers in the public sector could potentially result in up to 1,400 additional students gaining work experience through SCP this year.
Overall funding for the program will be at least the same as last year, that is $90 million, which is expected to help over 50,000 young Canadians acquire work experience through the program.
We encourage employers to hire summer students with or without subsidies. All summer programs help to ensure that students gain valuable, much needed workplace experience.