Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure for me to rise on behalf of my constituents of Nanaimo--Cowichan on Vancouver Island to thank them for electing me to the House of Commons so that I might speak on their behalf in reply to the Speech from the Throne.
Typically the Speech from the Throne sets out the new vision that the government has for the country, but this week's Speech from the Throne offers no vision, no plan, no details and no price tags. Indeed, most of what was in the Speech from the Throne was recycled from past Liberal agendas.
The legacy for the Prime Minister will be that he had nine years of majority government and in the last months of his reign he has still failed to complete election promises from 1993. That is nine years and yet he could not successfully fulfil his original mandate.
I am the official opposition senior critic for labour. I listened intently for the government's direction in this particular area. The Speech from the Throne had 81 words concerning labour that really said absolutely nothing. This is what the Speech from the Throne had to say about labour:
The economy of the 21st century will need workers who are lifelong learners, who can respond and adapt to change. Canada’s labour market programs must be transformed to meet this challenge. To this end, the government will work with Canadians, provinces, sector councils, labour organizations and learning institutions to create the skills and learning architecture that Canada needs, and to promote workplace learning. This will include building our knowledge and reporting to Canadians about what is working and what is not.
That is about the worst doublespeak I have ever heard in my life. Of course workers must improve and maintain their skills. That is not something new. The government has already attempted to address this particular issue with programs such as the one called “Knowledge Matters: Skills and Learning for Canadians” which they foisted upon an unsuspecting public in the last few years. With this in mind, why did the Prime Minister see fit to make grandiose statements about programs that already exist?
Here is another statement, “reporting to Canadians about what is working and what is not.” That is another scratch our head statement. Perhaps this comes about because the government has had so many failed programs that it wanted to acknowledge future failures in advance. I do not know.
What is completely missing from the Speech from the Throne with regard to labour is probably one of the most serious problems that will face this country in the next few years and that is the enormous shortfall of labourers in the workforce itself. With the current shortfall of skilled workers and the pending mass retirement of baby boomers from our existing workforce, Canada will soon be in serious trouble. We need professional skilled tradespeople, technicians/technologists and management people in almost every area of our economic and public life. Canada's birth rate is decreasing and it is now lower than our retirement rate.
According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business there are approximately 265,000 jobs that are currently vacant in the small and medium sized business sector. Of these, 185,000 jobs have been open for four months or more. As the economy improves, labour shortage is expected to increase. That is a challenge for government and business. However there was nothing in the throne speech to tell us what the vision of the government is on this particular problem.
The government likes to talk about expanding the economy, but almost 40% of Canadian companies recently surveyed by the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exporters Canada said their difficulty in finding skilled workers has become a serious constraint on their own expansion. Without the ability for the backbone of our economy, the small business sector, to expand our economy, it will not continue to grow.
Much of the baby boom generation has already reached the early retirement age of 55. The Canadian Council on Social Development predicts that a swift mass retirement could set in as soon as the year 2006. The effects on pensions and health care will be severe. What are some of the solutions that the government should be talking about? What is the vision that it has for Canadians on this particular issue?
One of the most significant factors concerns the place of immigrants in our labour market. According to the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, as a whole, immigrants fair relatively better in the labour market. Immigrants have a lower proportion of unemployment and a higher proportion are employed full time and covered by job pension plans. On average, immigrant employees work more hours at higher wages resulting in higher annual earnings.
However, and this is important, according to Michelle Goldberg, research analyst with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, only 25% of Canadian immigrants work in their chosen professions. This is most often related to the language barrier along with the fact that only one-third of Canadian immigrants received prior information on professional licensing and the Canadian job market before they actually came to this country. Of these two issues, the language barrier is more easily overcome but we have serious problems with our immigration system as it relates to workers and their chosen professions and the huge labour force problem that we will have very soon. It is estimated that by the year 2016, the annual rate of immigration will be required to average 585,000 immigrants a year in order to meet our labour needs.
What does that say to immigration policy? What is the vision of the government as it integrates immigration and the labour shortage? There is nothing in the throne speech that even attempts to address this problem. This is the problem of the government as a whole. It does not give vision. It is not proactive. It is reactive.
Let us look at the aboriginal problem in terms of unemployment. Unemployment rates among aboriginals are shockingly high, sometimes 80% to 90% on reserves across the country. Here we have a huge, largely untapped labour resource right before our very eyes. How will the government motivate, educate and encourage young aboriginals and encourage them to become a part of the mainstream labour force? This is another area of government life that has to be integrated into the final solution of the labour shortage that is facing this country but did we hear anything in the throne speech about this? Not a bit.
I could go on and on about labour issues but there are a few other things that I thought should have been introduced through the Speech from the Throne and were not talked about hardly at all.
In my own riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, softwood lumber is a huge concern. I have stated previously in the House that thousands of jobs are dependent upon the softwood industry. The Minister for International Trade and his secretary of state just do not seem to get it. Individuals and their families, businesses and in fact entire communities are being wiped out by the lack of a softwood lumber deal with the United States. The official opposition has talked about this problem since I arrived in the House in 1997.
If the government had been effectively dealing with this problem when we brought it to its attention, I truly believe that we would not be in the fix that we are in today. Now we sit without an agreement, mills are closing and real people are unemployed and hurting financially and the Minister for International Trade is still not close to an agreement on this file. That is shameful.
It also find it ironic that the government is attempting to implement a code of ethics. After what happened in the House in question period today, I just shake my head.