Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to speak to Bill C-4 on behalf of the constituents I represent in the riding of Winnipeg Centre. Our critic, the member for Churchill, has done a lot of comprehensive work with respect to the legislation. The NDP can see benefits in Bill C-4 and is broadly in favour of the bill as it currently stands.
The aerospace industry is a critical industry for Winnipeg generally and for Winnipeg Centre specifically. People in my riding are interested in any initiative that may stimulate manufacturing in the aerospace industry and add to the stability of the critically important jobs that people there enjoy.
Members of the NDP have commented frequently on the aerospace industry in the House of Commons. I have spoken about the health and stability of that industry in a number of contexts. I am reminded of one specific issue that came to light in the twilight days of the 37th Parliament. That was the rather alarming use, or one might say misuse or abuse, of a program called technology partnership loans to keep the aerospace industry solvent and healthy in Canada. We see Bill C-4 as an effort to stimulate the aerospace industry and a positive light toward helping to develop markets for the manufactured products of our Canadian industry as opposed to technology partnership loans which we see as a scandal of equal proportion and dimension as the sponsorship scandal, if not more. Billions of dollars were involved in technology partnership loans and not millions of dollars as in the sponsorship scandal.
It is really a misnomer to call technology partnership loans, loans. A loan is not a loan when it is not paid back. It then becomes something else altogether. Of the technology partnership loans, 2% have been paid back, 98% have not been. This includes $480 million to Bombardier and millions of dollars to Pratt & Whitney and other aerospace manufacturing companies.
To get one's mind around this rate of payback, let us look at another loan program operated by the Canadian government, and that is the Canada student loan program. Of all student loads, 96% are paid back, but the government hounds the remaining 4% to their graves. No stone is left unturned to recover every penny loaned to Canadian students for their post-secondary education. The government has threatened to garnish their wages, to kick in their doors and seize their property, for heaven's sake. Yet it knowingly and willingly ignored, at last count, $3 billion of outstanding technology partnership loans, the overwhelming majority of which did not go to struggling start-up companies in need of R and D development so they could market products. They went to the aerospace industry and to IBM.
Why in God's name did the Canadian government give technology partnership loans to IBM? Is it a struggling start-up company? Is it a Canadian company? No. Did it ever pay the money back? No. I am sorry to deviate a bit from the subject of Bill C-4, but it brings to my mind one of the shortcomings in the treatment of our support for the aerospace industry. It warrants drawing that comparison.
The NDP is in favour of the idea of the Cape Town convention and protocol which we understand would reduce the risks and costs of selling aircraft internationally. We support the intention of the protocol, which is to reduce the costs of purchasing aircraft for developing countries. We are sympathetic to the plight of developing countries. We are also sympathetic to the difficulty developing countries have in getting capital or finding lending agencies willing to provide the level of capital necessary to purchase large ticket items like aircraft. They pay ridiculous premiums on the international borrowing marketplace for capital of that nature. We understand the protocol is designed in such away to accommodate.
I have been negligent, Madam Speaker, in pointing out that am splitting my time with the member for Hamilton Centre.
I know the member Hamilton Centre has been following this issue with great interest and care because of the area he represents and the jobs associated with this type of industry sector. He is eager to share his views with the House today as well.
One of things that strikes me is that there is more than one way for us to promote the aerospace industry in the country, be it in Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver or anywhere where we have aerospace industry workers and plants. One is to try to enhance the marketplace as per the Cape Town convention and Bill C-4. Another is to provide stimulus or assistance to that industry so it can retool and stay current with the market demands that have been improved. Another is education and training and ensuring that there is an adequately skilled source of workers coming up through the labour market training system. We should address that in the House of Commons in the context of the health and well-being of aerospace industry.
We have seen a complete abandonment of any commitment to labour market training by the Liberal government. It has devolved that to the provinces in a very haphazard and less than satisfactory way. It has signed nine individual labour market training agreements with nine individual provinces, with no particular national standards and with a patchwork quilt of training.
The aerospace industry is one industry sector that has received very short shrift in any of the interprovincial or intergovernmental training strategies. One of the problems with that is it leaves the industry vulnerable. If we do not have a human resources strategy associated with an industry sector, we will be vulnerable and subject to raid within the industry sector for skilled people, one company raiding skilled people from the other. It does not build any kind of cohesive plan which will give us confidence that the sector will be stable and well served.
I would like to use my remaining moments to compliment and feature one such program in the city of Winnipeg, run by Tec-Voc School, initiated by the acting deputy minister of education, Dwight Botting. It has partnered with the aerospace industry, not at the community college level, not at the post-secondary education level, at the high school level to do an integrated work and learn program to groom young employees for the aerospace program. It is an overwhelming success. We have met an industry need with a sensible approach that keeps kids in school, gives them hope and optimism that they can go into well paying jobs. It also provides the stability and confidence for the manufacturers in the riding, knowing there is a pool of adequately skilled young people coming up through the ranks. The employees training is geared specifically to the manufacturing plants. That match will be a recipe for growth in the industry.
Therefore, there is more than one type of program to help our aerospace industry remain healthy. One is to help it develop international markets by supporting the Cape Town convention and Bill C-4. Another, which is equally important, is a suitably skilled workforce.
This is one thing we can expand on with vision. If the House of Commons chose to, we could give direction to the government to expand the role of the EI program to bring it back to one of its former designated uses and that is labour market training on a national comprehensive scale. The EI fund is showing a surplus of $500 million a month, not per year, but per month.
Income maintenance has always been the primary role for the EI program, but in the designated uses of the of the EI Act, there are also labour market training, apprenticeship, et cetera. We have devolved all that to the provinces without the financial backing to keep those programs solvent.
You are indicating, Madam Speaker, that I am out of time.