Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak for the first time this session. Indeed, it is my first time speaking as a minister of the Crown. You and I have known each other for an enormously long time, Mr. Speaker.
I love to read speeches that are well thought out. Some people in my department thought that this would be a great time for the minister to make a great impression on all the government programs. They wrote this wonderful speech. Then my colleague from Mississauga South decided that he too wanted to say some positive things about the Speech from the Throne, a speech that is so detailed and so precise in the enumeration of the programs the government is outlining for all Canadians to see and judge that one would almost suggest it is budget-like.
I could not possibly say no to my colleague, Mr. Speaker, so you will have to allow me to forego the opportunity to do justice to those who have laboured so mightily in crafting the words necessary to make a member of the ministry look thoughtful.
If I may be forgiven, I will sound rather pedestrian and representative of those people who really want to see the government of the day, the Government of Canada, address the needs they see every day.
Here are some of those needs. Members will have seen them already in the Speech from the Throne because, despite the naysayers on the other side, the government has put its finger on some of the most important necessities of the day.
On the first of these necessities--if I may be allowed because they pertain to my department--we spoke rather specifically not only about the problem but about how to address it: the first is, of course, investing in the human capital of this country. It is the most important investment that any government could make, in fact, not only this government but government of any stripe.
We have heard others speak of the necessity to build a physical infrastructure, whether it is in the industrial, agricultural, farming or fishing sectors. All of those things are important. This is especially important as well for those who live in larger municipalities, when they talk about the technological innovations of the day that make it necessary for us to build a knowledge based economy. These are all nice, tangible words, but we know that all of them hide something. For all of them, in every single line and in every single sector, we need to invest in our human capital.
All of us in this room, because of our age, have people that depend on us or have depended on us. Those people are now our premier citizens, those in whom we would place all of our faith and all of our hopes: the young people. They are people who are developing an ability to learn, to build capacity, to adapt to the challenges of the day, and to move those challenges as they meet them to the benefit of our society.
The Government of Canada has to do the same. It cannot do less. We want to foster lifelong learning. We recognize that not only must we give people an opportunity to pursue greater levels of education, we must give them the opportunity to advance and develop their skills in the workplace. We must give them the opportunity to adjust to the new challenges of a changing economy.
For example, within five years 70% of all new jobs created will require post-secondary education or better. Only 6% of the new jobs to be created will require less than a high school education. We need people to be adaptable.
What does education mean? Does it mean to be able to read, to add, to fool around with a computer? No. It means that a person is able to adapt whatever skills have been learned, both on the academic side and on the manual side--dexterity--to the new jobs that develop. We need to be able to do that.
We have the means for it. We have seen it in the Speech from the Throne. The government has already made several commitments. Many people will pooh-pooh this, but those who are most likely to be recipients of it recognize the great vision and the direction that the Prime Minister has already allowed us to examine.
We will be looking at the student loan program and we will enhance it. We want more students to have access to loans that will allow them to attend community colleges and universities. We will be extending the period allowed for the repayment of such loans in order to reduce that debt load. We will be introducing and enhancing the interest relief portions of the student loan mechanism so that no one will be overburdened by the loans they take for the purpose of pursuing higher learning.
We will also make sure that we do not limit this opportunity only to a select few but that we recognize that society is becoming much more than what it has been in the past in terms of its economic abilities, and that expenses have increased. We will be including a larger swathe of our population, a larger group of middle income families, in order to release them from the burden that has been placed on them.
In addition to that, we recognized long ago that those who are often left out are of course those young men and women who come from families that are more disadvantaged. They are the ones who do not have the opportunities to access these loans and programs that the Government of Canada put in place in the past. We will be offering students in the first year of a community college or university program an opportunity to access additional funds.
I do not want to scoop the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance when they present the budget, but I am so excited about what I know they will be doing that I cannot hide the smile on my face. I am sure you have noticed it, Mr. Speaker. Those students will be delighted that finally a government has the courage to put money beside a commitment to engage those people from the classes in our society that have not demonstrated the greatest ability to finance their children's education.
That is something we have ignored for too long. Therefore we have decided that we should take a look at those families that do not have the sophistication and understanding of the economic instruments of investments that would allow them to make early investments into their children's education from the moment their children are born.
We have in the past, and this is a compliment to our administration, put in place a registered education savings plan, but we did not recognized that a lot of families do not have the economic means or the investment sophistication to do this. Therefore we will be putting in place a learning bond where the Government of Canada will come up with the opportunities for them to make those first down payments and provide them with the opportunity to begin to understand how these instruments can be best utilized for their own children.
This is not just idle talk. My colleagues opposite would say we cannot handle this because it is too specific for us. It is a vision that has substance. It is an idea that has a mechanism. It is a plan that has steps along the way.
Those kinds of steps lead me, as well, to what I said a few moments ago about skills development. We have an opportunity to build a culture of learning for those people who leave the educational parameters of a classroom. For example, we have learning institutions from labour groups, management groups and sector councils. We have labour trusts that are engaged in providing skills for their members as they are required to meet the demands of the marketplace as they see it. They are best equipped to make that connection with both business and with the requirements of their employees, their members. We need to engage in plans with them to ensure that the outcomes of their exercises are productive for all Canadians.
I myself studied this issue and had the opportunity to observe current practices. We have seen that it is possible to create a partnership between the government and these groups for the well-being of Canadians.
I thank you for giving me at least these few minutes to start elaborating on the government's plan. I hope that the Chair will give me more time in the future.