Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton.
I am very pleased to speak today in the House to express my support for the budget presented at the beginning of last week by the Minister of Finance.
The budget is evidence of the Government of Canada's commitment to strengthen our nation's social foundation and to help ensure that all our citizens can participate fully in our economy and society.
The budget's investments will help our children get the best possible start in life and enhance young people's access to the post-secondary education they need.
The budget is also investing in ways to enhance the skills and learning opportunities for aboriginal people in our cities and in aboriginal communities throughout the country. At the same time it provides funding to ensure that we protect the north's fragile environment and ecosystems in keeping with the strongly held values of northerners and aboriginal people whose ancestors have lived on these lands for millennia.
The aboriginal human resources development strategy is one of the major pieces in the budget. The AHRDS, as it is known, is a key initiative on which we can build and further help aboriginal people to participate in the labour market. In partnership with the aboriginal organizations and others, this strategy has made a real difference in the lives of tens of thousands of aboriginal people since its startup in 1999.
The strategy's forerunners were the regional bilateral agreements and pathways which were established initially by the Conservative Party and developed and made more inclusive and built on by ourselves over the last 11 years. As a direct result of the strategy over its five year lifespan, 70,000 aboriginal people have found sustainable employment opportunities in the long established and new emerging trades and professions in every sector of our economy.
I am delighted that the budget confirms the five year funding for the AHRDS and restores $125 million over five years that was scheduled to sunset on March 31, 2004. With this $125 million restoration, the AHRDS will continue as a $1.6 billion program for the next five years to help aboriginal people develop their life skills and find and keep jobs with the help and support of a network of aboriginal organizations across the country.
The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended 10 years. We have met the first five years and we have now recommitted to another five years. That will give us the full commitment the royal commission was looking for. We have actually met that goal. It is one which has been worked on and fought for very hard.
With the $125 million restoration, the AHRDS will continue, as I indicated, as a $1.6 billion program for the next five years to help aboriginal people develop their skills and find jobs and keep jobs with the help and support of aboriginal organizations across Canada. It will also give first nations and Inuit clients access to quality child care while they pursue training or employment opportunities. These 70,000 sustainable jobs will be in the emerging trades and professions in every sector across society.
Through the renewed strategy the government will also work to forge a more cohesive approach with the provinces and territories. There will be an attempt to work closer.
Aboriginal people have so much to contribute to Canada's economic and social well-being now and in the decades to come. Aboriginal youth and working age adults are the fastest growing segment of Canada's labour force. They represent a pool of extraordinary talent, energy and potential that can meet Canada's skill and labour shortages.
The AHRDS plays a big part in making sure all this marvellous potential is actualized. It builds on the whole aspect of how we integrate young people in the future. In years to come there will be a huge outmigration of baby boomers. The young people will have to take their rightful places in those professions and trades.
This is probably one of the only pan-aboriginal programs that includes all aboriginal people, including those in the urban centres, people who live on reserves, the Inuit, the Métis, the first nations, as well as native women and some great service providers such as the friendship centres. There is a huge aboriginal component to this.
Let me point out that the government has committed, in addition to this one program, $85 million over five years to the new aboriginal skills and employment partnerships to enable aboriginal workers to access training and employment opportunities for areas that are steeped in resource development.
This is a slightly different program because it is geared to resource development initiatives. There are some very important resource development projects happening. If we look across Canada, there is a huge play on diamonds. There is the project in Fort-à-la-Corne, Saskatchewan and the Victor project in Attawapiskat, Ontario, which I believe, Mr. Speaker, is in your riding.
We have potential in the north. We have two diamond mines. We have some in Nunavut and De Beers is in its final stages of consideration on another one. These are all positive activities. Much work and consultation is underway to ensure that all of Canada is set to benefit from this program.
As the House is aware, Canada's large and growing young urban aboriginal population also has abundant talents and energy to help make our cities more vibrant and prosperous. I am very pleased that budget 2004 is also providing $25 million over three years to double our investment in the urban aboriginal strategy to $50 million.
Mr. Speaker, I am speaking quickly because I have so much to say and so much information to give and it is all good. I know the opposition members will truly appreciate the work that has gone into this.
Working together through partnerships with governments, local aboriginal organizations, non-governmental organizations and the private sector, we have a proven record of developing innovative solutions that address local aboriginal priorities. The aboriginal skills employment partnership, known as ASEP, is one program that is going to heavily contribute to the betterment of life. It is closing the life gap and the economic disparity that is out there and ridding those communities of that disparity. It is going to contribute greatly.
I will now turn to the wise and far-seeing measures that budget 2004 includes for Canada's north. I am quite proud that the budget plan includes a number of pages that are dedicated specifically to the north. The whole of page 187 of the budget plan talks about supporting northern communities. It talks about territorial financing of $150 million; health support for the territories of $60 million, and making it part of the A-base ongoing funding for all three territories; $90 million for northern economic development for all three territories; and $75 million over three years for northern oil and gas development. This will ensure that the Government of Canada and regional authorities can respond in a timely, responsible and effective manner to the tremendous opportunity of pipeline and oil and gas development in the north.
We know that this is not going to be enough money. There is a signal already that more will be needed to undertake that project. It is a fairly major project and much work has already been contributed to that end.
There has been $3.5 billion provided toward the cleanup of federal contaminated sites, over 60% of which is expected to occur in the north. This will contribute to an improved environment and some economic development and employment opportunities. Of course, it is not predicated on that. Those are the results of what has to be undertaken. They speak very specifically to some contaminated sites: the dew line sites; uranium contamination on Great Bear Lake, which resulted from the discovery of uranium; and also the whole issue of 270,000 tonnes of arsenic peroxide that are buried under Yellowknife in 17 silos.
There is so much more to discuss, such as the new horizons project, the fact that the Northwest Territories has had a successive positive GDP growth rate for a number of years. It also has the second highest employment growth rate. Alberta is at 69% and the Northwest Territories is at 68%. It is a success story that needs the investment it is getting.
There is so much more to share with the rest of Canada about what is happening in the north, but that is all I have time for right now. The economic development agreement is one that has been fought for long and hard. It is something we really believe we need to do. The devolution and resource revenue sharing studies and work that are being undertaken by negotiators are needed. We need the money. We are putting millions of dollars into the federal fiscal budget and we need some of that money back by having a resource revenue sharing mechanism.