Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Ahuntsic for kindly dividing her speaking time with me, and also to thank my hon. colleague, the member for Chambly—Borduas, with whom I have had many hours of discussion on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
I can assure the House that the Government of Canada is acutely aware of our changing labour market and the consequences of factory closures for Canadian workers, older workers in particular. These closures are the result of a multitude of factors: globalization, international competition, demographic change. In Quebec in particular we have been hit hard by all those factors. The most affected people in a factory are, of course, the older workers, who may be getting to the end of their working lives, and find it difficult to adapt and to find new jobs.
We are therefore highly conscious of the impact of these changes for vulnerable groups. I would like to continue where my colleague from Ahuntsic left off and tell you about the number and quality of programs our government has put in place to meet these needs.
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, working in partnership with the provinces and territories, has the tools ready to respond to these workers' needs.
The first tool available to these Canadians is temporary income support and assistance under the employment insurance program. These EI benefits, funded under Part I of the Employment Insurance Act, are designed especially to help insured Canadians, people who have made contributions and are temporarily unemployed and seeking to re-enter the workforce.
Last year, the Human Resources and Skills Development employment insurance program provided over $9 billion in income benefits to unemployed Canadians to assist them through this transition period. Of that amount, workers aged 55 or older last year received $1.2 billion in EI regular benefits.
This temporary support program is specifically designed to respond to changes in labour markets, local markets in particular. For example, when regional unemployment rates change, we adjust entrance requirements accordingly, as well as the length of time that workers are entitled to receive benefits, an extremely complicated process.
When I first came to this House and I worked as parliamentary secretary to the former Minister of Human Resources Development, as was the title at the time, I understood to what extent the Government of Canada took into account in its calculations the conditions specific to each region, specifically and individually, before setting the rate.
The second tool is a full array of active employment measures to assist unemployed workers of all ages. The Government of Canada worked in partnership with provinces and territories to deliver more than $2 billion in active measures last year alone.
Under these measures, unemployed workers can receive up to three years of training if they require new skills in order to find new and lasting employment. They can also receive income support for up to one year—or longer if they have a disability—while they start their own business.
There are also programs for people who simply need new or additional work experience. Participants in all of these programs receive the income support they need to ensure they are able to participate.
Moreover, EI active measures fund employment services right across the country to assist unemployed individuals with employment counselling and assessment, and job search skills.
Last year, almost 600,000 unemployed workers in Canada, including 160,000 people aged 45 or over, participated in one of these programs.
Of course, we recognize that some older workers who have been laid off experience special difficulties in their search for new work. I said so at the beginning of my remarks. Some lack the skills needed for many of today's jobs, especially those that cannot easily be transferred to the kinds of jobs available in our knowledge based economy.
We also know that many older workers can and want to work longer, much longer.
This is why the Government of Canada has been working in close collaboration with the provinces and territories, including Quebec, my home province, to test new approaches.
Between 1999 and 2005, we invested $50 million in the Older Workers Pilot Projects initiative. This initiative was recently extended until May 2006 and enriched by $5 million. It will also enable us to identify key lessons that can be used to develop future programs. To date, this initiative has supported almost 130 pilot projects across the country.
In addition, the Government of Canada's workplace skills strategy aims to assist Canadians already in the workplace, including older workers, to upgrade their existing skills and acquire new ones.
In the 2005 budget, the government invested $125 million over three years to support the strategy to meet three objectives: strengthening apprenticeship systems in Canada; testing new skills development programs that are demand-driven and aimed at developing the skills of employed people; and fostering dialogue on workplace skills issues through the workplace partners panel composed of business, labour and training leaders.
Above all, the workplace skills strategy is a collaborative effort. This is why the Government of Canada is working with business, unions, learning institutions, the provinces and territories and sector councils to develop this strategy.
To conclude, I can assure the hon. members that the Government of Canada will continue to work closely with its partners to develop joint strategies to improve the productivity of workers and their inclusion in the labour market.
I cited these programs not to show that all is well, everything is done, we can stop there and workers will have no more problems. On the contrary, it was to show that the Government of Canada is committed to helping unemployed workers, particularly older workers. We intend to continue. The programs we will establish will be the extension of existing programs, which have already had an impact on our economy.
For example, the statistics demonstrate that we are indeed on our way to achieving the goal of reducing unemployment. The current unemployment rate for workers aged 45 and over is 5.4%, considerably below the national overall unemployment rate of 6%. For workers aged 55 to 64, the unemployment rate is 5.9%, which is also significantly lower than the national rate.
I would like to thank the member for Chambly—Borduas once again for his motion, which allowed me this opportunity to describe the government's measures for assisting older workers. What we want, and I think everyone in this House wants it, is to help workers who are unemployed, specifically older workers.