Mr. Speaker, I am following up on a question that I asked regarding what can only be called a crisis in student unemployment in this country. Student unemployment is double the national average and the response of the government has been inadequate and really quite pathetic.
According to CASA, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, there has been a loss of $512 million annually in student earnings. According to an EPI report that came out this year, 60% of students are worried about having enough money to go back to school next fall.
The very simple answer for this is the Canada summer jobs, formerly known as the summer career placement program. This was a plan introduced by the former Liberal government and it works fabulously. It is a win-win situation because it employs students, like the bright young pages who work in the House here, and it provides them with the money they need in order to go back to school.
It also supports worthy community organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club, child care organizations, youth recreation like the Dartmouth United Soccer Club and St. George's Tennis Club and all the things that provide opportunities for our kids. The problem is that the present government changed the plan when it came in, thinking that it could get rid of a Liberal plan and bring in a Conservative plan. It butchered the program. There was an outcry and the government had to backtrack. It was because the Liberals in the House stood time after time and gave examples of how this program had worked for years in their communities but that it was no longer working. The government had to backtrack on that and it did so when Monte Solberg was the minister.
There is a reason that it is a good program now. What better stimulus could we have than a program that provides opportunities for students? Education and innovation are the things that will drive Canada's economy. A significant investment in Canada summer jobs would have done that but it also would have helped those communities at the ground level.
The government's response was pathetic. It is a $100 million program and the government added $10 million, a rounding error these days when one considers that the government spent $100 million just to put signs up to talk about the stuff that it did. What did $10 million mean? It meant an increase of 3,500 jobs this year. Last year, there were 128,000 less student jobs than the year before. We are losing 128,000 jobs for students, the people we need to go back to school so that they can continue to build this great country and make it even better, and the government offers 3,500 jobs.
Ninety-seven percent of students get nothing from the government. It was the perfect solution. I even made a suggestion to the minister at committee. The parliamentary secretary who will respond would have been there. I told him the minister to double it. The way the government is spending money and adding to our deficit, this is the best investment it could have made. The Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Boys and Girls Club would have thanked the government for it and it would have employed students. It could have employed almost 40,000 more students for a reasonably small investment by the standards of the government and the way it throws money around. Instead, it invested 10% and we have a crisis now.
We have students who cannot get work. Many of them may not be able to go back to school and will certainly have to scramble in order to do it. Those community organizations will suffer. There are all kinds of students who need work and all kinds of organizations that need help. It was the perfect marriage. The government ruined the marriage.