Mr. Speaker, Canada's young people are facing a stark reality, record high unemployment.
Last week's OECD report indicated that youth unemployment is reaching historically high levels around the world, and it is a trend of prolonged unemployment with long-term impacts on the next generation's finances and health.
That reality demands action, action from the government that is supposed to be looking ahead at the future and looking to support the next generation.
We need a job strategy that looks beyond summer jobs to year-round solutions, working with young people and employers in the public, not for profit and private sectors who are seeking to work with young people.
We need to look at education. For far too long successive federal governments have failed to take a leadership role in making post-secondary education affordable and accessible to young Canadians. Thanks to the NDP amendment to the 2005 budget, northern Manitoba, our region, will see a new campus and significant investments in the University College of the North.
We need leadership, broad leadership, from the government in order to stop the trend where our generation might not be as well off as those before us, and instead—