Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with the House that I will be splitting my time with my good friend and colleague from Winnipeg North. I want to thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for bringing this forward at this time this afternoon to speak to this very important issue.
Before we get into the meat of the issue, I will just take two minutes up front here and maybe vent a little frustration that is on the minds of many Canadians currently, especially those who follow the NHL playoffs. It sort of ties in with the whole thing about job creation and what the government is doing, but also what it is not doing with regard to job creation and opportunities to fill some of the skills shortages that are in this country. It is neglecting some of the areas where we are seeing mass out-migration and hurting rural and remote communities.
The one that really has Canadians rankled is that the Conservatives continue to waste money. They did it every night of the NHL playoffs, and of course during the Juno Awards and the Super Bowl, with the action plan advertisements. We know that it costs $32,000 a minute for these particular ads. We know the number of summer students that could support, that every time we see an ad that is 32 summer students who could probably be supported through this money. Often, these are young people's first opportunities to get into the workforce, to garner and develop those work skills and those good work habits. Then they could go further and continue their education and become strong and productive citizens. That is what we all want here. However, there is this perverse attempt by the Conservatives to paint themselves as a caring party when we know that they are squandering important, precious money on these particular advertising programs.
The latest one is the job grants. If it was not bad enough before with the action plan ads, in the job grants ads the Conservatives are actually advertising for a program that is not even set up yet. They have not spoken to the provinces yet. It is supposed to be coming in 2015 and they have not even had consultations with the provinces and they are advertising this program. It is unbelievable. It would be like me going to my wife and saying, “Honey, if you want to congratulate me now I just finished the Cabot Trail relay road race. I haven't bought my pair of runners yet, I haven't gone for a jog in six years but I'm going to finish it next year and this is my advertisement here.” It is unbelievable.
That money that the Conservatives are wasting is on a program that might or might not happen, and they have bailed out of training. Let us pick a number, say $200 million, that would have gone to the Province of New Brunswick to help with training in the labour market development agreement. Now the Conservatives are saying that they will come in with a third of the dollars if New Brunswick will come in with a third, and then the private sector will come in with a third. So if the Province of New Brunswick, which is running a significant deficit under its Conservative provincial government, cannot afford to match that $200 million, we know those federal dollars will not be going into those training opportunities for the young people in New Brunswick for them to pursue an education or apprenticeship and develop some kind of skill to be productive citizens. However, now they have the advertising. Therefore, I am with the lion's share of Canadians who are really upset with this thing.
There is a proviso at the bottom that this is subject to parliamentary approval. It has more disclaimers than a Viagra commercial. My suggestion is that they pull out of this program.
That is enough ranting about the waste we are seeing. I want to talk about support for apprentices and where the Conservatives have fallen short. Regarding the inaction, suggestions have come forward. Testimony has been presented by very credible witnesses, people who are impacted by the changes the government has made over the last number of months. For example, on the apprenticeship program we had testimony just recently from Polytechnics Canada. Witnesses pointed out during committee meetings that the level of financial support provided through the system is just simply inadequate.
We asked a number of apprentices about their level of support because if people take a trade, when they go to school they are supported by employment insurance. They talked about the attrition rate for young apprentices. People are older when they start apprenticeship programs. Maybe they take a job and get some life experience and then move to the trades when they are about 27 or 28 years old, on average. By that time, some may have a family. Certainly they have bills, if they are coming out of the workforce and are trying to upgrade into a trade. That is a reality.
When they go to school, typically they make application for employment insurance and there is a two-week waiting period. Because the Conservative government has gutted EI processing centres, cut 600 jobs in the EI processing centres, the backlog of EI claims now just goes on and on. In 2004, 80% of the time first-time claims were being turned around in 21 days. At that time we thought that was a long time for a person to go without any household income. Now, and what we heard from witnesses, that is taking 28 days. That is the new target. Conservatives have extended the target, so they have a better chance of hitting the target if they make the target a little broader, but they are only hitting that 30% of the time.
We are seeing young apprentices having to go five, six or seven weeks without any income. If they do not have family support, if they do not have someone helping them out by putting food in the fridge and paying their bills, then they are dropping out of the courses and are letting the apprenticeships go. We have testimony to that effect. There is no sign of that in the report. We are not seeing the testimony line up with the recommendations as presented.
The government heralds how well it is doing with apprenticeship grants. Through the department's own findings in 2009, it published in the apprenticeship grant review that almost all apprentices who completed their apprenticeship would have done so without the grants. I question what impact this is having on skills development and addressing the problem of skills shortages. There are many other initiatives. Certainly we have put those initiatives forward in the minority report. I would hope that the government would seriously consider and try to move on these.