Mr. Speaker, I was not intending to reply, as my very able parliamentary secretary was prepared to do so, but when I heard that ridiculous and counterfactual intervention, I felt an obligation to set the record straight.
First, let me say that I will be charitable in assuming that the member opposite did not write that speech but that a staffer did, who perhaps should be put on probation or replaced, because the majority of what he just said is completely not factual. First of all, no groups in Nova Scotia or anywhere else had their funding jeopardized.
Let me be clear about this. The Government of Canada transfers $100 million a year to Nova Scotia through four skills development and job training transfer programs. One of the four is the labour market agreement, which accounts for a relatively small portion of that. The offer that the federal government made to provinces several weeks ago was for them to source the funds for the Canada job grant out of any source, any one of those four labour market development transfers or any other source of funds. There was no—I repeat, absolutely no—requirement that they fund the Canada job grant out of the labour market agreement transfer, which is the source of funds for the groups to which he has referred.
Even there, in the first year of the implementation of the job grant, the Province of Nova Scotia would only be required to invest $2 million in the Canada job grant, to be matched by $1 million from employers. At full implementation in year four, Nova Scotia would be asked to invest $8 million in the Canada job grant, being matched by $4 million from the private sector.
To be clear, the amount of funding that the job grant agreement would require Nova Scotia to invest would be 2% of the total federal skills transfer to Nova Scotia in year one, and then 8% of the total federal skills transfer to Nova Scotia in year four, leaving fully intact 92%, 98% in year one, of federal transfers to Nova Scotia for skills development with the job grant agreement.
I do not blame the member himself because I think he was probably basing his inaccurate question and assertions on inaccurate information given by the Government of Nova Scotia for reasons that, as I said to the premier in a letter, I find inexplicable. I think it was inexplicable and, worse yet, irresponsible of the Government of Nova Scotia to create unnecessary fear and anxiety among non-profit and charitable service-providing organizations delivering labour market agreement-funded programs because the government told them that they would be losing their funding on April 1, earlier this week, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Again, only $2 million out of $100 million in federal transfers going to Nova Scotia would have to be redirected in fiscal year 2014–15 to the Canada job grant. Therefore, why in the world would the province have notified these groups that their funding was ending when it was not, when an unconditional transfer was continuing? My only charitable inference is that it simply did not understand what every other province and territory did understand. We finally received a letter which constitutes an agreement in principle from the Government of Nova Scotia the other day.
Finally, let me say that in addition to all of this, we make record investments, specifically in skills development for persons with disabilities, including the $8 million transfer for the labour market agreement for persons with disabilities to Nova Scotia, our own opportunities fund, and the $15 million announced in this year's budget for the ready, willing and able initiative. No government has done more for job training and skills development for persons with disabilities. We are proud of that record.