Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the NDP is a carpenter. I think he plans to go back into carpentry where he would do some great work, literally building our economy. The truth is he does great work here as well, but he would be even more useful out on a work site as a journeyman with a whole group of apprentices. I just hope he does not teach them anything about politics.
I have a great deal of respect for the career that he had before he came here, as I do for all tradespeople. We ought to send the message. I think my colleague across the way in the NDP would agree with this message, that colleges and polytechnics deserve the same respect as universities, blue collars deserve the same respect as white collars and trades deserve the same respect as professions.
That has been the nature of the Prime Minister's shift in training resources. It used to be that if people wanted to go into a short duration training program and they were low-income students, they could not get a grant because that money was just set aside for university-style education. What about the people who wanted to do short duration technical training? They did not qualify. That left a whole group of low-income students from disadvantaged backgrounds unable to have access to training money. Therefore, the Prime Minister announced three weeks ago that we would reduce the minimum duration required in order to access the Canada student grant to 34 weeks, down from 60 weeks, so 42,000 young people would have a chance to go and get trained, skilled and into the workforce.
However, some of the best training is on-the-job training. That is what we are promoting with the Canada apprenticeship grants and loans, and the Canada job grant.
Let me start with apprentices. As members know, apprentices spend most of their time in on-the-job training, but about 20% of their time in the classroom to study theory, and to learn more from the books and the instructors. During those times, they often find it hard to pay the bills, especially if they come from a family of limited means. The Canada apprenticeship grant has given half a million grants to over a quarter million promising young people so they can get over that financial hurdle and use their training to have high-skilled, high-paying jobs in the high-demand sector.
Our plan for jobs is tax cuts, trade and training. It has helped us create 1.2 million net new jobs for Canadians. We will keep cutting taxes, keep signing trade deals and keep training the next generation that will build our country and take us into the future.