Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from the NDP for bringing this important matter forward. Again, I would like to reiterate that this government understands the significance, the importance, and just the role that Katimavik has played in the lives of so many young Canadians over the years, and so many communities have benefited from the program as well. I want to single out the efforts of my colleague, the member for Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, who has worked hard on this file. He has worked with the Katimavik organization over the last while to try to find a resolution to this issue.
My colleague mentioned something that was absolutely accurate in that the previous Conservative government put a cap on funding for Katimavik back in 2012. I know my colleague is an experienced member of the House now; I believe she is in her sixth year. She would know that, over the past Conservative governments, over that 10 years of governance by the Conservatives, funding for youth programs continued to decline, and Katimavik was one of those areas. If we look at funding for youth summer programs, we see that particular envelope was frozen in 2007. There was not any increase for student employment from 2007 until our last budget, when the Liberal government doubled the amount of investment that was made in summer students, and we almost doubled the number of jobs. Obviously, what we saw over the period of Conservative rule was that the pool of money stayed the same and minimum wage allocations grew in each of the provinces, so that pool of money was carved out and cut up differently with the minimum wage responsibility. Therefore, fewer and fewer students were able to benefit from that investment in student programming.
The other thing that we invested in, and I know the member would have seen the merit in this, was student grants. For low-income students, who struggle in this country, we saw a significant investment in student grants. Low-income students who were eligible went from a $2,000 grant ceiling to $3,000 for full-time students. For part-time students it went from $1,200 to $1,800, certainly making education more accessible for young people, because they are not getting work if they do not get the education. Therefore, we know that accessibility to education is key and central.
In this government, we believe in providing young Canadians with an opportunity to join the workforce, start that resumé off, and get the important skills they need to be a constructive member of the workforce. We are committed to that, and we will continue to make those key targeted investments so that young Canadians can benefit.