Mr. Speaker, I apologize.
It is such a pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon to speak to the opposition day motion on budget 2017, a budget which is to be announced tomorrow at 4 p.m., by our Minister of Finance.
One part of the opposition motion being debated in this venerable House today focuses on youth. It asks that the 2017 budget provide immediate measures to encourage companies to hire young Canadians and address the youth unemployment crisis. I want to thank my fellow member for her concern for Canada's young people. I want her to know that this is also an issue of great importance for the residents of my riding of Davenport, and especially for the Davenport youth council, which has identified youth unemployment as a key issue for them.
In the time I have today, I will be relaying how youth has been a key focus for our government, outlining key initiatives introduced over the last year and indicating that there is no doubt that youth will continue to be a key focus for our government moving forward.
One of the things our government understands clearly is that Canada's prosperity will increasingly depend on young Canadians getting the education and experience they need to prepare for the jobs of today and tomorrow. One of my very favourite quotes from our Prime Minister is that if we do not give everyone a chance to succeed, we do not live up to the potential of Canada. Now more than ever all governments at every level need to do all they can to help our youth, to set them up, to get them started, to support them. We need to do all we can to give them the best start on the road to achieving their potential.
Young Canadians need to have access to meaningful work from the beginning of their careers. A large part of our success as a country rests on our youth, but unfortunately, they still face barriers to employment. As such, I am pleased to let members know that we have been taking concrete measures to help young Canadians enter the workforce and contribute to our country's economy.
One of the initiatives we launched was the expert panel on youth employment in October 2016. We launched it as a way to improve job opportunities for all youth. The panel's findings are key in identifying future investments, including ways to enhance the youth employment strategy, also known as YES.
In budget 2016, funding for the youth employment strategy was increased by almost $300 million. That funding is being used in four very specific ways. One is to create new green jobs for youth. These are occupations that are involved in preserving or restoring the environment and jobs in renewable energy, or energy efficiency. The second way the funding is being used is in increasing the number of youth who have access to the skills link program. This is a very important program that is available particularly for youth that are disadvantaged in a number of ways. The third way the funding is being used is to increase opportunities for young Canadians who want to work in the arts sector, a sector that is very popular, rich, and diverse in my riding of Davenport. Last, the funding is being used to increase the number of summer jobs offered through the Canada summer jobs program.
I am very proud that both last summer and this summer our government has more than doubled the number of jobs available through the Canada summer jobs program. It is important to highlight that because that increases the mentorship for our youth. It increases their job experience. It helps them to more quickly get started in their future careers.
There are also many youth initiatives that fall under the umbrella of skills and employment that support all Canadians. After extensive consultation with experts, employers, and labour and service providers, we have finalized amended agreements with each of the provincial and territorial governments to provide an additional $175 million in labour market training for youth, for a total of close to $3 billion. Included in this amount is $125 million in funding for labour market agreements and $50 million in funding for the Canada job fund.
Turning our attention to the trades, one of the most promising career paths for young Canadians today is in the skilled trades. Tradespeople play an important role in our economy and our society. We all depend on the work of skilled trades, and we want to encourage more youth to take advantage of good, well-paying jobs in skilled trades. Therefore, the federal government is providing support to Skills Canada to actively promote careers in skilled trades and technologies to Canadian youth by working with local organizations, educators, and governments right across Canada.
We are making significant investments in apprenticeship through the Red Seal program, and we are offering numerous federal supports, including grants, loans, tax credits, and EI benefits during in-school training. In addition, our government is providing more than $800 million through grants to individuals for the progression and completion of their apprenticeship training. Our government is working with provinces and territories to make apprenticeship training more consistent across the country. This will help support apprentice mobility, help apprentices complete their training, and give employers access to a larger pool of workers.
Our government and, indeed, the nation recognize that unions play an important role in training their members for careers in the trades. As such, to support their efforts, budget 2016 provided $85.4 million over five years starting in 2016-17 to develop a new framework to support union-based apprenticeship programs. In Davenport, there are a lot of union workers. Most of them are in the building trades. There are a lot of youth who are very interested in a career in trades because they provide good-paying jobs, which will help them to support their families and communities in the future.
The federal government is also addressing the importance of demand-driven education and training through the student work integrated learning program. I am specifically talking about training and funding for training because I think they are equally important in terms of setting up our youth for the future, their future careers, and achieving their future potential.
Budget 2016 announced an investment of $73 million over four years to support partnerships between employers and willing post-secondary educational institutions. The program will help ensure students develop the foundational, entrepreneurial, and business skills required to secure meaningful employment in high-demand occupations in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business. We need to continue to work with colleges and universities to prepare the next generation of Canadian youth for the highly skilled jobs that are out there. We need to ensure that Canadian employers can bring about and benefit from co-op and work-integrated learning opportunities.
There are so many companies and businesses in Davenport that are very excited about this. More and more of our companies are working with post-secondary education to make sure that the right training and education is provided to our youth, and that it sets them up to more quickly enter the workforce and start to develop their careers. I think we are going to see more of this in the future.
Indigenous youth is another key focus for the Davenport youth council in my community. Everyone in this House is aware of this government's commitment to restoring fairness and opportunity to indigenous people, including indigenous youth. One way to help indigenous youth receive training and find jobs is through the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, also known as ASETS. It is through this program that we have been working with indigenous organizations to further strengthen their capacity to provide job training and wraparound supports. Our government has engaged with indigenous stakeholders to see how we can improve and strengthen the indigenous labour market programming for a future longer-term strategy.
Our government has provided quite a bit of support for Canada student loans and grants because we know how expensive that education and training actually are. We are doing everything we can to make sure that low-income and middle-class youth are not going to suffer, that they have access to the grants they are looking for and the education they seek so that they can set themselves up in terms of education and skills training for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
We have accomplished a lot, but we know there is a lot more to do. We know that the job market is evolving and changing, and that is true particularly for young Canadians. That is why we are making such historic investments in skills training and education.
I look forward to the budget announcement tomorrow. I am sure we will continue to support our youth in the future.