Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank my friend from Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte not only for sharing his time with me today but for his passionate conviction on this issue of the attestation. It is an issue we have seen, over the course of the last couple of months, that has really galvanized Canadians.
I will start off with a question, and I am not sure I will get the answer I think I should get. If government members were asked to sign something they did not believe in to receive government funding, would they? That is precisely what they are asking Canadian organizations, Canadian faith-based organizations, Canadian community organizations that do tremendous work across this country, as my friend from Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte talked about, to do. The government is asking them to sign something they do not fundamentally agree with, and they should not have to, because we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that defends everyone's right to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of conviction, and freedom of religion. Everyone across this country has these rights.
I am not sure how this even came up, whether it was the minister herself who imposed this, whether this was a decision of cabinet, or whether this was a decision of the Prime Minister's backroom operatives, including Gerald Butts. This sounds very similar to the type of stuff that goes on in Ontario and did go on under Gerry Butts's watch. It is mind-boggling to me that we are even at this point.
When the government introduced this in December, just before Christmas, it created a lot of angst within the communities that apply for funding under the Canada summer jobs program. There was a lot of confusion about the attestation. There was a lot of confusion about what it meant. If someone did not sign the attestation, what would that mean for Canada summer jobs funding?
That confusion led to a lot of doubt, and it caused the government to step back and try to clarify the meaning of the attestation. That created more confusion. Within this envelope I have, there are rejected applications from those organizations that refused to sign the attestation or decided that they were going to put in a supplementary attestation and not check the boxes. Their applications were rejected by Service Canada, because they did not follow the criteria the government set out for them.
What does that mean to those organizations that received Canada summer jobs funding in the past and applied that funding toward hiring students and toward helping community organizations and community groups? They are not going to get that funding, and they are not going to be able to provide valuable work experience for those young people, many of whom are in university.
What is funny about this is that the Liberal government says that it wants to help young people gain experience and gain jobs, yet it has imposed this ideological values test that has a direct impact on those young people, many, as I said, who are university, who are looking for summer employment. It is a big problem. What is the impact of those students not working within those organizations? Many of them will not be able to do things within the community that these organizations are able to do.
It is not just faith-based organizations that are having a problem with this. Two weeks ago, just before the application deadline, I was on the phone with Dan Dufour. Dan owns Eggsmart, in Alcona, which is in the riding of Barrie--Innisfil. Last year he hired four Canada summer jobs students. He does not have any faith-based problems with this. He has a fundamental individual rights problem with this. Dan asked me why he should sign this attestation to qualify for a government program he received in the past. That is a fair question.
What is the impact for Dan and his business? He is not going to be able to hire those four students, and the service levels within his restaurant could potentially drop. I know he is already struggling because of the high tax burden and the high regulatory burden from having a business in the province of Ontario and because of the taxes federally. I told Dan to send in the application but to include a note. I am sure his application will have been rejected because of the others that have been.
This is a real problem. I know that the government is trying to twist this. I sat through most of the debate this morning and listened to the Liberals trying to twist it and say that it is not the way it is. Clearly, there was a lot of confusion when this program first came out.
This is one of the things I found out after the election in 2015, when I first started dealing with the Canada summer jobs program. We have a tremendous ability to allocate funding for the Canada summer jobs program and to put it in areas where we think it will be best utilized, not just to hire students but to support the types of community programs that exist. One of those is municipalities. Municipalities generally apply for a large mount of funding. We are hearing stories from across the country that municipalities, which in some cases hire 100 or 120 students, are not going to be applying to the summer jobs program, because they do not feel, as municipalities, that they need to subscribe to a government values test to get government funding for a summer student jobs program.
It is a very slippery slope we are heading down when the government tries to impose its own ideological purity test on these types of programs. What is next? Where does this go next? Does it go toward old age security payments for seniors? I think these are fair questions. To be eligible, am I, as an individual, going to have to sign an attestation that says that I agree with the government's ideology? If I want to apply for employment insurance, does it mean I have to sign an attestation that says I agree with the government's ideology to qualify for insurance? It should never get to that point. It should never have gotten to this point, where the government is imposing a purity test on Canadian organizations that do tremendous work across the country.
We heard in the budget this week that there will be a lot of money flying out these doors. A lot of money will be going to organizations the government will be funding. For example, the government announced $150 million for a journalistic fund. Was it $50 million or $150 million? I do not have the number quite in my head. Is it going to impose the same purity test on those organizations to apply for this funding? There is $500 million going to a China infrastructure bank. Is the government going to impose its purity test on organizations that apply for that funding? I think not. This is a very slippery slope we are heading down.
We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protects the right of individuals to believe and think what they want. For the government to impose this test strikes at the very core of what this place represents. This place represents generations of Canadians who have fought for us to have the right to believe in what we believe in, to think what we want to think, and to say what we want to say, within some limits. Those fights have happened, and people have died for that.
For the government to impose this on these organizations and individuals, who have a tremendous impact across the country in the work they do, which many will now not be able to do because they will not qualify because they do not want to sign the attestation, is a real shame.
It is not just a shame for those communities and those people it is going to help. It is a shame for our democracy that this government would impose an ideological purity test on Canadians.