Mr. Speaker, before I get into my remarks about youth unemployment, the subject of my question, I want to share with members of the House that I am dressed for our victory at Adwa celebrations happening right now on the Hill. I invite all members from all parties, including the Speaker, to come join us for some great Ethiopian food and community spirit after the House adjourns. The Adwa Victory Day is actually celebrated on March 2, but the House will not be sitting at that time, so we are hosting the event today. It is a celebration of Ethiopian victory over colonial forces and, indeed, a time to celebrate the right of self-determination of peoples and the critical defence of Ethiopia's sovereignty. Again, I invite members to come for that important event as we celebrate with each other and the Ethiopian community.
I am following up on a question that I asked about the metastasizing crisis in terms of low youth employment levels. In tracking the month-to-month job numbers, we now see this trend of more people, youth and the middle-aged, dropping out of the labour force, giving up on job searches. While the unemployment rate, which is the percentage of those in the workforce who are not employed, goes down, we see that the employment rate, the number of people working, is going down. That is a really concerning indicator as people give up and drop out of the labour force. Young people are worried about the opportunities they are going to have in the future. They are concerned about their ability to afford food, afford a home and find a job that allows them to meet their basic needs.
In the midst of this crisis of youth unemployment, Conservatives have sought to be constructive. In the fall, we put forward the Conservative youth jobs plan, which articulates specific measures aimed at helping young people get back to work. These measures are focused on unleashing our economy, fixing immigration, fixing training and building homes where the jobs are. We had proposed measures for the government to consider implementing as part of the budget. Unfortunately, the Liberal budget goes in the opposite direction, particularly as it relates to training. I want to highlight this aspect of the budget because it has gotten very little discussion, and I would appreciate it if the parliamentary secretary is willing to comment on it.
The budget says that students studying at private for-profit institutions, in effect, career colleges that provide many critical trade skills and skills for other professions for which they may not be able to train at public institutions, will lose their grants. The intention articulated in the budget is that all students studying outside of the public or the not-for-profit system would not be able to access student grants. Many students in many fields seeking trade skills, traditional Chinese medicine and most dental hygienists are trained at these private institutions. Students pursuing in-demand careers in these areas where we need people are facing the arbitrary cut-off of their student grants, not because their jobs are not required by our economy but simply because the government has made an ideological decision about the institutions they go to.
The problem is that if we say anyone who goes to any university program gets the grant, but nobody who goes to a career college gets the grant, that devalues critical skills that our economy needs and will exacerbate the mismatch in our economy between the training people have and what is actually needed. What is the government's response to these problems?