Mr. Speaker, tonight I am following up on a question that I asked about the crisis in youth unemployment.
Life is very challenging right now in this country, especially for youth and for young families. People who are struggling to get their start in life struggle to access employment. They struggle with housing affordability. This makes it difficult and leads to delays in family formation.
We know, statistically, that if we ask women how many children they want to have and compare that to our current fertility rate, there is a gap of almost one child per woman. Many Canadian families are not having as many children as they would like to have. I think that has a lot to do with challenges in employment and challenges in housing affordability, these basic challenges in getting started in life here in Canada because of how difficult those start-up costs are.
The youth unemployment crisis is a big part of it. It is very clear that what the government is doing or says it is doing in this regard is just not working. Listening to question period today, I heard that the government wants to celebrate, allegedly, this initiative or that initiative, but the overall numbers paint a clear picture, which is a metastasizing, unprecedented youth unemployment crisis that is connected to and contributes to challenges that families are facing as well.
Conservatives have taken a very constructive approach to the employment file. We have developed and offered the government concrete solutions to these problems. Obviously, the government is the government. It has the power to implement these things and we do not, but we have put constructive solutions on the table and asked the government to implement all or part of what we put forward.
This fall, we put forward the Conservative youth jobs plan, a clear plan addressing the youth unemployment crisis, with proposals to unleash the economy, fix immigration, fix training and build homes where the jobs are.
Just today, we announced another suite of policy initiatives, this time targeting the challenges that young families are facing. We are proposing substantial parental leave reform that would make life easier for those who are trying to start a family. These policy proposals involve flexible parental leave, allowing a person on parental leave to pause and resume that leave.
We proposed learning on leave, allowing anyone to take courses of study while they are on parental leave so that they can upgrade their skills and strengthen their ability to meet the labour market again once their leave is over.
We also proposed a caregiving exception to EI parental leave benefit clawbacks. This would allow somebody who is caring for their own children to also do paid caregiving work on the side. Perhaps while they are watching their own child, their neighbour pays them to watch their child as well. Removing the clawbacks associated with earning in this situation would increase the availability of child care, which, in many cases, notwithstanding the exaggerated promises of the government, simply is not available to many parents.
We are working hard to propose constructive solutions to the very real and practical challenges facing youth and young families today.
I would like to know why the government has not taken the opportunity to embrace these solutions. I think it would be a political win for them and it would be a win for youth and families.
Will the government take on these good ideas that we have proposed?