Pierre Pettigrew

[Assistance To Ice Storm Victims, February 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today that another $5 million will be added to the disaster relief fund administered by my department, thus raising it to $50 million.

The additional $5 million will allow still greater flexibility to employers, so that they may hire people who are not eligible for employment insurance or youth employment programs, but could help in the reconstruction.

To date, the Government of Canada has already paid ice storm victims a total of $270 million, with more to come.

[Youth Employment, February 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we have a youth employment strategy that is working. Last year with a budget of $120 million, which we doubled for the student summer jobs program, we were able to get to 70,000. I am confident we will get to 70,000 again this year.

The government likes to deliver on its promises. I am guaranteeing over 60,000 and hopefully that number will reach 70,000.

The government has created more than a million jobs in Canada, which will benefit the young as well as the whole Canadian population.

[Youth Employment, February 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader of the NDP for giving me the opportunity to remind the House that we have actually doubled this year, for the second year in a row, the program available to students.

By doubling that number we are very pleased that it will help over 60,000 students in Canada to get a job and 350,000 more to have the right information about the job market. This is very good news.

[Child Poverty, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the excellent work that was done over the years, we were able to inject $850 million. Together with the provinces, we set up a national child benefit system. The budget will increase by $850 million as of July 1, 1998, and by another $850 million during this mandate.

This is a lot more important than indexing the benefits. We are working on improving the system itself and not only on indexing the benefits. This is a much broader initiative.

[Employment Insurance, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that anyone who has read the complete report will also have seen that workers, particularly those in the Atlantic region of Canada, came up with additional weeks so that they could maintain their level of benefits.

The reform is beginning to produce results because, when motivated to come up with more weeks, these people did. Now we are making the right decisions because we understand what is going on. Is it because there are a greater number of self-employed workers on the market who are not covered by the system, and not just the eligibility criteria?

[Employment Insurance, February 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his extremely relevant question.

In fact, the number of unemployed workers participating in our system is of great concern to us. It has dropped very significantly.

I do not, however, think I can go along with the member's conclusion that this is entirely the result of the eligibility criteria. That is why I have asked my officials to look into the matter in order to find out why there are so many workers no longer covered by the system, so that appropriate decisions can be made.

[Employment Insurance, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the opposition is interested exclusively in the report itself. Is it because the report indeed shows that, on the basis of preliminary data, the reform's effects are more positive than those he is busy describing, in other words, people are not starving?

Perhaps he should take an interest in the fact that unemployment is down in Canada since our government took office and that our economic policies are perhaps the right ones. That may be what the report is starting to show and that is why he is rejecting it.

[Employment Insurance, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we are at the beginning of the most important EI reform in 25 years, a reform designed to adapt our system to the market economy we now live in.

As a government, we promised five reports and five there will be. This morning, I tabled the first one, which evaluates the impact of our reform on the clients we serve and on the Canadian economy. I think that this report contains some information of great importance for us.

[Monitoring And Assessment Of Employment Insurance Program, February 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 3(3) of the Employment Insurance Act, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, two copies of the first monitoring and assessment report on the employment insurance program, the 1997 report.

[Millennium Fund, February 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Bloc Quebecois member for giving me another opportunity to remind the House and our fellow citizens that the Quebec student loans program is funded to a large extent by the Canadian government. Should any improvements be made to the Canadian student loans program, the Quebec government will get its share for that province's student loans program.

As for the Millennium Fund, we will make sure there is no duplication because we want to work in partnership with the Quebec government.