Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Erie—Lincoln.
It is with great pleasure that I take part in the debate on the Speech from the Throne, a speech which confidently outlines our government's ongoing commitment to fiscal responsibility and social fairness.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer my congratulations to you on your appointment as acting speaker. I would also like to thank the residents of Sault Ste. Marie for giving me the honour of representing them in the House of Commons.
It is with a great deal of humility that I stand here as their member of Parliament. I sincerely hope that through hard work, honest conduct and devotion to constituency matters that I can repay Saultites for the confidence they have shown in me.
I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to the previous member of Parliament for Sault Ste. Marie, Ron Irwin, who is now a special advisor to the prime minister. I have known Ron Irwin for a long time. He is a fair and honest man who, as an MP, served Sault Ste. Marie extremely well and as minister of Indian affairs also served Canadians extremely well.
Ron left some mighty big shoes for me to fill, workboots in fact. I thank him for his counsel, past and present, as I try to grow into those boots.
Returning to the matter at hand, I would like to focus my remarks on a few key issues raised in the throne speech, namely youth unemployment, the importance of exports to the Canadian economy and the need for a forward thinking approach to national unity.
Youth unemployment has become a serious problem in Canada and particularly in my riding of Sault Ste. Marie. Too many well educated young people are having a tough time finding that all-important first job. Still others are finding post-secondary education to be prohibitively expensive. It is for these reasons that the government is taking decisive action to help young people.
The Speech from the Throne reaffirms and in many cases expands the government's commitment to improved job creation, training and education for young people. The strengthening of federal internship programs will provide participants with real job experience, the lack of which too often prevents young people from finding meaningful work.
The establishment of the Millennium Scholarship Endowment Fund will help thousands of young Canadians access the education necessary to succeed in the knowledge-based society of the 21st century. I was especially pleased to hear that the millennium fund will be directed primarily at low and modest income students. This is welcome news indeed to a predominantly working class city like Sault Ste. Marie.
I have always believed that by investing in the future of our young people we invest in the future of Canada. Simply put, the Speech from the Throne is an example of this belief in action. Of course we will be in a position to do more in terms of social spending as our commitment to sound fiscal management yields larger and larger dividends. One particular area of interest to me is the creation of greater opportunities for physically and mentally challenged Canadians through wage subsidies and job creation initiatives.
The federal government now operates a $30 million a year opportunities fund to this end, but it is my sincere hope that in the years to come more attention and more money will be directed at this often overlooked group of Canadians.
There are aspects of the speech that provide hope for unemployed Saultites. The emphasis on exports as a source of one in three Canadian jobs bodes well for residents in my riding. Sault Ste. Marie is a vibrant border city with a significant export economy. Sault Ste. Marie is a leading exporter of steel, wood and paper products. The city's exporting capabilities are second to none thanks in large part to its proximity to the United States and its strategic location along the St. Mary's River.
Tourism is another precious commodity in Sault Ste. Marie. Thousands of visitors come every year to enjoy the natural beauty of northern Ontario. They come to fish, hunt, ski and snowmobile. In Sault Ste. Marie they ride the Algoma Central Railway to the Agawa Canyon, tour the Sault locks and visit the magnificent displays at the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre.
It is for those reasons that Saultites should be pleased with the throne speech's recognition of tourism and exports as key economic generators. This recognition is not simply based on rhetoric. The government was quick to condemn a new American entry law which would seriously inconvenience Canadians crossing into the United States. The government will continue to fight this insulting legislation and it is my belief that it will soon win Canadians a well deserved exemption.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the sacrifices Canadians have made the past few years. Like government they have learned to do more with less. However, now that there is light at the end of the deficit tunnel, we are, as the Speech from the Throne explained, in a position to make strategic investments. We will not, as some opposition members have charged, abandon the attitude of fiscal responsibility that got this nation's finances back on track.
On the other hand, we will not neglect to make the necessary social investments such as the ones outlined in the speech. We will stay the course of balancing the nation's financial and social priorities. This is what Canadians elected us to do in 1993 and it is what they re-elected us to do this spring.
Finally, I would like to offer my colleagues in the House these thoughts on national unity. There is an old expression that says “Don't look back unless that is where you want to go”.
Are there many Canadians who wish to go back to where we have been on the whole question of national unity? I do not think so. I believe my fellow Canadians are prepared to look straight ahead. I believe they are prepared to be flexible and open-minded in finding a lasting solution to the national unity problem.
I exhort all of my colleagues in the House to fix not on the past but on the future, to be fully receptive to new ideas and proposals regardless of the source so that we may bring lasting closure to this issue.