Mr. Speaker, the Canadian opportunities strategy that was announced by our government in the last budget is a very important and significant initiative. As part of this initiative, Canadian millennium scholarships will benefit more than 100,000 students. Likewise the plan will provide assistance to students with their student debt loads. There are many other advantages and features of the Canadian opportunities strategy.
The labour market has a supply side and a demand side. The Canadian opportunities strategy deals mostly with the supply side. The demand side of the labour market is driven by potential employers, both private sector and public sector employers.
In my view the Canadian opportunities strategy deals more particularly with the supply side of the labour market. It provides Canadians with greater access to education and training. Many or most Canadians view training and education as a means of obtaining a job or a career. All Canadians want to be contributing members of society and to have the means to care for and nurture their needs and the needs and aspirations of their families.
The question often boils down to: What do I educate or train myself for? Most Canadians would like to have some degree of confidence that the education and training they are acquiring is providing them with skills that will be in demand in the future.
The Canadian Manufacturers Association reports labour skill shortages in the following areas: marketing jobs, 29%; design jobs, 27%; engineering jobs, 26%; machinist jobs, 23%; software programming jobs, 22%; tool and die jobs, 21%; and on and on it goes.
These shortages are significant particularly when we look at unemployment and youth unemployment. The level of unemployment although much improved since 1993 is currently hovering around 8% nationally.
It is a well accepted fact that in Canada we are currently experiencing a shortage of information technology professionals of between 20,000 and 30,000 people. In my own riding of Etobicoke North which is quite industrial with aerospace companies and a pharmaceutical industry, I often hear that some of their jobs remain unfilled due to what they describe as a lack of qualified personnel. This troubles me, particularly given the number of unemployed people in my riding. I refer to the problem as the skills gap.
Last year I hosted a workshop in my riding and I brought together business leaders, educators, student career counsellors, young people and human resource professionals. At this meeting representatives from Humber College, York University, the Etobicoke School Board, the University of Toronto as well as representatives from companies such as Allied Signal Aerospace and Schukra Manufacturing, and many other stakeholders exchanged views on the skills gap problem.
I was seeking solutions and ideas at the micro level that perhaps could also be applied at the national level to deal with this problem. At this workshop, consensus emerged quickly around a single theme: the need for industry, public sector employers and educators to communicate better, to better anticipate the skill requirements of tomorrow and the future.
One of the complicating factors is the rapidly changing world in which we live and the continually changing labour market. A number of us in this House have spoken out on the need for the federal government to assume a leadership role in bringing industry and educators together to better plan for the future. The provinces and the territories clearly have a major role to play in education and training, but as a federal government we can use our powers of moral suasion and policy levers to bring the various parties together and to facilitate a constructive dialogue.
It was for these reasons that I was very pleased to see in last September's throne speech a commitment from our government to develop a plan to match the skills being taught to young Canadians.
