House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2019, with 47% of the vote.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, Bill C-48 was under the administration of the finance department. Tonight we are discussing Human Resources and Social Development.
If he is asking about our portion of Bill C-48, which is the $1 billion trust for post-secondary education, those trusts have been honoured. I actually checked with the minister today and he advised me that those trusts have been established for the provinces.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, I should explain that we do believe in accountability. If the hon. member is saying that the previous government rubber stamped applications once they arrived in Ottawa, that is a whole other issue. I am not sure I would want to do that because we believe in accountability. We want to ensure that the programs deliver real results in priority areas and that they adhere to very strict reporting requirements. We have turned down less than 20 out of hundreds and hundreds of proposals.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, as I explained, when we took office we extended the SCPI program, which was set up by the previous government, and we ran it exactly the same. We did not change any rules nor did we change the process. We left everything intact because we wanted to give it a fair evaluation.
The process works such that projects are funded but the applications are made at the local level. If the local authorities say that it is a good thing, then they pass it on to Ottawa. If it meets our criteria and we think it is a good project, then we fund it. Not all the applications do get accepted but the good projects get funded. There has been no change in how this program is operated or implemented.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, since this government took office we have been very committed to helping the homeless, which is why we extended the SCPI program as part of the national homelessness initiative with full funding, to which we added $37 million in August, money that the previous government had allocated but did not spend. That is the level of our commitment and we are going forward honouring that commitment.
However, after almost 10 years of this program having no changes, we think the responsible thing to do is to review the program and look at options to see if there are better ways to help the homeless, ways that we can address the root causes of homelessness.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, first I am a little surprised that the hon. member is raising cuts to social development because it was her party yesterday that was tabling further reductions in social development spending. I am a little confused as to where she is coming from on that one.
On foreign credentials, we are working with the regulated professions, trying to target places where we can have the biggest impact the soonest. We are working with the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the Medical Council of Canada, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, the Canadian Nurses Association and others. That is just a very short list from a long one.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, the previous government spent a lot of years dabbling at this effort. We are going forward seriously with a new agency. I am pleased to inform the House that the dollars are already flowing. The dollars are flowing to groups that will help with this initiative. It is building on the consultations that we have been doing with the Public Policy Forum. We had an FPT meeting of the deputy ministers and myself and other stakeholders.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, in fact one of the areas that we are going to be focusing on is helping youth at risk and students in communities with high crime. Those are barriers to the workforce and we want to help them overcome those barriers.
As we are currently in the process of reviewing this program, I would certainly invite the member to share her ideas for a new program so that as we go through with this and make changes to it, we can look at including some of her ideas. That would be just great.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, we took a look at where the demand was, where we saw people getting jobs that would have existed anyway. We do not need to spend Canadian taxpayers' money to create jobs for students in Calgary. I am sorry, but we do not need to do that. We need to do it elsewhere. We need to get the focus of this program back on students and on creating meaningful jobs that will help them gain valuable experience and money to help them continue with their education.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
What we want to do, Mr. Chair, is make sure that we are providing opportunities for students wherever those opportunities exist.
I should point out that the subsidy to private business for these jobs is only 50%, not 100% as for the not for profit sector. I would caution the hon. member that it will be the small businesses that take advantage of this program in many communities where students have a tough time finding a job. That is where the jobs will be created, the very ones the member is so eager to create, as am I.
Business of Supply November 1st, 2006
Mr. Chair, when we looked at the summer career placement program, which has a very noble purpose to help students earn money to go back to school and also to increase their work experience, we quickly realized that it was oversubscribed. In other words when we checked, fully a third of employers actually admitted that they would have provided these jobs even if they had not received the funding provided through this program. Now if only a third admitted it, imagine how many actually believed it.
When Tim Hortons cannot hire people to work in Calgary, we do not believe that we should be subsidizing $20 an hour summer jobs there. We will be focusing on where students need help, whether it is rural communities, whether it is new Canadians, wherever the barriers are to employment. We will help students where they actually need it.