Mr. Chair, the simple answer is over 110.
Did the department participate in the creation of the pan-European oil sands advocacy strategy?
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BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, the simple answer is over 110.
Did the department participate in the creation of the pan-European oil sands advocacy strategy?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, how many lobbying events have been organized by the Canadian government on oil sands and European fuel quality directives since 2009?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, perhaps I could ask how many visits they have had to discuss energy efficiency and renewable power, but instead I will ask this question. What has been the departmental budget for promotional communications and government relations work in European Union countries since 2009?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, perhaps we will try this question. How many times has the minister or senior staff visited the United States in the last 18 months to discuss the Keystone XL pipeline proposal?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, how much was the departmental budget for travel, accommodation, staffing support and materials related to oil sands-related travel to the United States in each of the past seven years?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, I will be using my full 15 minutes for questions.
On how many occasions have the minister or senior officials travelled to the United States to discuss Canada's oil sands with U.S. federal or state officials in the past 18 months?
Petitions May 21st, 2013
The second petition, Mr. Speaker, is from residents from across Alberta, from Devon, Edmonton, Cold Lake and a variety of other places.
They petition the House of Commons to support public health care. They say that they support the public health care system to ensure every Canadian has access to the same high-quality health services wherever they live. To achieve this goal, they call for a pan-Canadian prescription drug strategy, funding transfers to the provinces and territories to enable consistent high-quality home and long-term care, a pan-Canadian health human resources strategy for primary care and improved living conditions, including access to food, housing, living wages, social and mental health services and better living conditions for aboriginal peoples.
Petitions May 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions.
The first petition is from residents of Edmonton, Leduc, Cold Lake, Valleyview, basically from across Alberta. The petitioners state that the decisions made by the federal government should be based on sound and objective science data, that cancelling research projects and monitoring has a negative impact on the environment, that scientists should be allowed to express themselves freely and that laying off hundreds of scientists threatens Canada's ability to monitor.
Therefore, they call on the Government of Canada to end its muzzling of scientists, to reverse the cuts to research programs at Environment Canada, DFO, Library and Archives, the National Research Council, Statistics Canada, Natural Sciences Engineering Research Council of Canada and to cancel the closures of the National Council of Welfare and First Nations Statistical Institute.
Committees of the House May 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief, but there is a lot to cover.
I commend the committee for doing this review and coming together with a good number of unanimous recommendations. I commend our representatives for their additional recommendations and for bringing this matter forward to the House. We have had an excellent debate today.
There is one thing that troubles me in going through the report. I will go through this in great detail because it is of most interest to me, particularly because a lot of the recommendations raise programs that the government has historically funded, but has made the decision of late to de-fund.
I go to recommendation 1, formal public-private academic partnerships to coordinate labour market evaluations. As I mentioned earlier in the House, I have had the privilege of sitting on the environment sector table board for seven years. The government has decided to end that organization, along with all the other sector tables.
The value of the environment sector table, which was ECO Canada, Environmental Careers Organization Canada, was that several times a year it did labour market analyses. Year after year it showed that the highest growing area of employment in our country, in fact worldwide, was in the environmental field. There are endless possibilities for work, endless opportunities for aboriginal Canadians and recent immigrants. The government is ending these sector tables.
One of the things this organization did was form partnerships between universities and small colleges with industry, with the community and with first nation communities on identifying needed jobs and areas of activity where we could be working together.
Another recommendation that I find rather odd is recommendation 14, which encourages young people to acquire work experience through the Canada summer jobs program, particularly including French-English language development.
It is sad to report to the House that for more than half of the jobs under the Canada summer jobs program in my riding for which there was huge demand, as I have three university campuses and one technical college campus, many people were providing opportunity for students. Many of those were bilingual opportunities, and they were not funded. Why? Because the government is not funding that program adequately.
Very sadly, also, the government decided to shut down its funding for the Experimental Lakes Area. That was one of the best programs for providing science-based job opportunities for university students. The government de-funded it, and yet it signed off on a recommendation in the report to create those exact kinds of programs.
As the government moves forward and responds to this report, which is invaluable, I am looking forward to it perhaps reconsidering some of the decisions to cut the funding for these very important programs.
As Shawn Atleo, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, pointed out, in the area of aboriginal Canadians, far more aboriginal youth are being incarcerated than graduating from high school, yet the government still continues to underfund the education opportunities for students, including at university level and technical schools. There is, as I understand, 13,000 students waiting to get into these programs, but there are insufficient funds.
It is one thing to sign off on the report and make recommendations, it is another thing to actually budget for it and support programs.
My final comment would be what my colleague from Newton—North Delta asked, which was why the government was not working on the skill set for the next decade. I had many young people in my riding lined up to start companies to do energy efficiency audits and energy retrofits in homes. Then the government in its wisdom decided to provide the funding for eco-energy home retrofits for only one year, ending all opportunities for these youth, which would have been well-paying jobs using their technical skills.
I commend all of those who participated in this report. We look forward to action on it.
Committees of the House May 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I would like to repeat the question raised by my colleague in the House. I wonder if the member could tell us the details about what exactly the skills program is doing rather than just giving us accolades from some people about a program they might know about but the House does not yet know about.