Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to the hon. member's speech, but sometimes I find that members of the Reform Party miss some major points in legislation. I will quickly review for the hon. member the major objectives of the legislation and what the legislation allows the federal government to continue doing.
Essentially it does a few things. It draws together portions of the former departments of employment and immigration, health and welfare, the secretary of state, and labour. The legislation will also allow the Government of Canada to continue improving employment programs and services for Canadians and building on what I consider to be significant achievements over the past two years.
I should like to list some of those. We enacted some major changes to make student loans more accessible, flexible and sustainable, helping more than 300,000 students this year alone. The hon. member from the Bloc will know that because of the flexible federalism that exists in the country there is an opting out provision for the province of Quebec which allows the province of Quebec to administer its own Canada student loans program.
For the very first time the federal government moved to establish a special opportunities grant for individuals, like high need, part time students, women pursuing doctoral studies and disabled students. Through this department we have also created youth internship programs that have led to real jobs for some 27,000 young Canadians, which is 20 per cent more than the red book commitment.
We have approximately 130 Youth Service Canada projects across the country that give young people the opportunity to serve their community and to obtain valuable work experience.
Through effective partnerships with major industries and through the establishment of sectoral councils the government has been able to generate, for every federal dollar, $1.50 from the private sector because it believes the way to go in the new economy is through effective partnerships. We also have joint federal-provincial initiatives helping some 60,000 single mothers, older workers, aboriginals, young people get the new skills and new jobs.
Approximately $111 million has been spent on older workers. The government has invested in a program for older workers over the past three years to help displaced workers deal with the new dynamic configuration occurring in the Canadian economy.
The government has also done something that I believe is extremely important. In order to modernize the economy you must modernize the way government delivers its services. Services have been integrated and decentralized, moving from 450 to 750 points of service reaching smaller communities 24 hours a day.
We talk about family. We talk about our seniors. We talk about young people. We talk about providing all Canadians-we are part of the Canadian family-with better services. There are four times as many offices where seniors can get in-person service. That is a fantastic accomplishment.
The best technology is used to speed up service for UI. Processing time has been cut by two days. OAS claims have been cut from eight days to one-half day. We are focusing on employment programs that work like the self-employment assistance program from which 34,000 Canadians have benefited. They have created a job for themselves but more important, they have also created jobs for others. On its own this program has created 68,000 jobs.
The point I am making to the hon. member is if we are talking about the Canadian family, i.e. everyone who resides within this country, it is crystal clear the government has moved in a positive direction. I hope that once in a while members of the opposition would get up on their feet and applaud these excellent initiatives by the Liberal government.
