40th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 008
CONTENTS
Thursday, November 27, 2008

Speech from the Throne
Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour, CPC):

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kitchener Centre.

I am proud to respond to the Speech from the Throne.

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour, I am proud to rise today to speak in favour of the passage of the reply to the Speech from the Throne.

First, I extend my thanks to the constituents from Souris—Moose Mountain, those who were responsible for electing me and getting me back into the House of Commons for the third term. I thank my family, my wife Sally, in particular, who stood with me throughout the campaign. I appreciate all the effort that was made on my behalf.

Both my province of Saskatchewan and Canada at large have made some solid economic gains in the past few years. We wish to continue to build upon that and the momentum we have created in the years to come.

Our government is mindful of the challenges faced by Canadians and their families in this time of economic uncertainty. I think of the people with small businesses, farmers, seniors, workers and families. I am sure if we work together, we can preserve their jobs and savings and come through stronger after these times than before we entered into them.

I also think of the first nations communities. I have seven reserves in my riding. We must strive to improve the educational success of our aboriginal young people. Preparing for the future means taking the necessary steps to create the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world. That is precisely what our government is doing.

In times of economic prosperity or uncertainty, it is more important than ever for Canadians to acquire skills and knowledge. In the Speech from the Throne our government made a commitment to strengthen Canada's workforce by continuing to support student financial assistance. To that effect, we have increased post-secondary education funding by 40%. We are also helping students through our new, income-tested student loan repayment assistance plan to ensure that no more than 20% of any borrower's income will go toward repaying the loan.

In budget 2008 our government introduced a new Canada student grant program that would provide students from low-income and middle-income families with cash assistance each month of $250 and $100, respectively. Starting next year, the new grant is expected to help 245,000 students for the first year.

The Speech from the Throne also reiterated our government's commitment to take measures to encourage skilled trades and apprenticeships. We have a number of programs in relation to that. The Speech from the Throne also emphasizes our government's commitment to work with provinces to remove barriers to internal trade, investment and labour mobility by 2010. We want to be sure that Canadians can move from province to province to ensure their skills and abilities can be used wherever they are required.

As I mentioned earlier, an important source of untapped potential in Canada lies within our aboriginal communities. Close to 16,000 aboriginal people are taking advantage of the aboriginal skills and employment partnership program, which helps them receive trades training and secure sustainable skilled jobs in the north and across Canada.

Our government has also committed significant funding over six years for new labour market agreements with the provinces to help address the gap in labour market programming for those who do not currently qualify for training under the employment insurance program.

With certain economic challenges ahead, our government recognizes that many workers may be forced to leave their jobs as a result of the economic downturn. Our government will support these workers facing transition and we will be there for them in the time of need.

We want to support Canadians in difficult times because our economy is only as strong as our workers and their families. The Prime Minister has stated that governments have a duty to help families and communities bridge the gap between a downturn and recovery.

That is why in January 2008 the Prime Minister announced a $1 billion fund for the community development trust, which supports a wide variety of initiatives such as job training and skills development to create opportunities for affected workers, community transition plans that foster economic development and create new jobs and infrastructure development that stimulates economic diversification.

To help older workers transition into new job opportunities, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development introduced the targeted initiative for older workers program to help unemployed older workers in the most vulnerable communities. We must help all Canadians participate.

Let me now turn to breaking down the barriers that prevent Canadians from reaching their full potential.

Canada is built upon a promise of opportunity and a willingness to work hard to secure a better life. That promise should be kept alive. It gives us hope.

By breaking down barriers to equal opportunity within the workplace, the Canadian economy will become even stronger and more competitive. We continue our work in this regard through our tools for fairness in the workplace, the Employment Equity Act, the racism-free workplace strategy and our federal labour standards that establish minimum conditions of employment for employees and for many employers, helping them to compete on more equal footing with other businesses.

We can find better ways to reconcile work with our other responsibilities in life and we will. A new model of labour standards must take this into account. To help families with children balance work and family life, our government introduced the universal child care plan. This plan provides parents with more choices in deciding what is best for their children.

Through our universal child care benefit, transfers to the provinces and territories and child-related tax credits, we are making historic investments that benefit families with children, mostly helping low income and modest income families. In fact, our investments amount to the single largest investments in child care in the history of Canada, three times more than the previous Liberal government had invested. Our universal child care benefit assists 1.5 million families and about two million children per year.

For the average family, this benefit, together with the child care expense deduction, offsets well over one-third of the cost of non-parental child care. The combined impact of these measures is even greater for one parent families. The universal child care benefit program has lifted an estimated 24,000 families with about 55,000 children out of the low income bracket.

With our significant funding for the creation of child care spaces, the provinces and territories have announced the creation of over 60,000 new child care spaces since March of last year. We will continue to work co-operatively with provinces to create daycare spaces and give parents what they have asked for: real choice in child care.

The Speech from the Throne reiterated our government's commitment to extend the homelessness partnering strategy and help more Canadians find affordable housing. Accordingly our government has renewed federal housing and homelessness programs at current levels for five years until March 31, 2014. This has been well received.

In helping to keep Canadians safe, the government is committed to preventing violence in the workplace. The violence prevention regulations that apply to workers in private and public federally regulated workplaces are now in force.

The Speech from the Throne also highlighted the need for our government to review all program spending carefully to ensure program spending would be effective and in line with Canadian priorities. Canadian taxpayers expect modern and cost effective services responsive to their individual needs. Through Service Canada, we continue to improve the access of citizens to a full range of government information, programs and services. We will continue to encourage innovation in service excellence while focusing on efficiency and results.

Once again, I reiterate the great honour and privilege it is to serve my constituents in this House. I believe I will live up to their expectations and I will do the best I can to represent them. I trust we will emerge from these uncertain times better, stronger and more able than we were before we entered.

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