Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I suppose it could be said that it would be hard for any Member to come out and actually criticize the government for coming out with an employment strategy that identifies the expenditure of $16 million. Having said that though, it depends, I believe, on where the money is spent and on what regions and whether or not it actually addresses the shortage of job opportunities and the opportunities for people to better themselves through permanent employment.
I think that if we look at this strategy as to what it hopes to attain as a major point, we would have to look at page two where it says "It is specifically targeted to young people and those out of work, people out of hope." Now, I wonder if the government in fact is going to accomplish what they hope to do here. My concern is that this program no doubt makes opportunities, funding available for people to enter into small business if the business opportunities are there. It also makes funding available for businesses that are established to hire students and young people and people out of work if the job opportunity is there. I do not see how this thing works towards accomplishing this if there are no job opportunities in the first place.
Let us take, for instance as examples my communities, if there are no summer work programs there is no other work. So if the government does not come forward with capital projects then there are no business opportunities, there are no job opportunities. I believe, based on observations and studies already done, the only real opportunities for expansion in my region would be at this point in time probably considered tourism. Again, it just depends on how much or how far you can expect something like tourism to be able to be developed. I believe that this incentive has been going on for four or five years at least, so therefore those business opportunities in tourism have basically been identified and fulfilled to some degree.
So we come back to the question of, if there is no government sponsored incentives like capital infrastructure programs, what is left for the local people to do? How do you have business opportunities if there is no business? How do you have job creation if there is nothing to do? How do you sponsor a student if you, yourself, are not doing anything? That is the whole question. We can only paint the buildings so many times. You can only shovel snow in the winter, so how is a student ever going to get summer work? There is no opportunity. The argument could be used then that well, a student has to leave home and go look for work somewhere else. Well, that is fine but is there funding available for that student to travel to other regions that have work? Is there funding available for them to be able to look after themselves, room and board in the other community that they have to go to? I do not see it. So, really we are suggesting here that summer student work is going to be local. Fine. I have 100 per cent support for finding work for summer students, but it has been my experience that hamlets can only do so much towards hiring students. They can only paint the graveyard and the buildings so many times until it becomes ridiculous.
What I am looking at here is, is this government really addressing those areas that have not, the have not areas? Or is this money, as the Minister suggested yesterday, going to be divided equally across the territories regardless of what is already being put forward in those areas? Let us take for instance, the Yellowknife area, the Southern Mackenzie area. There are all kinds of job opportunities there during the summer which is not sponsored directly by government. They could be mining. Then you could have exploration work towards the mining industry. There are a lot of opportunities there in the south where definitely businesses are going to be attracted to this program, they are going to take access to the program, they are going to hire summer students because it is going to save them money. They are going to make work for young people because it would be sponsored through this program. People who have access to this program will definitely benefit if the opportunities are there.
If we put on top of that the government programs that are being put in place, like highway construction, tourism parks construction, there again we have opportunities for students, young people and the unemployed to get work. But this is not going on in my region. None of this is happening. we cannot even get money for an access road. It is not even suggested in here that the low areas of the territories, where there is not much happening, that there will be some kind of preference towards more dollars in those areas. Now I have identified here the southern Mackenzie and the Yellowknife area, but let us take Nunavut now. Let us take all the infrastructure money that is going to Nunavut. Obviously there are going to be job creation opportunities there and business opportunities. Those guys are going to have opportunities to expand, get in business, hire these people and have access to this program. So therefore the opportunity was there already. Is it really necessary that this government throw some more money over there?
The federal government is throwing $150 million that way towards infrastructure, job creation, job training, $39 million for job training. Okay? Is it really necessary that we throw some more that way or should we address those areas that do not have anything happening? Now let us take this Investing in People. Again we are going to train our adults. Well I must say that in my region I have seen so much adult training that some of those guys qualify as elders now and they still have not found a job. There is nothing. There is no job. There has to be a limit to this business of adult training, training programs with no end result, no job to go to. In the past two years, I have seen cooking programs in my community. We are training people to cook. Well these women are 30 to 40 years old. If they do not know how to cook by now, they have no place in the business, but they go because there is nothing else for them to do. They are going there presumably to train to cook in the construction industry, in construction camps but in fact there are no construction camps for them to work after they finish training. So what are they going to do this winter? They are going to go back there and cook some more. That is what they are going to do. They are going to take the opportunity of this.
But let us be serious about this thing. It becomes laughable after awhile where some people have the ability to make a career out of adult training. It becomes ridiculous. Now like everything else, there is good to it and I definitely support it because it is needed. But now all of a sudden we hear the industry themselves saying that they are sick and tired of waiting for government to build that highway north. They are going to do it themselves. Well, that is good news. There again, you see, I believe like Mrs. Groenewegen said earlier, it is not the government's responsibility to create jobs and to create a workforce, everybody relying on government. I believe that to some degree. I also believe it is the government's responsibility to supply the infrastructure to attract industry that would in turn supply the jobs. I believe that, I strongly believe that and I strongly believe that this territory would be far more developed if this government would get into the business of constructing infrastructure so the oil and gas industry, so the mining industry could come into the territories and create jobs but there is nothing here.
I am not even sure the Inuvialuit Petroleum Corporation which in fact supplied jobs this year for the Inuvialuit in my region as well as other people, I am not even sure if they would qualify under this thing because it seems like every time the government comes up with a program such as this, there is a small little clause in there that says that if you own an oil company or if you own a mining outfit you do not qualify. You know there are always those clauses, so I will be asking the Minister about that later on. It is the responsibility, I believe, of the government to address those slow areas in the territory when nothing is happening there versus what is happening in other areas. It is the responsibility of this government to ensure that each and every person has opportunities for jobs, not just to support ongoing programs already. This is what I feel is happening here, is that those areas that have the job opportunities, have the business opportunists, will in fact benefit from this program. I fail to see, for instance, how the people in Sachs Harbour, the people in Holman Island would have opportunity to gain from this program to the extent that would be available to a person in Yellowknife, a person in Nunavut. I have already heard rumblings that the capital projects plan for Sachs Harbour and Holman Island are on the shelf for this year. Now if that is not bad enough, we come along with this and they say, well, we will support those job creation programs. Fine. In order for the people to take advantage of this program, they would have to have the capital project first. If the capital projects do not go ahead, there is nothing in those communities. There is nothing else.
My point, Madam Chair, is that I feel there is a shortage here, by this government, to do something about promoting something in the Mackenzie Delta for there is no more work, to do something about promoting some infrastructure work, whatever, in the Beaufort region, rather than using the argument that we are spreading the money equally across the territories. You are not. You are spreading the money where the opportunities are already there. Thank you.