Madam Speaker, on a further point, if we look at what this department has been able to achieve across the country, I think it is very impressive. I regret that at some points we have perhaps succumbed to public pressures and changed programs that were very good.
In my part of the country, the Canadian jobs strategy helped rural economic development immensely in small communities by giving the people a leg up for their first job and by giving them the confidence to get out into the workforce. The municipalities were able to create a program, put some money into it and manage it. Businesses were part of it and HRDC, with very good management in western Nova Scotia, was able to participate with a bit of funding.
Sometimes projects worth $70,000 or $80,000 would bring in 10 workers who would get 20 weeks work during the first year. These were people who were perhaps reintegrating into the job market after a marital breakdown or sometimes they were young people on their first jobs.
However we have eliminated that program, which is unfortunate. I would like Parliament to reconsider reinstituting programs like that, where we can have better flexibility in working with the communities.
The answer is in the communities. There is no use in going to the regions in Canada to tell people what they should do; they will tell us. We could offer them a little help rather than being confessors who listen to the community's problems. We are financial partners who can provide 20%, 25% or 30% of the funding for a product. Sometimes this can be the leverage that makes the difference between moving forward with a project or not.
In our communities this department has helped people with very good ideas—workers or tradespeople—become entrepreneurs. If they have a product they can manufacture, they can open a small factory or a plant. To do so they go to the department, and we help them with their salary for the first year. We remove the risk so they can continue to pay their mortgage and live. We support these types of projects because after seven or eight years they provide jobs for 10, 15 or 20 families. Some go broke, but that is the nature of entrepreneurship. Such is the risk of being an entrepreneur. Not all entrepreneurs are successful, but we need people to take risks for the good of Canada.
I want to congratulate the government on this initiative of putting more emphasis on literacy and training, early childhood, child care and on the entire social aspect the federal government has been working on in partnership with the communities and the provinces.
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.