Hon. Jason Kenney: Well, thank you very much, Ryan, and to my colleague Elaine, Minister, thank you for welcoming me here to your legislature, to the territorial building. Senator, thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a great pleasure to be here in Yukon. It’s actually my first visit here, I have to confess, but I’m getting a very warm welcome, and I’m just delighted to be here, having started this morning at Yukon College and just then met with members of the Multiculturalism Association whose good work we support in trying to help settle the growing number of new immigrants to Yukon.
In fact, I noticed coming off the plane last night, there was a family of Filipino origin there to welcome a relative coming off the plane—a new Yukoner, probably a new Canadian—and this morning at breakfast, I heard Latin music at a restaurant being run by a new arrival from Costa Rica, and at the college today, I saw people including post-doc research scientists from France and Japan. This is a face of Yukon that not enough Canadians know—a face of a dynamic, growing and increasingly prosperous territory that is leading Canada in economic growth.
We anticipate that this year, Yukon’s GDP will grow by some 5.6 percent—the highest projected growth rate in the country, and that’s happening for a whole lot of reasons. Obviously, the big mine developments are one of them, but it brings to light what is a growing challenge in many parts of Canada, particularly many parts of northern and rural Canada where we have the strong commodities and resource sector with huge—tens of billions of dollars—of capital investments requiring people with skills to help us seize those opportunities. And if there’s one thing we’re missing, it is an adequate number of people with the skills to fill the jobs of the future.
We all know the demographic story as our baby boomers retire—we have less than a replacement birth rate. We’re trying to deal with those things with a high level of immigration, and that’s why we’re delighted to see Yukon’s population growing and newcomers arriving and getting permanent residency here. But we still have to do so much more to ensure that we include all Canadians in the workforce of the future, and that means particularly focusing on those parts of our community that have typically not been in the active workforce, who have not benefited from the dignity of work, from the ability to realize their potential in the workforce for many reasons, including our Aboriginal communities. And that’s why we’re making major investments here in Yukon, and throughout Canada, in skills development and linking that to jobs for our First Nations people such as the Yukon mining training initiative that the Prime Minister announced federal support for this past summer, and which I saw working today at Yukon College.
So we’re investing huge funds—federal funds—into the skills development job training for Aboriginal people, for older workers in need of retraining, for newcomers such as through the settlement services that we provide, and we also must focus on Canadians with disabilities. According to the Panel on Labor Market Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities created by our government, some 800 000 Canadians with disabilities are employable but have yet to find a job. What’s worse, almost half of them have post-secondary education, and so many of them find themselves unemployed or underemployed.
This is a terrible waste of human potential, and at the same time that we have this huge untapped pool of talent, we have skill shortages in regions and sectors across the country like here in Yukon, as I mentioned. This has to change. Right now, the Government of Canada has dedicated labor market agreements with the provinces to help Canadians with disabilities to get jobs, and I understand that Challenges, which operates the cafeteria here, is doing good work in just that way, helping folks with challenges to get good work experience and help them feel productive in their contribution to the community.
Through these agreements, the Labour Market Agreements for Persons with Disabilities, we provide funds to the provinces to support programs and services such as employment counselling, career planning, skills training and wage subsidies for Canadians with disabilities to help them secure jobs. In the past, these agreements, called Labour Market Agreements for Persons with Disabilities, only existed between the federal government and the provinces. Today, I’m pleased to announce that is changing. I’m happy to be here today with Minister Taylor to announce the signing of our first‑ever Labour Market Agreement for Persons with Disabilities with a territorial government (applause).
I’m delighted that Yukon is the first of Canada’s provinces and territories to sign on this new generation of agreements that will help Canadians with disabilities in Yukon to get good jobs. This agreement with the Government of Yukon represents an investment of up to $2.5 million split between the federal and territorial governments. Together, we’re helping Canadians with disabilities gain the skills and experience they need to find jobs in their area while providing employers better access to a pool of talented employees.
We know from elsewhere in Canada that these agreements have achieved positive results. There are about 300 000 interventions each year through more than 100 programs designed and delivered by provinces and which will now be delivered by territories. These programs are making a difference in the lives of folks with disabilities, but we can do more to help connect them with available jobs. We don’t just want to train people with disabilities for the sake of training. We want to train them for real jobs.
I’m pleased to say that these agreements are not the only action taken by our government to create opportunities for Canadians with disabilities. For example, we announced ongoing funding of $40 million to the Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities, and that’s doing the work I mentioned of trying to actually connect people with the private sector, with employers. This program will be reformed to provide more demand-driven training to make it more responsive to the labor market.
And since 2006, the Opportunities Fund has helped more than 34 000 Canadians with disabilities. The Enabling Accessibility Fund improves accessibility at workplaces and community gathering places—sometimes very simple investments to make them accessible for folks with disabilities. And for the first time, this fund will have a stream dedicated to making workplaces more accessible, increasing opportunities for Canadians with disabilities.
The budget unveiled last week, Economic Action Plan 2014, also proposes to connect people with developmental disabilities, in particular, with jobs through a $15-million investment to expand the Ready, Willing & Able initiative, and that funding should be available to folks in the territories as well. This initiative brings together the Canadian Association for Community Living and Costco stores to provide employment opportunities for Canadians with developmental disabilities. We hope we can expand it. We’ll also invest $11 million to support the expansion of vocational training programs for Canadians with autism in particular.
Programs like these are part of our government’s continuing efforts to create a stronger economy and to help Canadians with disabilities realize their full potential. I would like to make one other point, which is that our finance minister, my colleague and friend Jim Flaherty, has done I think more to invest and to lead on opening up opportunities to employment and inclusion for Canadians with disabilities than any government and any finance minister that went before, and I want to acknowledge and thank him for making a priority those folks who need sometimes just a little bit of a hand up in order to become fully participating members of our society.
And finally, I want to thank Elaine for her good partnership on so many issues. I look forward to signing this agreement. Let me ask, are there any francophone media here? Radio-Canada? So I don’t need to do that in French. Alright, well thank you very much and once again, Elaine, over to you and thank you for your hospitality and your partnership. We look forward to delivering this program together.
(Applause)
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