Ontario Hansard - 03-March2005

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I'm pleased to respond today to the statement by the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.

Summer jobs provide students across the province with the opportunity to learn valuable skills that will help them when they enter the workforce on a full-time basis. I know the province has for many years actively promoted opportunities for youth to gain valuable experience and perhaps to save a little for their post-secondary education. It's important for those students already pursuing their life dreams and for those still in high school who are trying to save for their education.

From 1995 to 2003, under the former government, the number of youth who found placement through Ontario summer jobs soared from about 24,000 to more than 60,000 in 2003. The program was part of the former Tory government's youth opportunities Ontario strategy, which provided more than 175,000 jobs and services to youth in 2002-03.

Over the past several months, the minister has been making a series of announcements detailing a little bit of money here and a little bit of money there, but what is surprising to me is something that the minister hasn't been doing. She hasn't been telling the people of Ontario what her government's plans are regarding the implementation and recommendations coming out of the Rae review. Since the results of the review were made public, there has been a deafening silence, not just from the minister but in fact from the entire government. This is a report they asked for. They were regularly briefed while the review was under way and yet, since it has been released, they've done their best to ignore it.

As the report made clear, we have to have a well-educated population in order to ensure the continued prosperity of our province. Post-secondary education is critical to our future. The Premier said he is the education Premier, and yet nothing has been done or said in response to the report except that the Premier has confirmed that tuition will rise. I notice he didn't make any reference to the caveats Mr. Rae placed on what changes had to accompany any rise in tuition.

I guess we'll have to wait for the provincial budget to get a sense of how committed this government is to responding to the recommendations in the report. We don't know what direction the government is going to go in. Colleges and universities don't know what the government will do with this report, and students don't know how this government will respond to the issue of tuition and all the other things that are important to their obtaining a quality education that will prepare them for the future.

I think it is a good thing that the government is continuing to support the work of past governments in providing opportunities to help students prepare themselves for the workforce and to save to further their education. But I also think it is important that the government tell us just exactly what they're planning to do with the Rae report.