Hon. Andrew Cardozo: Welcome, minister. I want to come back to the issue of youth unemployment, which my colleague Senator Hay raised. By my calculation, 14% of youth unemployment is about 350,000 people. The employment programs set up by your government and mentioned in the budget cover about 10% of that and, by and large, are temporary. We really need to look at that other 90% of youth who are looking for full-time employment, and we should think boldly and think big. I want to convene a round table of a number of the people concerned — including governments, economists, the private sector and other stakeholders — early in the new year. Could I work with you? Would you be prepared to participate in a round table with a number of key stakeholders, to think big about how we can deal with this and get the private sector involved in a big way?

Hon. Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P., Minister of Jobs and Families and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario: Thank you, Your Honour. The senator raises an important point about youth employment and youth skills development, which is that the private sector does play a very important role in ensuring youth have that quality first experience and ongoing skills training. It’s partly why we so strongly support paid work skill experiences. Through a variety of partners and in a variety of sectors, young people get paid experiences with potential employers to further their studies and to become more firmly attached to their sector.

It’s also why we work very closely with provinces and territories through the labour market development agreements and the workforce development agreements to ensure that provinces and territories have what they need in order to support young people to get into, for example, the skilled trades. In my family, I have a skilled trades worker, and, in fact, the provincial system assisted him in reaching the very first step toward his Red Seal crane operator apprenticeship completion.

This work must be done in collaboration, which is why I think the senator’s question is so important. I will be convening a summit of provincial ministers to talk about youth unemployment and outcomes that we can agree to. Senator, I would be happy to speak with you about your plan and to work very closely with you on convening the major players, including corporations.

Senator Cardozo: Thank you for that, minister, and I do look forward to working on that.

Can I ask you about the other part of youth employment which has been happening through sectoral initiatives, such as sector councils, that your department has funded over the years? What is the plan on that where you would work with industry sectors to identify the human resources needs of the economy?

Ms. Hajdu: Thank you very much.

That is one of the Prime Minister’s announcements on tariff supports that, unfortunately, was missed in some of the news coverage. The announcement was to support the launch of sectoral alliances that allow for exactly what you are describing: collaborative work between large corporations, small corporations, sector employers, provinces, territories, the federal government and training institutions, including unions, to ensure we have the right skills training being offered to young people so that young people have an idea, and to ensure schools and training institutes are offering a better match for the skills that will be required by a sector.

I anticipate that each sectoral alliance will also start with a strong commitment to sharing data and making that data transparent and nationally available.