Speech From Throne 

January 30, 2001

Success in the new, knowledge economy will not be determined by technology alone but by creating an environment of excellence in which all Canadians can take advantage of their talents, their skills and their ideas.

Equipping Canadians with the cutting edge skills and learning they will need to prosper and realize their unique potential is an overriding priority for all governments.

And in the context of rapidly changing technology, when Canadians may be required to update their skills many times in their working lives, governments must act to help all Canadians acquire the means to take part in life-long learning.

Since taking office, our government has taken bold steps to ensure that all Canadians have ready access to education and to the tools and information they need to develop skills that are in demand - to ensure that no one is left behind in the digital economy.

We have developed programs that:

• Ensure access to affordable post-secondary education;
• Increase funding for research and development; and
• Encourage all Canadians to keep abreast of new developments in the workplace and to participate in lifelong learning.

We established the Canada Millennium Scholarships, providing more than 184,000 needy students with an average of $3,000 towards their post-secondary education;

We created the Canada Education Savings Grant to encourage parents to save for their children’s education through registered education savings plans. Since the program was established, more than $600 million has been paid in Canada Educations Savings Grants to help more than 1.25 million Canadians save for a post-secondary education;

We have raised the value of the Education Tax Credit, from $50 a month in 1993 to $400 a month for full-time students and $120 a month for part-time students in 2000 – providing almost $1 billion in tax relief to more than 1 million students over the next four years; and

We have invested $2.4 billion in the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) the principal agency created to build state-of-the-art research infrastructure in Canada;

We introduced new rules for Registered Retirement Savings Plans, to help Canadians finance their retraining and skills upgrading.

We have committed $288 million each year to support Aboriginal post-secondary education.

2001 SFT Commitments

Our government will build on these accomplishments, with the goal of having at least one million more adults take advantage of learning opportunities during the next five years. We will:

• Create Registered Individual Learning Accounts to make it easier for Canadians to plan for and finance their learning needs;
• Improve loans available to part-time students to help workers learn while they earn;
• Work with partners to ensure that young people who particularly need help staying in school or getting their first job, receive support;
• Invite the provinces, territories, private sector and voluntary organizations to launch a national initiative to significantly increase the number of adults with higher literacy skills needed for the new economy;
• Work with the provinces, territories, and other partners toward a comprehensive labour-market strategy for persons with disabilities;
• Work with Aboriginal Canadians to help strengthen their entrepreneurial and business expertise; and
• Increase our efforts with our territorial and provincial partners to attract skilled workers from abroad; secure recognition of their credentials; and help them integrate more quickly into Canadian society.