Mr. Speaker, this bill which does not surprise my colleague on this side of the House and which was praised by the member opposite, to whom I will answer a bit later, contains some gems that we can smile at, once we get over our anger, which we can never do completely. It includes a very rare provision. When asked, before the committee, if such a provision was usually found in bills, the legal counsel answered that he did not remember ever seeing one like that, which was, in any case, very rare.
The minister now has the power to designate. He refused to let the provinces continue to exercise their power enshrined in the Constitution and reaffirmed in federal acts since 1964. The minister changes the whole process, but there is more. He is afraid that the appropriate authorities may be influenced by the provinces. So, he expects strict obedience from the appropriate authorities, as we can see in one provision which says: "The Minister may give directives to any appropriate authority respecting the exercise or performance of any of its powers, duties or functions under this Act or the regulations, and such directives are binding on the appropriate authority".
There is a third issue here which is also very important: the Statutory Instruments Act does not apply in respect of directives given under subsection (2). Hence, these directives will not be published in the Gazette .
So, this provision shows you the spirit in which the bill was drafted. The minister is going from one extreme to the other in his relations with the provinces. We have here a situation where the province, under a federal act, is recognized as the appropriate authority since it has jurisdiction over education. Not only is the minister saying: "From now on, I am the one who decides", but he also intends to follow through. He says: "Not only will I be designating the appropriate authority, but it better not let itself be influenced by a third party, because my directives prevail". After all, his directives are binding.
You can see, Mr. Speaker, how the appropriate authority will be free, under these circumstances, to exercise its power, as long as it follows the minister's directives. There is something funny in this bill. In every other piece of legislation, the appropriate authority is defined. In this one, the legislator must have forgotten to do so, because he says the directives are binding on the appropriate authority. In other words, the appropriate au-
thority has now become merely an authority which is never mentioned in the bill, except under appropriate authority.
Thus, the fact that this appropriate authority has now become merely an authority speaks volumes about how they see the relationship with the provinces and one must have a great sense of humour or be generous enough to say, as does the hon. secretary, that this bill will "enhance co-operation". The provinces are left with a single right, that is the right to opt out. Otherwise, not only is the appropriate authority designated by the Minister, but the Minister's directives are binding on the appropriate authority which has now become merely an authority.
These directives apply to all the powers provided in there. There are well-known powers, but there is also a power to make regulations that I have not seen elsewhere-but I am not familiar with all the statutes. Also, to improve the act, they even had in some cases-and it is somehow contradictory, but this was the only way to proceed-they even had to try to increase this power to make regulations, since neither the provinces nor the students have any rights and the minister has no obligations, only some powers and an authority. This sums up rather well what this bill is all about.
Thus, when the parliamentary secretary says that hundreds of thousands of students are anxious to know the results of our work, he has got an absolute nerve! And there are several reasons for this. First, there is already a system in place. An act already exists. Second, they introduced this bill only two weeks ago although they have had it for some time now! Third, despite the minister's generous intentions, there is in the estimates, as I said, only $1 million more for all Canadian students this year. Wonderful!
So, how is the minister going to keep his promises? He is relying on the banks to make students pay back their loans-and we know that, depending on where they live, the new graduates have difficulty finding a job and are deeply in debt-so the minister is relying on this money to honour his generous commitments.
So, when the hon. member down the way talks about paranoia, I remind him that the opposition has a role to play. When the opposition sees what is in the legislation, notwithstanding-not the clause-the intentions of the present minister, the opposition can only object vigorously to those provisions which do not enhance co-operation with the provinces but enable the minister to make decisions without consulting them.
The minister will consult and listen only if he wishes to. A future minister of education could use those provisions to decide who should have a loan and who should not. If one area of responsibility in a democracy is important for a province, which is responsible for education under the Constitution, it is the issue of who has access to education. We will come back to that aspect because, in the opting-out provision, the minister paid a lot of attention to the conditions for repayment to the banks and to the repayment arrangements for the students, but did not care much about accessibility.
We hear a lot about increased access for single mothers or for the handicapped but the truth is that the real objective is to try to negotiate a better deal with the banks; I have nothing against that, but stop taking liberties with the truth.
As the Official Opposition, we have the responsibility and the duty to denounce nonsensical actions and measures that do not promote co-operation with the provinces. Even though some of the people consulted said that they had nothing against the measures, nothing guarantees that those provisions will not give another minister-supposing that another government is in office-excessive power that would allow him to avoid co-operating with the provinces.