David Christopherson

[Canada Border Services Agency Act, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-26.

The first thing I would like to do is acknowledge the hard work and tenacity around this issue that both our colleagues from Windsor—Tecumseh and Windsor West have focused on this. It is a huge issue for Windsor. It is not, like many in the House, a broader issue. This is Windsor's back yard.

I will mention the border delays. If members have had a chance to go to Windsor and be brought to the border by either of the two members I have just mentioned, they saw how backed up the trucks are from the bridges, many kilometres back from the actual border. This happens on a regular basis.

What is disappointing but interesting is that there are so many trucks it is affecting the small businesses that are on each side of those main arterial roads in the city of Windsor for the simple reason that people cannot turn off the main arterial road into the parking lots of these small businesses. They are literally being strangled by virtue of the fact that their customers physically cannot get to them.

This whole issue of what is happening at our border crossings has all kinds of permutations. It is important to note that Bill C-26 is not a small bill. I point to the fact that it is close to 100 pages long and contains 147 clauses, which is a lot to consider.

I heard my colleague from the Conservative Party, the member for Central Nova, talk about the fact that he felt this should be a non-partisan debate. That is fair and I accept that. We will try to gear to that, but nonetheless there are some elements in here that have to be acknowledged, such as what the status was of border crossings under the government. We must remember that it has been the government for 10 years. What was the status we found when we actually looked at it? In other words, we are fixing something, but we need to remember who broke it or did not take the time to think ahead.

The is about the future and about moving forward. However I want to bring to the fore the fact that it was the Auditor General--and I do not know what we pay the Auditor General but it is not nearly enough--who did an audit and determined a number of things. First, she found that watch lists that are used to screen visa applicants, refugee claimants and travellers seeking entry to Canada were not consistently accurate and up to date.

My friend from the Bloc just finished commenting on the concerns that she and her caucus colleagues had around some of the immigration ministry authority and powers moving over to this new entity and what that might mean to new Canadians or refugees or those who are seeking to make Canada their new home. I point to what the Auditor General found out, which is that it can cut both ways. We can have someone, who ought not be coming in, getting in because the proper information is not going where it needs to go, or, if there is an error, not that computers ever make mistakes, but in that rare moment when there is a computer mistake, and I say that very tongue in cheek, the fact that this needs to be kept up to date was found to be inadequate by the Auditor General.

It sounds like a little thing but when it is someone's life, someone's family or someone's kids who are being denied entry simply because information is either not up to date or inaccurate, that is a big deal. The Auditor General found that problem going into this.

She also found that 25,000 Canadian passports were lost or stolen each year and the information about those passports was not being made available to the front line officers. She acknowledges that those passports could be used by people who have unlawful purposes in wanting to be in Canada. However, from a common sense point of view, one would think that there would already be a system in place to make sure that if a passport, one of the most important documents in the entire nation, is lost or stolen, the information about that passport would be forwarded to the front line people we look to as being our first line of defence in terms of making sure that only those who we want in this country are getting into the country.

The Auditor General found that and that is obviously something that Bill C-26 is attempting to correct. I do not in any way want to leave any impression that it is a bad bill, but I do want to point out how we got here and what some of the problems were that we are collectively trying to solve with Bill C-26.

The last thing the Auditor General mentioned, and these are just the big pieces, was that Transport Canada was not being given access to criminal intelligence that the RCMP had when doing the screening for employees who would be working in secure areas in an airport or indeed actually having access to aircraft themselves.

I hear my colleagues murmuring around me. It is surprising to hear that kind of information and obviously it has to be treated right. By no means are we suggesting that our privacy laws should not be upheld, but by the same token it just makes sense that if there is important intelligence that the RCMP has, that there be a means to make sure that the front line people who are hiring those who are going into secure areas and will have access are people who should be given those kinds of clearances and have that kind of a security level.

Those were areas that our Auditor General found problematic and wanting, particularly in the events following September 11, and that is how we got to this point today where all of this is here.

To take in the enormity of what we are trying to achieve takes a lot of work. There are all the issues that every one of us has raised so far. In its totality, we must understand that we are talking about goods valued at $1.9 billion and 300,000 people crossing our borders every day. We could spend a lot of time, which we have and I hope members will at committee, talking about the security side of things, but I would hope that we recognize, and these are the issues that our colleagues from Windsor are bringing up all the time, that security and safety obviously are paramount but that we have to do this in a way that is intelligent and efficient so that we are not disrupting the critical flow of goods and people back and forth on our borders with the U.S.

Being from Hamilton and representing downtown Hamilton, certainly in terms of the steel industry, we talk a lot about just in time delivery. If we were to talk to anybody who lives near a border city, they would tell us the nightmares that a lot of manufacturers are going through because they have things timed in such a way. For instance, we did a tour recently of the transmission plant at General Motors in Windsor. I would urge any member who has an opportunity to take it because there is a lot there to be learned. One of the things they talked about was that transmissions built there in the morning could easily find themselves installed in a newly assembled vehicle in the United States by the end of the day. It is hard to make that system work if the equipment is sitting in a truck 20 kilometres from the border where it has been sitting for four hours, and the driver has no idea of when it will get to where it is going.

I cannot say this enough, because I would not want anyone to think that we are not taking security seriously, believe me we are, as every member of the House does. However there does have to be that balance where we have the ability to efficiently move goods and people across the border. That will take training, new technologies and new systems of dealing with the processing of goods and people. It will take a lot of work and a lot of thought but we need to do it. It is imperative, both for our security and for our economy.

If the parliamentary secretary is planning to comment, which he may or may not, but if he does, I hope he acknowledges that the government is embracing the notion that they have to deal with both sides of this equally and that both are important, and that if either side fails then collectively we have let our country down. It is just that important.

The member from Newfoundland spoke about the staff, the front line people. I want to underscore, on behalf of our caucus, that message because it is critical. As we all know, we can have the greatest plans, policies, ideas, goals and lofty ideals in the world, but without the people on the front line who will make it happen, it is really just words and hot air. If we stand back and acknowledge how important it is and how difficult it will be, we had better appreciate the people on the front line. They need the numbers, the training and adequate equipment to do their jobs.

It is not the easiest job in the world. Although not exactly the same, to some degree I would liken it somewhat to officers pulling cars over on the highway. They are never a 100% sure what they will find when they walk up to that car. Border crossing staff, support staff and others, all who are employed, never know what they will face. Given some of the dynamics in our world at this time, we have to be cognizant of their needs as citizens, as employees of the government and as protectors of our border. They need to be treated with the respect and importance they deserve. If it takes funding to ensure that the training, numbers and equipment are there, then that money bloody well better be there. It is just that important.

Last, in acknowledging that we will support the bill going to committee, as we can see from the comments made by not only me on behalf of our NDP caucus, but also other colleagues, there is a lot of work to be done. The bill could be perfect, but I doubt it. I do not think I have ever seen a perfect bill. Therefore, there is always work to be done.

Given the importance in some of the areas, which will not be easy to work out, I hope the committee has the opportunity to dig into these things in a meaningful way, simply because of its overall importance.

I would like to caution the government a little. It is my understanding that the agency has been up and running for about a year and we are doing the paper work after the fact. I have spent 13 years in majority government situations at the provincial level, and have sat on both sides of the House. I know that when a bill is introduced in the first year of a four year majority government, there is a fairly high degree of certainty that it will become the law simply because with a good healthy majority government bills do not lose. Things can happen sometimes. This may indeed be one of those. I do not know. It obviously predates the last election.

However, the government that it needs to be careful. In a minority situation, it could easily find out, having gone stampeding out through the gate and setting something up, starting to pull pieces into place, spending money, hiring people, doing studies and all these things, at the end of the day the majority of the House might not agree with the government. Since the government does not control the majority, the only thing that is lawful is what Parliament says is lawful. Therefore, I would add that cautionary note for the government.

This predated the election, although I do not know if we want to make a big deal about that. However, it is worth at least pointing out that in a minority situation, as we are all going through these new untested, uncharted waters to some degree in the modern era, the government ought not get too far ahead of itself. It should remember that it is in a very different dynamic than it has been for the past decade.

Let us ensure we get the horse in front of the cart, pass the legislation and then take the action, not the other way around.

[Millennium Partnership Program, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, without its promised internal audit or program review, there is no evidence that this program met its goals, no evidence that the money was properly spent, and no proof that this was anything more than another Liberal slush fund.

The Prime Minister has claimed that he will lead a more transparent and accountable government. Will the Deputy Prime Minister ask the Auditor General to look into the millennium fund or should we simply cut out this middle step and send it directly to Justice Gomery to sort out?

[Millennium Partnership Program, December 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been appalled by the Liberal government's sponsorship fund scandal. Now we are learning about the suspicious handling of the Liberals' millennium fund, including improper documentation and a potentially politicized approvals process.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Some $500,000 was earmarked for an internal audit of the millennium fund. Was the audit done? If so, where is it? If not, why not?

[First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, December 10th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

I am very pleased to rise on behalf of the NDP to speak to Bill C-20. Nothing is perfect, but we see a lot of improvements in this bill over the one that was introduced in the 37th Parliament, Bill C-23. We had some very serious problems back then and thankfully people have had a chance to take another look. This is a bill that we can live with.

It is important because it does a number of things. It takes a huge step forward in giving autonomous responsibility to the first nations people for their own future. At the end of the day, is that not what all people ask for, frankly around the world, to be the authors of their own destiny? In the modern world, if we do not have control of our finances, we really are limited to how much true control we have over the course in front of us.

I am particularly pleased in terms of the pooling aspect, which is a big part of this. It came from the experience in B.C. with the New Democratic government there working with the municipalities and the provincial government. They pooled all their money so their borrowing needs were also pooled and that meant two things. First, all municipalities had an opportunity to borrow money at one of the best rates available. That will now apply to the first nations people, assuming this bill carries and we certainly hope it does.

Second, it allows smaller communities or municipalities, in the case of the first nations people, to still benefit from what is usually available only to larger urban centres where they have the money and the ability to back up their borrowing needs with sufficient revenue at a very good rate. The lower rate we pay the more tax money can be applied to other important things such as health, education, environment, et cetera.

This part alone will play a significant role in assisting first nations people with a lot of their needed projects. Anyone who has visited any of the first nations reserves will know the challenges that are there. We cannot help but walk away with a heavy heart realizing how much more this country has to do for its first nations people.

This modest step forward is still significant because it will allow them a little more certainty in terms of the future: how they get there and how they are going to pay. The fact that they have smaller numbers will not limit their ability to play the kind of role that they obviously want to play, and that the House wants to see played.

Long after the bill is passed, we are going to be watching to ensure that there is no creeping paternalism in this process at all. This is meant to be an arm's-length autonomous process that allows the first nations people to make their own decisions. That means beginning with appointments to these boards and commissions and agencies, all the way through to the decisions that they make and the implementation of them. They need to be in control. We as a caucus will not stand for any kind of paternalism.

The whole idea is to get away from paternalism. This is very significant to us. It is equal in fact to the money and commissions that are being created, and the ability to charge for property taxes and increase their revenues. They are all important, but if we do not move away determinedly and in a progressive fashion from the overhang of paternalism that still exists, if we are not achieving that with Bill C-20 and every other bill we deal with from here on in, then quite frankly, this House is selling a bill of goods to the first nations people. History would show that they have been sold more than bill of goods.

This needs to work for them. It needs to work for Canada.

[Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is truly a significant and important day for Hamilton, the Hamilton steelworkers and certainly the retirees who would have been affected by this who did not even have the benefit of a union. This is their day.

I am very proud to have seconded the bill. I am proud of the job my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has done on this. I also know that a lot of Hamiltonians and a lot of steelworkers are glad that somebody is standing up in the House of Commons and giving their issues the airing that they deserve.

I run the risk of being called out of order, I serve notice to the Speaker, but we do have a number of activists and leaders from the labour movement. I will only mention one, Wayne Samuelson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, who is with us today for this kick-off debate of one hour. This is a smaller piece of the whole bill in terms of what will happen, but it is so important that the president and a number of other leaders in the labour movement from the CLC, and the steelworkers themselves are here because this is crucial.

Of all the things we ever debate, this is not an esoteric, theoretical debate. This is about real people, with real families and a real crisis. And, do hon. members know what? They are real scared because as far as they are concerned somebody is trying to steal their pensions. I cannot imagine anything that could be more terrifying for people who are on the brink of retirement or in retirement than to hear, after having done their duty, having worked hard their whole working life, having made commitments to their communities, having raised their families and having taken money out of their wallets to put toward their future, that their retirement savings were in jeopardy and that they could be facing poverty after all those decades doing their bit.

If ever there was the business of the people to be done, this is the bill. I want to urge members to at least send the bill to committee and give the workers at Stelco, the steelworkers and other workers, their day in court.

A similar bill to this one was introduced by the member in the last Parliament, the 37th Parliament. It had a co-sponsor from Hamilton, a member of the governing party at that time, the former member for Hamilton East. However it was a majority government and the bill died on the order paper.

Now we are in a minority situation and a similar bill is in front of us being debated. It will be voted on. We have every hope that it will get to committee. Does the member think that because this is a minority Parliament versus a majority in the previous Parliament it has anything to do with why we have some optimism that we will get the bill passed at second reading, sent to committee and ultimately passed into law?

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to focus on that. It has been the subject of some serious discussion and debate within our caucus. In fact our colleague from Halifax has sponsored Bill C-236 which is meant to change that very issue and move it from 10 years to two years so students have some opportunity to have a sound footing for a future.

It makes no sense to go through the whole process of doing everything we can collectively to provide accessibility and professionalism in a post-secondary education system if students who come out of that system in their early twenties feel their financial life is over before it has even begun.

We see this as an important critical component. We hope colleagues would look at Bill C-236 in that light. Hopefully, if not the Prime Minister, his representative would acknowledge that they made a mistake when they made that change. Now in this minority government, we have a unique opportunity, through the bill of the hon. member for Halifax, to correct that mistake. That represents another positive step forward as opposed to the sort of pretend step that Bill C-5 is taking.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for paying enough attention to want to comment. I did note that he was listening.

I might also say it was pure happenstance. Sometimes we just get darn lucky. I was trying to find a younger member of the House and I happened to pick the youngest. I think I made my point. I am pleased he got a chance to enunciate his particular place in history in this place, and I say that sincerely. There are 308, so grab whatever the member can. We work hard for it.

I will be right upfront. I do not know a lot about the whole issue of professors insisting on upgrades every year. I would not be doing justice to the member's comments, other than it seems there are some common sense concerns there. I will leave it to others who know more to maybe speak to that.

I was a little disappointed. I had hoped the member would take a moment to reflect on the fact that he indeed had benefited from that major investment made so many decades ago. He is one of the last generational beneficiaries of the original investment. I believe he has an obligation, as do I, to ensure that our generation here on our watch ensure that we pony up the money that we need to give his children and grandchildren the same opportunities that he and I have had.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

In a minority government, my friend from the government benches reminds me. That is another good reason to continue with a fine tradition we have started with the 38th Parliament. In those years the premier of the minority government of Ontario recognized that, with a little pressure, sure enough, but I try to give credit where credit is due. We have a warm spot for former premier Davis in our province for the initiatives that he took as the education minister, which were significant and made a difference.

Our generation, people who are my age, give or take, the boomers, benefited from the dividends of those public investments in the university system, and in the creation and funding of the community college system. For those whose skills, talents and desires did not suit university, the college system was there to provide skills development, so that those with other talents still had an opportunity to play a significant role in our economy and have the best quality of life for themselves and their families. We benefited from that.

At that time, the politicians of the day, like us here, said this was important and so they made the investment. These were Tories who saw this, not as my friend earlier referred to as willy-nilly throwing money but investing. Tories understand that. They understand investing today. Then it builds and we have something down the road. We are investing the time in trying to educate those who are having some trouble with this because they need to understand that not all Canadians are going to benefit from this.

We are benefiting from the dividends of that investment, and believe me they were massive. This is the same party, the Tories in Ontario, whose mantra was often “tax cuts, tax cuts”, but there was a recognition. It scares me when the younger Tories are like that. The older ones I can almost understand, but I do not know how one gets to be 25 years old and is already 50.

We are benefiting. My colleague who was applauding is at the tail end of the generation that benefited from that investment. I hope I am not wronging the member in any way by assuming that he went on to pursue some post-secondary education, but if he or other members did, they benefited from the investment that was made in post-secondary education in the post-World War II era, in the 1950s, 1960s and into the 1970s. The difficulty is that without a reinvestment, like maintenance money for machinery and other means of production, it is going to break down, and when it breaks down it is not going to serve us the way that we expect it to.

The education system is the same way. There have to be investments along the way to maintain it, to build on it, to make sure that we maintain the vision that the original architects had of what post-secondary education would be in this country. If they had not done that, we would not have that benefit now, but it is petering out because there has not been the subsequent investments over the last 10 years or so.

Instead of addressing that head on and being the generation that picks up the gauntlet to make sure that the investment goes back into the post-secondary education system, we get this system that benefits families with disposable income. I grant that for families that have disposable income, that have enough money to make the investment, this is not a bad thing. This is not an evil bill. What upsets us is the suggestion by the government that this bill addresses a real need.

Odds are for those who have a few thousand dollars and it is not a big deal, they could put it into an RESP. The reality is that that is probably a nice financial tool in their portfolios but it is not the determining factor in whether or not their children will be able to go to university. In other words, if they have the money to put into an RESP, some of those folks are going to have the money to send their kids to university.

That has never been that problem. The wealthy in Canada, the wealthy around the world, the wealthy historically have always made sure that their children were well educated. All of us want that for our children but historically it has only been those who have the means who have been able to send their children to get the kind of education that people took for granted when I was younger.

I want to take just a moment to talk of the role of post-secondary education. I want to set the stage here as to how this fits into the context of education now in Canada and what it means to individuals, the students and their families, but also to our nation on the broader scale.

One of our economic advantages is not that we have the lowest tax structure in the world. Our competitive advantage is not that we have the lowest environmental protection laws in the world, where people can come in and make all the investments they want without having to worry about environmental protections or any of that sort of thing. That is not why. Our competitive strength does not come from having the weakest labour laws in the world so people can come in and exploit our citizens.

Our competitive advantage in large part comes because of the value added that our workforce--and I say that whether one is a doctor or a bus driver--is healthy, skilled, and well educated in the broadest sense. That is the advantage. If it was pure tax cuts, we could go to one of the southern states in the U.S. If it was just about exploitation, right now the hot spot seems to be China or other third world nations.

We have significant investment in Canada. I read a report the other day that suggests Ontario is about to surpass Michigan in terms of the greatest number of cars produced.

That is not done for the reasons I have mentioned and it is not done because we have weak environmental laws. It is not based on our weaknesses or how we can undercut other states and jurisdictions around the world. Those who can pay their workers the least amount get the investment will not work in Canada. It never has and never will.

This is what does work for those who want to invest in Canada. First of all in honour of Tommy Douglas, we have got about a $6 to $10 an hour advantage because Canadian employers do not have to pay health insurance premiums for their employees. It is part of the national system. It is part of our general revenue system. We have that built in structurally. It is another good reason to maintain our universal health care system.

More important, modern assembly plants now require people who can operate a lot of high end technical equipment, and it is changing all the time. Exploited workers do not learn how to adapt to a new technology very quickly. The fact that we have a skilled and educated workforce, homegrown, makes the difference. It is everything. That is our competitive advantage.

If we could not do it on that front, then unfortunately, we would have to say, “We will have to water down environmental protection, health and safety and cut the minimum wage. We will have to find some other way where we have an advantage over others”. No, most countries would give their right arms to have the challenge that we have, which is simply to maintain what we already have which is one of the most educated, healthy workforces in the world.

As a result, we do get investment. It is not always the best, but I can say that the billion dollars that just went into Ford in Ontario was very welcome. Ford did not make that investment based on all those other issues I mentioned. Ford made it because it can make money in Canada, in large part because of the workforce we can provide to any future employer.

We talk about the university level, the Ph.D. Obviously I do not have a post-secondary education and maybe I appreciate it more than most because I do not have one. However, I know that the more people who graduate from universities, the more people who graduate from our colleges and the more people who get active in our apprenticeship programs and become journeypersons, like my friend from Winnipeg Centre, the stronger I will be, the stronger my family will be, the stronger my hometown of Hamilton will be and the stronger this country will be.

We do not disagree on that. I did not hear a whole lot of heckling or see too many dirty looks as I was making these comments. Most people accept that the value added of our skilled workforce is one of our key competitive advantages.

That takes us full circle, right back to the inevitability of the critical importance of providing the population with an education system that is accessible to them. All that I have talked about means nothing if ordinary families cannot send their sons and daughters to the post-secondary education institutions. It does not work. That is why we are a little louder in terms of raising this issue than we might otherwise be. We are not so much opposed to what Bill C-5 does. What Bill C-5 purports to do and what the government says it will do, is what upsets us.

The parliamentary secretary and I had an interesting exchange earlier. We talked about the fact that while enrolment rates are up, it is going the wrong way for lower income families. With the growing gap between the haves and the have nots, not just in the world but in our own country, it means that we need to take steps to ensure that those students are getting an opportunity to go on. We are acknowledging that this will not do that, so we are still left with the problem.

I would feel a whole lot better about this whole debate if the government would simply stop saying that this is some kind of panacea, that this will be the big piece that solves the problem. It will not. All the major student union groups are opposed to this for that reason, because of what the government says it will do and they know it will not.

Leading educational experts, not just a small group here from the opposition, are opposed to Bill C-5. Why would students oppose it if it worked? If it worked they would be happy and we would not be having all these great quotes. They are here because the students themselves see that Bill C-5 will not answer the question.

This legislation will still leave a lot of students with debts of $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, or $100,000. We talked earlier about the fact that a lot of them are not going into the system. They are not going into the system because they are looking at that debt and they do not want to start their lives with that kind of anchor around them.

I do not recall my contemporaries when I was growing up being fearful of going to university because it would somehow have a negative impact on their lives. That is not the way it was. It ought not be that way now. It does not have to be that way now.

It makes so much sense to invest the dollars where it will help the nation, where it will help all of our respective provinces and territories, all of our hometowns, right to the centre of each of our universes, our own families. That is the impact of this issue. We collectively, and the government specifically, are not responding in that fashion.

Maybe the government has taken a look at the demographics. Maybe it has done its polling and found that the people who are not accessing post-secondary education or putting money into RESPs do not have the money, or whatever reason, and that most of them do not vote anyway. We all know the truth. The reality is the higher the income, the higher the education, the higher up people are on the socio-economic scale, the more likely they are to vote in this country. I would like to think that is not what is happening.

I am at a loss to understand why the government would be so reticent to make investments that would give back so much. If this were done right, as former premier Bill Davis did, those dividends would pay for generations. It requires each of us in our time, during our watch, to stand up and ensure that we make the necessary investment to pay respect to those who came before us and to maintain and make better the education system that we want and need for our young people.

I look forward to the give and take over the next 10 minutes. Bill C-5 does not do any great harm, but it sure falls short of the speechifying of the Liberal caucus.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate with my own remarks as they relate to Bill C-5. I had an opportunity earlier this morning to raise a few comments in response to the speeches of others. The message, for any members who were here earlier, certainly has not changed.

The difficulty we have with this is not what it does, so much as what it does not do. It provides for those who already have some means, to the extent they have disposable income, to put away money for their children's education. It does not address the needs of those families and individuals that do not have the means to make the contribution, which at the end of the day means that accessibility is not what Canadians have come to believe accessibility to be.

Let us take a step back. This is a whole new era. Parliamentarians and middle aged people who are watching did not see all of this when we were younger. We did not have the registered education savings plans and the whole notion that individuals needed to put money away for university. When I was growing up, if a person was smart enough, worked hard enough, and wanted it bad enough, a university education was not out of reach even though mom and dad were not rich.

In fact, one of the things that has made this a great nation is that we ensure that people with the ability, desire and willingness to work hard can achieve their goals in this country. We see it somewhat differently from our friends to the south, who see it almost as a dog eat dog situation. We have approached it in a somewhat more gentile manner. We think that the more successful people we have in Canada, the more successful everyone will be. It is not a question of pushing someone down so someone else can get ahead. The more of us we can lift up, the stronger we are as a nation.

I run the risk of getting into serious trouble with the highest authority in this room, but I suspect the Speaker is of an age where he would recall, through his studies I am sure, as I can, that throughout decades past, serious investment was made in post-secondary education at the college level and university level. Certainly in Ontario, which I know best. That is when the college system came into being.

I have attacked a former Conservative Ontario premier, Mike Harris, which I will probably do frequently in my time in this place. However, I am also prepared to acknowledge when a Conservative premier does the right thing. The premier who brought in the college system and beefed up the university system as it is now known in Ontario was Bill Davis.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg Centre is certainly the first one I have heard who has introduced the notion of aboriginal and first nation needs vis-à-vis the education system.

Within the last couple of weeks at the public accounts committee, we received the annual report from the Auditor General which indicated that post-secondary education accessibility as it relates to aboriginal and first nations peoples compared to the rest of the population was way out of wack. In fact, it was so far out of wack that in order to get the proportion of the population graduating within the aboriginal first nations community as compared to the balance of the population in the nation, it would take 27 years to catch up.

The Auditor General reported that, as a result of the government not following up on commitments it made to the public accounts committee, and more importantly, to those communities themselves, we are now in a situation where the Auditor General reports that instead of taking 27 years to catch up it would take 28 years. The trend line is going the wrong way. I wonder what the member for Winnipeg Centre would have to say about that.