Diane Finley

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, we are actually doing quite a lot. In our budget, not only did we invest a billion dollars for the infrastructure, but we also increased eligibility for the Canada student loan program.

We have made scholarships and bursaries exempt from taxes for students. We believe that if they earned the money then they should be able to put it toward their education.

We brought in the apprenticeship incentive grant which will help students get into the skilled trades. We did not want to just take an approach that kids need to go to university or college, we brought in the apprenticeship program. I would be happy to mention a whole lot more if the member would give me the time.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I will not answer what the trend of the previous government was. We have been here for eight months. The trend starts now.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I know we do have that information somewhere in our mountain of materials. If we cannot find it in a very short period I would be happy to provide it to the hon. member later on.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, the terms that were set out were actually dedicating it primarily to infrastructure and accessibility to post-secondary education to be used for infrastructure enhancing access, such as libraries and laboratories. That is access. If people do not have buildings to go into there is no university to access.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, Bill C-48 was under the administration of the finance department. Tonight we are discussing Human Resources and Social Development.

If he is asking about our portion of Bill C-48, which is the $1 billion trust for post-secondary education, those trusts have been honoured. I actually checked with the minister today and he advised me that those trusts have been established for the provinces.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I should explain that we do believe in accountability. If the hon. member is saying that the previous government rubber stamped applications once they arrived in Ottawa, that is a whole other issue. I am not sure I would want to do that because we believe in accountability. We want to ensure that the programs deliver real results in priority areas and that they adhere to very strict reporting requirements. We have turned down less than 20 out of hundreds and hundreds of proposals.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, as I explained, when we took office we extended the SCPI program, which was set up by the previous government, and we ran it exactly the same. We did not change any rules nor did we change the process. We left everything intact because we wanted to give it a fair evaluation.

The process works such that projects are funded but the applications are made at the local level. If the local authorities say that it is a good thing, then they pass it on to Ottawa. If it meets our criteria and we think it is a good project, then we fund it. Not all the applications do get accepted but the good projects get funded. There has been no change in how this program is operated or implemented.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, since this government took office we have been very committed to helping the homeless, which is why we extended the SCPI program as part of the national homelessness initiative with full funding, to which we added $37 million in August, money that the previous government had allocated but did not spend. That is the level of our commitment and we are going forward honouring that commitment.

However, after almost 10 years of this program having no changes, we think the responsible thing to do is to review the program and look at options to see if there are better ways to help the homeless, ways that we can address the root causes of homelessness.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, first I am a little surprised that the hon. member is raising cuts to social development because it was her party yesterday that was tabling further reductions in social development spending. I am a little confused as to where she is coming from on that one.

On foreign credentials, we are working with the regulated professions, trying to target places where we can have the biggest impact the soonest. We are working with the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers, the Medical Council of Canada, the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, the Canadian Nurses Association and others. That is just a very short list from a long one.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, the previous government spent a lot of years dabbling at this effort. We are going forward seriously with a new agency. I am pleased to inform the House that the dollars are already flowing. The dollars are flowing to groups that will help with this initiative. It is building on the consultations that we have been doing with the Public Policy Forum. We had an FPT meeting of the deputy ministers and myself and other stakeholders.