Bill C-5 (Historical)

Canada Education Savings Act

An Act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings

This enactment is intended to encourage the financing of post-secondary education through savings in registered education savings plans. It provides for the payment of Canada Education Savings grants in relation to contributions made to those plans. The amount of the grant is increased for children of lower- and middle-income families. It also provides for the payment of Canada Learning Bonds in respect of children of families receiving the National Child Benefit Supplement.

Foreign Credential Recognition Program

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, we are going to debate Motion M-195 put forward by the hon. member for Brampton—Springdale. This motion concerns skills development, which is Quebec's responsibility.

The Bloc Québécois is denouncing the federal government's interference in an issue that is clearly within the purview of Quebec. There are currently loads of unprocessed immigration files. Out of the blue, the government found some money to include in this year's budget. I will quote the exact figures. On April 25, 2005, the government looked under the mattress and found $75 million over five years to accelerate and expand the integration of internationally trained health care professionals.

Speaking of health, many people in my riding received degrees or diplomas abroad. Canada made them all sorts of promises. They were lured to Canada with the promise of a job. Once settled in this welcoming land, the reality hit them, hard.

The government, which is loaded with money, should give some to the provinces. Matters pertaining to diplomas and degrees and to immigration are the responsibility of the provinces and Quebec. The federal government is creating an extra level of administration to manage those who manage the managers. Clearly, that is more interference on the part of the federal government.

In addition, $68 million over six years is earmarked to facilitate foreign credential assessment and recognition. Here again, the federal government is trying to interfere in and meddle with areas of provincial jurisdiction. The provinces have the necessary expertise to assess diplomas and degrees themselves.

We also have many immigrants in my riding of Compton—Stanstead. My office is located in a multicultural district with Serbs and Croats among its residents. In their home countries, these individuals obtained diplomas and degrees which have never been recognized here. I know that professional associations in Quebec have the standards and expertise necessary to recognize foreign diplomas and degrees.

The hon. member for Brampton—Springdale has said she wants to have a national program. This is not easy, since the conditions are not the same in all the provinces. My daughter is a doctor of chiropractic. The hon. member should know as well as I do that when a chiropractor moves from one province to another, he or she has to get a new licence. Health professionals are not licensed nationally but provincially. I know what I am talking about. If my daughter wants to practise her profession outside Quebec, she has to get special permission from the other province. If this were a national program, it would be chaos once again, but the federal government seems to like that.

Besides, under the Constitution, professional corporations are under Quebec's jurisdiction. It is in the Constitution Act, 1867. This is nothing new. It is right in the Constitution. I have not been a member of Parliament for a very long time, but I have realized this government does not seem to abide by the Constitution, even if the Liberals themselves wrote it in 1867, at a time when there were only two political parties.

In case anyone does not know what I am talking about, section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867, grants exclusive jurisdiction over education to the legislatures of Quebec and other provinces. Education and degrees are under provincial jurisdiction. One day, the federal government will understand that.

We also have section 25 of the Canada-Quebec Accord on immigration. It was not signed in 1867, but in 1991, only 14 years ago. What it provides concerning the reception of immigrants is clear. For those who forget, I repeat that this is section 25 of the Canada-Quebec Accord, which says, and I quote, “Canada undertakes to withdraw from specialized economic integration services to be provided by Québec--”

I hope the translation was well done so that people are able to clearly understand what this means.

Our dear colleague from Brampton—Springdale should talk to the member for Vancouver Centre. I will quote what she said:

The recognition of foreign credentials is a provincial responsibility regulated by provincial legislation, and many of the regulatory bodies subject to this legislation are also under provincial jurisdiction. The federal government cannot interfere and say what it wants done in this regard.

I would add that this is a federalist talking.

I think that there should be a consensus. In fact, one MP says one thing and another MP says something else. Ideally, everyone should agree. That would be best.

Also, by simply having discussions on professional associations signifies that Ottawa does not have the constitutional jurisdiction to legislate this area. All this could compromise the discussions underway between Quebec and professional associations in Quebec.

I do not know if it works the same way in the other provinces but, in our case, we have professionals handling these diplomas. As a result, interference—yet again—by our good old federal government could slow down a process already begun.

In order to make it easier for newcomers to participate, this money should be transferred so they could learn French faster. These people are here, they want to work, share their professional skills, explore and be full-fledged citizens in their new land. However, they face a language barrier.

Last year, some people came to tell me about funding cuts to language training. The fiscal imbalance is to blame. If it were resolved, many other things could be too.

The federal government is interfering in a number of Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. We are debating Motion M-195 on the recognition of foreign credentials, but manpower training is another area in which there is interference. The government also wants to keep the new Canada learning bond set out in Bill C-5.

Then, there is the child care system. The feds are in the midst of signing a pan-Canadian agreement on child care. Quebec has had such a system for over 10 years and has yet to sign anything. What a surprise.

Then there is regional development. Looking at the Summer Career Placement program, it is obvious that there is a movement of young people into the urban centres. One wonders why we still have regional development. As far as I am concerned, it is for urban regions. I also mentioned earlier the small amount of money that we were given for health, which falls strictly under the purview of the provinces. Infrastructure is another national farce. It is a responsibility of the municipalities and municipalities are managed by the Quebec government.

Moreover, they are busy enough without getting involved in the immigration sector. Immigration is very important in Quebec because it gives us a new vision and new knowledge. Quebec is already doing the work and doing it well. However, this takes time and negotiations. The federal government has just created another level of negotiation. In other words, it has just slowed the negotiations under way.

In closing, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against Motion M-195 because it basically deals with staff managing staff managing staff.

Citizen Engagement

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a comment to make rather than a question, but it backs up what my hon. colleague has just said.

I have tried as a member of Parliament to vote with the wishes of my constituents and to do so in a way that to some degree would replicate the kind of citizen engagement there would be if there was a formal referendum process in this country. We do have the Referendum Act, but it is used very selectively. Over the course of the last 100 years it has been used three times. There have only been three referendums from 1896 to 1992.

We do have what we call constituent referendums where a postal ballot is mailed to all households. I have done this with respect to a number of laws. I explain in the mailing why I am consulting my constituents and why I regard an issue as important. I provide a non-partisan description of the bill as well.

I did this in the prior Parliament with respect to Bill C-5, the Species at Risk Act. I included the review that was done for members by the Library of Parliament and included it in the mailout. I included it so people would understand the general purpose of the bill in a non-partisan kind of way and also included arguments for and against the legislation.

In order to ensure that I provide fair and reasonable arguments, I took arguments from individuals who actually advocated for or against the legislation in debates in committee, in debates in the House or from newspaper editorials and so on. I tried to give a representative sample of the arguments for and against the legislation. Thanks to the magic of the Internet further documents and links could be put in to allow people to look at it and consult. This is particularly easy on something like same sex marriage where there are numerous websites that promote either side of the argument.

Having done this, I can say this produces a lot of citizen engagement as well as a lot of respect for an MP. I did it on two pieces of legislation in the last Parliament where I actually voted against my party based on the recommendations of my constituents. One was the most important piece of legislation that faced the 37th Parliament and that was the Anti-terrorism Act. When I asked my constituents whether I should vote in favour of the bill at third reading if no sunset clause was included in it, the majority told me not to vote in favour of it. I voted against it. Only four members of my party broke ranks and voted against that legislation. I was one of those four.

On another occasion I was the only member of the entire opposition to vote in favour of a law. It was a lonely experience, but it was what my constituents had instructed me to do.

The number of people who respond to these constituent referendums can be substantial. In one constituent referendum I asked whether I should opt in or out of the MP pay raise. I had over 3,000 responses.

This kind of mechanism, if used by MPs, can produce a lot of citizen engagement and involvement. It seems to me that it is a healthy antidote to the danger that worries many MPs on the government side. They think that we are just going to get anarchy and people going off in different directions. If we have to go through the process and the discipline of explaining in an objective way to our constituents what the nature of an argument is, we are unlikely to be led astray unless the government itself has wandered astray from where public opinion actually happens to be.

Civil Marriage Act

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the flood of petitions and letters to my office over the past six months is any indication, Bill C-38, the same sex marriage bill, is by far the most important bill that will be dealt with by the 38th Parliament.

I have received about five times as much mail on this subject as on any other that I have dealt with in my four years as a member of Parliament. I have received many thousands of signatures on petitions in the constituency. For example, last week I presented nine such petitions to the House, and this week I have a further eight petitions that I am ready to submit. As members can see from the size of this pile, there are many hundreds of signatures on these petitions. As well, of course, I listen to many of my colleagues on all sides of the House presenting one petition after another, which is a very strong indication of the depth of interest expressed by Canadians on this issue.

Another sign of the depth of interest and commitment is the number of letters that are received and that are individual handwritten letters, letters from people who, although they are constituents, are not regular correspondents. People have been moved to write to me on this issue when they have written on no other issue. That is a signal to me of the depth of their interest in and commitment on this issue.

It was my practice in the 37th Parliament, that is, the one that sat from 2000 to 2004, to seek instruction from the electorate in my riding as to how to vote on key legislation via a mechanism that we refer to in the constituency as a constituency referendum.

I have conducted constituency referenda in which I asked constituents, by means of a mail-out ballot to all households in the riding, how to vote at final reading on, among other things, the species at risk act, which was Bill C-5 in the 37th Parliament, and the anti-terrorism act, Bill C-36 in the 37th Parliament. I have asked about whether to opt in or out of the MPs' annual $20,000 pay increase and also about how the riding boundaries of my then riding of Lanark--Carleton ought to be redrawn so that I could submit to the Electoral Boundaries Commission a submission that accurately reflected the community of interest as expressed by my constituents.

My party leader, the Leader of the Opposition, is a democrat, which means a lot to me because I am of course the shadow cabinet critic for democratic reform. He is a democrat. He strongly supports the right of MPs, including members of the shadow cabinet, to vote their consciences or to vote the collective consciences of the people they represent. That is why three members of our shadow cabinet are able to vote for this bill without fear of sanction, reprisal or losing their posts.

This contrasts dramatically with the Liberal benches, where no such freedom is available to members of the cabinet. I am also the critic for FedNor, the federal agency for regional economic development in northern Ontario. My opposite number in the Liberal cabinet, the minister for FedNor, has indicated very strongly that he personally is opposed to same sex marriage and is opposed to this legislation. He has been faced with a choice between resigning his post or abdicating his conscience. Unfortunately, he seems to have chosen to abdicate his responsibility to his conscience in choosing to fall in line with the government.

How many others have done so without at least speaking openly as he has done I do not know, but certainly there is very little in the way of democracy on that side of the House and on something that is the most important issue in the minds of many of the constituents of many of the members opposite, and of course also in the minds of many of the members opposite themselves, as it is in the minds of so many opposition members of Parliament.

The same lack of freedom to follow one's conscience or the conscience of one's constituents is even more evident in the New Democratic Party, where one member, the member for Churchill, in northern Manitoba, has essentially been knuckled under, read the riot act and told she must vote the way her party leader tells her to, without regard for her personal conscience or for the will of her constituents.

As our party's critic on democracy, I am proud of the courageous and democratic position adopted by our leader, but also of the democratic position adopted by our party, the Conservative Party, at its March policy convention in Montreal. I want to read from our policy platform a policy that was adopted in Montreal at our March convention. It states:

On issues of moral conscience, such as abortion, the definition of marriage, and euthanasia, the Conservative Party acknowledges the diversity of deeply held personal convictions among individual Party members and the right of Members of Parliament to adopt positions in consultations with their constituents and to vote freely.

My intention personally has been to vote against this bill at second reading and to conduct a constituency referendum to determine how I should vote at third reading.

At second reading a bill is being approved or rejected in principle. As such, it is the stage of the bill's life where it is most appropriate for a member of Parliament to vote his or her conscience. My conscience dictates that I cannot support a bill that fails to provide adequate protection for religious freedom when such protection could easily have been included in the text of the bill.

I have largely based my political career on the defence of religious freedom. My very first statement in the House of Commons, as a new member of Parliament, was the defence of the freedom of religion of Falun Gong practitioners in mainland China. When I turned to my constituents to ask how to vote on the Anti-terrorism Act and ultimately when I broke ranks with most members of my party, and with the government of course, in order to vote against the bill, I was primarily motivated by the unwarranted restrictions that the bill was placing on freedom of religion which I believe set a very dangerous precedent in this country.

Freedom of religion that is nominally protected in clause 3 of the same sex bill is quite frankly a fictitious protection of freedom of religion. It is a section that Liberal members will cite constantly. Let me read what it says because it is revealing when the text is read. We realize how hollow this protection of freedom of religion really is. Clause 3 of the bill says:

It is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.

There are two things to note about this. First, which my hon. colleague from Okanagan—Coquihalla so clearly identified, this does not take care of all of the other impositions on freedom of religion, of many other actors in society that are not contained within the wording of this section, such as people who serve as commissioners of marriage who find their personal conscience violated.

It would be no great effort to find someone who finds it in accordance with his or her personal conscience to perform a same sex marriage as opposed to leaving it, requiring that all people who are commissioners of marriage must be willing to do so should the condition present itself. That is just unreasonable. It provides no extra rights to a same sex couple, but it takes away a fundamental and profound right to those who find that it is not in accordance with their personal religious or philosophical beliefs.

That provision could be taken care of by provincial law. It cannot be taken care of by federal law, but the federal government could have engaged in negotiation with the provinces to ensure those kinds of protections are built into provincial law. It has made no such effort and in fact is standing by while the opposite starts to happen. There are many other instances that my colleague cited, but I will not go through them all now.

The other thing to note about this clause is that in the draft of the bill, the earlier version that was submitted to the Supreme Court of Canada, an almost identical provision was written into clause 2 of that draft law except that it did not have the wording “it is recognized” at the beginning. Clause 3 states that “It is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages--”.

The inclusion of those words makes this a purely declaratory provision. It has no weight whatsoever. It should be up in the very long preamble to the bill because it has no weight in court. The reason it has no weight in court, even written as the original clause 2 of the prior bill was, is because the court said it can have no weight. It is ultra vires; it is outside of federal jurisdiction.

The solemnization of marriage under section 92 of the Constitution is a provincial responsibility. So putting this in the bill is disingenuous. It should not be given any weight. In fact, it should not even be in the text of the bill.

At third reading my intention is to go to my constituents and ask them how I ought to vote. Some people feel there is a contradiction between voting one's conscience and vote consulting one's constituents.

I want to indicate here that I heartily disagree with this bill. People know where I personally stand, particularly on the issue of freedom of religion. However, it would be arrogant of me to suggest to my voters, to my constituents, that on an issue of such great importance my conscience is somehow superior to the consciences of each of the 113,000 people I represent in the House of Commons. That is not the case. I am proud of them. I am proud of the good sense and conscientious, thoughtful and general sentiments that have been expressed over and over again in the hundreds of letters and many petitions that I have received on this subject, and that I have taken many hours to read and review personally.

If all members of Parliament of all parties showed the same good sense, goodwill, openness and respect that my constituents, and the constituents of all members, have shown, this debate would be a much more civilized debate than it has turned out to be so far.

Message from the Senate

[The Speaker]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend the Honourable the Deputy to Her Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, Her Honour was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

Bill S-10, a second act to harmonize federal law with the civil law of the Province of Quebec and to amend certain acts in order to ensure that each language version takes into account the common law and the civil law--Chapter 25.

Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings--Chapter 26.

Bill C-34, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 2005--Chapter 27.

Bill C-35, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 2005--Chapter 28.

Canada Education Savings Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-5.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer the member's question in two ways. First he says that if we were to add a room on to a house would that not be improving it. It could. However what is happening with our university infrastructure is that the foundation is crumbling and the walls are caving in. The libraries and laboratories in our universities are in trouble because of the lack of investment. The walls are falling down and the roofs are leaking.

Would this be the wisest investment? Yes, we could add a room but is it the wisest investment to add a room when the educational infrastructure is in such desperate shape?

My second comment may be perhaps more persuasive for the member. I probably will not do justice to André Lareau from Laval University when I quote him, but I want to remind the member of what this Quebec expert said on Bill C-5 in pleading for it to be set aside. He said:

However, one of the objectives of the tax system is to distribute wealth fairly. How can we justify a government financial assistance program that targets the well-off members of society?

To summarize, richer families are the big winners in the income splitting that results from the education savings plan. Furthermore, they benefit from these amounts because their children are less likely to have to work. We have a double impact that benefits upper income families.

I would not have thought that would be the position of the Bloc. I say, with no reservation and no hesitation, that one of the reasons that it is so shocking to see the Bloc supporting this flawed bill is that in the province of Quebec, under both Liberal and Péquiste governments, there has been an understanding of the comprehensive approach that is needed. In fact, we have the asymmetrical educational measures taken in Quebec, an approach that goes in the opposite direction to this one.

I hear in this member's question the same thing I am hearing, and dismays people so much, is that is it not better to do something than to do nothing. It is not better if the choice we are making of the something is the wrong choice, that there are other things that are more important in both the short term and the long term and certainly in the medium term to which the educational dollars ought to be directed.

I make that plea again, particularly for the Bloc members because I think Quebec, I do not want to go over the top here, has closer to a model of what is needed in the rest of the country. The only thing that has interfered with Quebec governments, the previous Péquiste government and the current Liberal government, from doing an even better job on supporting the educational needs of students, particularly access to post-secondary education, is the fact that the federal government still has not even replaced the massive unilateral cuts that it introduced, starting with the so-called 1995 budget.

I do not know why the Bloc would be voting for this bill.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity today to participate in the debate on third reading of Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings.

A weekend has passed since several of my colleagues had an opportunity to very ably address the bill in debate on Friday and I want to say how appreciative I am of their contribution to that debate. Perhaps we need to take just a moment to remind ourselves that Bill C-5 is an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings, the stated purpose of which is to encourage the financing of children's post-secondary education through saving from early childhood in registered education savings plans.

On the face of it, one might ask how anybody could not be in favour of people setting aside savings for the future education of their young people if they are in a position to do so. Nobody in their right mind could be opposed to that.

The difficulty with the bill and the reason why the New Democratic Party will not vote in support of the bill is that it is fundamentally flawed.

It is fundamentally flawed because it takes the approach that what is really needed in order to make sure that young people can access our post-secondary education system is just for their families to act more responsibly and, in order to get them to act more responsibly, the government needs to put some money out front, a small number of dollars, a token in terms of the actual cost of post-secondary education, and then families will act more responsibly.

They will learn from this because it is an important symbol. The government is saying that post-secondary education is so important that it is prepared to put some money into people's pockets to take out a registered education savings plan and that will take care of the educational needs of their children in the future.

This is a false signal, because of course the real problem with post-secondary education is that for yesterday's students, they are now crippled with debt. For today's students, their educational quality of experience is being eroded because they are so desperately trying to work at part time and underpaid jobs, which robs them of attending classes and getting assignments done and so on to pay for the privilege of being there, or they are having to drop out because the debt load has become so great that they simply cannot carry on.

Even for tomorrow's students the problem is not solved with the bill that is before us, because tuition is going up and up, the government has massively eroded its commitment of dollars to post-secondary education, and students simply are not able to get into the system in the first place in many cases.

Why? Because the government's commitment--and not the commitment of low income families who are supposed to be the target of the bill and who are supposed to be able to solve the problem by pulling savings out of their pockets--to post-secondary education is woefully inadequate. It represents doublespeak by the government. It is constantly reminding young people of the importance of post-secondary education to their future, which of course is absolutely true, but then the government acts so irresponsibly that it makes that post-secondary education virtually inaccessible for large numbers of students.

I know it is a subject for another day and it is certainly a subject when it comes to the budgetary priorities of the government as we go into the next budget, but the reality is that the government has so massively and unilaterally withdrawn dollars from post-secondary education that we have sent exactly the wrong signal to all Canadians about whether it is really important or not.

The result is that we have students faced with crippling debts. As an outstanding student leader in my own riding said during a debate in the recent election, what used to be a student crisis has now become a family crisis for a great many people in this country, especially low and modest income families, and I want to say especially families that live in the least prosperous areas, because it becomes part of an out-migration policy of our youth.

I know that one of our elected members from Cape Breton absolutely understands this: that not having adequate funding for post-secondary education at the public level becomes a deportation policy from rural areas, from remote areas and certainly from Cape Breton. I have to say that one of the most eloquent presentations before the human resources committee on this bill came from the spokespersons for and the representatives of the students at Cape Breton college, the University College of Cape Breton. I apologize for tripping over that name; unbelievably, I understand that UCCB is in the process of stripping “Cape Breton” out of the name. But that is another topic.

I want to get to what it is about the bill that is so absolutely flawed, and it borders on the immoral. The rhetoric, the flourish around the bill is it is about helping low income students first and foremost. This is simply a number's crunch that will lead to the conclusion shared with the committee, and particularly by an outstanding Quebec economist who gave us the numbers, that this is a bogus bill because the principal beneficiaries of it would be those earning over $70,000 a year.

It is no good for government members to get up as they have and say that is not the intention of the bill. They say that the intention of the bill is to help those in the lowest income category. If that is its intention, it does not live up to its billing. It does not deliver on its intentions. In that sense, it is fundamentally flawed, dishonest and it is immoral. Bill C-5 purports to do one thing, but it would do something different from that.

Students, from low income and modest income families across the country, who did their homework on the legislation, non-governmental agencies and community-based groups, whose resources and expertise are primarily allocated to helping low income families deal with the challenges they face to get into post-secondary educational institutions, came before the committee. With two exceptions only, every one of them said that the bill should be scrapped.

The reason given by those who spoke from the other three parties in support of the bill is that it would be better than nothing. Why? It is either the bogus claim that it will benefit low income families, which it will not, or in some ways worse still, it shows an impoverished state of mind and a lack of understanding of the problem.

I will not name any members when I say this, but I find it repugnant that several members said to me that they agreed with my analysis of the bill and that they had listened to all the witnesses who appeared before the committee who had said the bill should be scrapped. However, they admitted that they would not look good if it appeared they would not support giving money to low income people. I call that a lack of principle as well as a lack of leadership.

The voices that have expressed themselves in opposition to the bill and that have said to scrap it include, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Canadian Council on Social Development, the National Anti-Poverty Organization, the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada and Low Income Families Together. The most stunning thing of all is the fact that the Bloc would support Bill C-5 in defiance of the eloquent, informed pleadings of la Fédération étudiante Universitaire du Québec, a group of highly informed students who represent the whole student body in the province of Quebec. These students also told us to scrap the bill because they felt it was offensive.

Another group from Quebec that also told the committee to scrap the bill was the Fédération des associations de familles monoparentales et recomposées du Québec, or in other words, the federation of single parent and blended family association.

The economist about whom I spoke briefly, André Lareau, a highly respected professor at Laval University, made it clear in his detailed analysis that the chief beneficiaries of Bill C-5 would be the highest income earners in Canada, not the lowest income earners.

Let me make one more plea. It is never too late to change one's mind. There is nothing weak-kneed or feeble-minded about changing one's mind in the face of the facts and the voices that came forward and who pleaded to scrap this bill. There is nothing wrong with changing one's mind in the face of the evidence.

This is what Ian Boyko of the Canadian Federation of Students said:

To begin with, we believe the learning bond will not get anywhere close to the heart of the problem. Just speaking in purely financial terms, the amount of money that low-income Canadians may accumulate under the learning bond will be wholly inadequate to cope with the rapidly increasing costs of colleges and universities in most jurisdictions. Until spiralling tuition fees are brought under control, the federal government is just throwing good money after bad money in student financial aid.

Let us remember that the majority of the OECD countries have tuition free post-secondary education. In addition to tuition free post-secondary education, there are a good many countries that are far less prosperous than Canada that also provide considerable financial support in terms of living costs and helping to cover related costs to post-secondary education.

This is what the national director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations said, apparently falling completely on deaf ears in the House of Commons, except for the New Democratic Party caucus. He said:

The greatest problem of learning bonds, however, is that they place heavy expectations on low-income families that simply do not have the resources to contribute significant amounts annually to an RESP for each of their children. Even if families are completely aware of the benefits of saving for education, low-income Canadians cannot afford to save the necessary funds to pay for education funds while still putting food on the table. As we've said before, it's like giving a low-income family $500 and a Mercedes-Benz and expecting them to finance the rest of the car.

Finally, I want to quote from the very powerful testimony of the representative from the University College of Cape Breton. Jamie Crane is a woman leader at UCCB. She said:

Low-income families, even if they did have the time to invest in registered savings plans, would not be able to contribute huge sums each year. Add that to the small amount of $2,000 that the government would contribute in the Canada Learning Bond and we're not looking at an amount that would even allow a child of a low-income family, or even a middle-income family, for that matter, to get their foot in the door, considering the rate at which we know tuition is estimated to rise over the next 10 to 20 years.

One really ugly charge has been made about the student leaders in the country today, which includes the Canadian Federation of Students, CASA and the Quebec federation of students to which I have referred, Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec. That charge has been made by some of those who support the bill, but criticize the student leadership. They have said that they only care about themselves, that only care that they are facing crippling debts and that they are not willing to let the government introduce a bill that will, and let us be clear about this, only begin to benefit a student for the first time 18 years from now.

That completely ignores the fact that all the other education stakeholders who have spoken, who very much have a long term investment and interest in the post-secondary education system, have also condemned this bill as ill-conceived, inadequate and a false signal to Canadians that what needs to be done about the financing of post-secondary education is actually accomplished by this bill.

Furthermore, as I have already said, every one of the community-based organizations, the NGOs, the non-profits, the research bodies, whose sole focus is on the question of how to help give low and modest income families a leg up in meeting the challenges that they face in this world, have also condemned the legislation as flawed, inadequate and not supportable.

At the end of the day, I hope it is never too late to say to people that we are supposedly in a minority Parliament that is more receptive, not less receptive, and more responsive to hearing the voices of Canadians. We have heard overwhelmingly voices that have informed themselves on the bill. They have analyzed and experienced this. They have lived and breathed every day the challenges that students and their families of yesterday, today and tomorrow have faced and that their community have faced in trying to support them. They have all said to scrap this legislation. This is supposed to be a Parliament that is renewing democracy. How is it a signal that the democratic process is alive and well and more responsive today when just about every witness and those who have commented outside of the hearings before the human resources committee have said that the bill should not be supported?

The voices that have said to scrap this bill have not done so because they are unaware of what is needed for low income families to support their young people to get an education. The single parent and blended family association from Quebec is stunned that it does not have the support of the Bloc in its position. It has said that since access to quality education is one of the surest ways to fight poverty, it should be one of the federal government's priorities, coming well before tax benefits for the more affluent. However, the bill effectively is about a tax benefit primarily for the most affluent. Not that this is the intention. I see the impatience of some members, wondering how I can say that. I can say it because that is the fact of it. That is what the figures clearly indicate.

We know there are a great many low income families who are struggling now to figure out how to pay for their groceries and rent and at the same time have money left over to help pay for school supplies and equipment of their elementary, junior and senior high sons and daughters. They are trying to help support them through the education system.

I again implore members not to close their ears to the voices that have been speaking out and pleading with us to address the real problems with respect to access and crippling education debt for today's and tomorrow's post-secondary students.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

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.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

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.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

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.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, personally, I am a journeyman carpenter. I am not university educated. I hold great value in the idea that not everyone chooses the academic route for their post-secondary learning.

When people ask me what my education is, I show them my carpenter's certificate with as much pride as people who show copies of their B.A. that they hang on the wall. I certainly value other types of post-secondary education, and in fact life-long learning. I will concede that some of the remarks from Liberals on the government side today, in speaking about Bill C-5, were that the money saved in this account could be applied later in life for life-long learning or career change education. I recognize that as a valuable thing.

I view the skilled trades as post-secondary education. I would encourage young people to consider going into these skilled trades as a viable career option. It is a well-paid viable career option. I have friends who worked at the Husky upgrader in the member's home province and who 10 years ago were making $60,000 and $70,000 a year as pipefitters et cetera, although unionized pipefitters. There is a good life to be made in the skilled trades as long as workers belong to the appropriate building trades union.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we view this policy change as a shot across the bow on aboriginal and treaty rights and changing the definition of what education means as it pertains to aboriginal and treaty rights.

This is a fundamental shift, a unilateral policy shift by the government. Were it viewed as an aboriginal and treaty right by the government, there would be a requirement for a consultation process. The government is allowed to deviate from constitutional rights as they pertain to aboriginal people but only with justification, which is what the recent court rulings have told us.

In extreme and rare cases where there is justification, then the government may in fact deviate from these constitutionally protected rights usually with compensation and after consultation. Consultation does not mean just posting the change. It means accommodating some of the views expressed by the other party. Therefore, consultation with accommodation is a much different thing than the government unilaterally firing this salvo on the issue of whether or not education is to be considered an aboriginal or treaty right.

The reservations that I raised about Bill C-5 could be summed up in a simple way. I think I speak on behalf of many of the stakeholders who came before the committee. They said to take the same amount of money that we were dedicating into this program and put it back into the Canada health and social transfer so that the provinces could adequately fund the universities and cope with some of the systematic cutbacks of the last 10, 12, and 15 years, The government paid down the deficit and at least one-third of the money that it put toward the debt came from savings in the Canada health and social transfer. That is education, health and social welfare.

The government must have predictions. Its policy people must have worked out the total cost of this program. If it were to apply the total cost, it could put that back into the CHST and let the provinces shore up their sagging post-secondary education structure in bricks and mortar and fund those programs.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of Bill C-5 and the principle of helping aboriginal youth to get an education.

The member misspoke himself on the example he used about $10,000 being given to students and that they would be taxed 40% right off the top. The fact of the matter is that every taxpayer in Canada is eligible for a personal non-refundable tax credit which is worth some $8,000 plus the tuition itself as a tuition expense deduction, plus there is the education expense deduction.

In fact, the person would pay no tax, not 40% off the top. Indeed, the unused amount of the tuition and the education expense deduction are transferable to the parents, so that they can use it to reduce their income. The member misspoke himself and I hope he will be able to acknowledge that.

I would also like to suggest that across the board benefits are very expensive. The reason we would want to tax or include the amounts paid to someone for this benefit and include it in income is because there are some people who do not need it. If we apply it across the board, we are taking a defined pie and spreading it very thinly as opposed to paying a higher level of benefits to those who really need it.

I raise those points for the member's consideration and I would entertain his comments.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity on behalf of the NDP caucus to join the debate on Bill C-5 at third reading. At this point in time, we have listened to this debate in the House of Commons and at committee.

The first observation that comes to mind, which I would share with members listening today, is that virtually all of the stakeholders that are knowledgeable about the issue of access to post-secondary education are critical of Bill C-5. They do not support Bill C-5.

One would think that if the bill had merits, if the bill was hitting the mark, if the bill was actually going to meet the needs out there, we would have some kind of a split, maybe sixty-forty or seventy-thirty or eighty-twenty. One would think some stakeholders would have been motivated to come to the committee and share with MPs and the political parties they represent that this in fact was a bill that had merit, that they thought it would address the issue of access to post-secondary education, but there were none.

I think it is only fair that we should be guided by the input that we get at the standing committee. We should take guidance from what we hear from Canadians and the associations and organizations that ordinary Canadians form and we should take it seriously.

The federal government is introducing this measure to offset what it has done with post-secondary education, which is to cut, hack and slash the transfer payments in the Canada health and social transfer from which the provinces draw post-secondary education funding.

We believe that the measures found in Bill C-5 will not offset the drastic effect that these cutbacks have had over these past many years. We believe that Bill C-5 falls well short of making up for the effect of the cutbacks in social transfers. We should remind people that the Canada health and social transfer pays for health, post-secondary education and social allowances. There is no dedicated budget line for post-secondary education. This is block funding. It is all grouped together. It is up to the various provinces to do the best they can with that block funding to meet those three very important social needs: health care, education and social allowances.

Most provinces have been unable to backfill the cutbacks from the federal government without dramatic tuition increases. In the province of Manitoba where I come from, Winnipeg Centre, we wrestle with this every budget year. So far we have managed to freeze tuition increases since 1999 so we have reasonable tuition fees in relation to the other provinces, but it is still a very difficult situation for many who wish to further their education.

What we find fault with in Bill C-5 is not just the content of the bill but the very tone of the bill. This in fact is why the member for Halifax moved the amendment at report stage to delete the stated purpose in Bill C-5. The amendment she moved called into account the fact that this bill calls upon low income people, essentially, to encourage them to save for their children's futures.

That all sounds very good on paper, but nowhere in the tone of the bill or the tone of the stated purpose of the bill does it take into consideration that many people do not have the luxury of that choice, of “How much this month will I put toward my children's education?” If in fact they are seized with basic needs issues and their monthly spending choice is about paying the rent or buying food or buying clothes for their children, how much they are going to put toward their children's educations is not a luxury they have to wrestle with.

Nowhere is this more true than in the inner city riding of Winnipeg Centre that I represent. It is the third poorest riding in Canada. I see on a daily basis the predictable consequences of chronic, long term poverty, with parents, many of them heads of single parent families, struggling to meet the basic needs. It is not a matter of these people pulling up their bootstraps and making smart investments to pay for their children's post-secondary education. When we are struggling with meeting basic needs, it is not really something we can plan, no matter whether the government is going to assist us in that saving or not.

On a larger scale, this type of plan is similar to some of the funding announcements that the federal government has made for other provincial spending where it calls for matched dollars. In some recent programs, after a decade of cutbacks, as the faucet is turned back on, more often than not the federal government has put strings attached to this funding that has to be matched by the provinces or the municipalities. This never happens because the provinces and the municipalities are already struggling under the weight of trying to make up for the shortfall in the transfer of money over the past decade.

It is a bit of a smoke and mirror game where the federal government can say that it has announced spending in a certain sector and that it is being generous in its transfer to the provinces but what it does not tell the public is that the money is conditional on being matched by the province or the municipality, which rarely happens.

Money therefore is left on the table because the province or the municipality is unable to match the dollars. This is the same sort of policy guideline here. The government is looking to low income people to avail themselves of a program in which they cannot afford to participate.

As I mentioned at the outset, none of the stakeholders on this issue are fans of Bill C-5. It is helpful for us to look at some of the comments that they made. When they came and made representation to the standing committee they made many clear, articulate and well thought out objections to the program.

The president of the University College of Cape Breton noted, “As a parent who is currently enrolled in Canada's PSE system and struggling to support children, I find it an insult that the government believes it has to tell me about the importance of post-secondary education through the Canada learning bond”.

This woman was pointing out I suppose more the tone of the bill rather than the content. It is critical all the same. This particular witness went on to say “Bill C-5 would not help women who were working hard, not just to lift themselves and their children out of poverty, but who were genuinely trying to gain an education”.

That was actually a comment from the Federation of Single Parent and Blended Family Association, which represents 60 other associations from all regions of Quebec. Their argument was that the bill would not help that demographic group that is seeking to better themselves through education.

I think we are all cognizant of the fact that the way to go from poverty to middle class in one generation is through education. Therefore the New Democratic Party believes that extraordinary measures are justified if we are to deal with the embarrassing number of Canadian families and children who are living in poverty.

In my riding of Winnipeg Centre, the statistics are shocking. Forty-seven per cent of all families in my riding live below the poverty line. Fifty-two per cent of all the children in my riding live below the poverty line. One would not think that would be the case in a modern, cosmopolitan city like Winnipeg but it is the case.

We were hoping that the government would be thinking outside the box when it came to providing better access to post-secondary education for students, no matter what their means testing or what their parents' income.

After seven surplus budgets one would expect some bold policy statements from the government rather than this document, Bill C-5, which is essentially telling poor people to pull up their boot straps, save their pin money and the government will maybe help match that up to a very small amount per year.

Instead of that kind of patronizing attitude, we expected something bolder. I do not know why people in this House of Commons, where we should be having debates about broader abstract policy issues, are not talking about free education for post-secondary education.

Knowing what we know now, that kindergarten to grade 12 is not good enough, why are we not talking about using this budgetary surplus, or part of it, to broaden the public schools acts in the provinces to say that education should mean kindergarten through one's first degree for instance, or phase that policy in by saying that the student's first year of university education will be picked up by the government.

This is the kind of bold thinking that we would expect. We could have the debate about how that will be paid for, but I do not hear anyone putting forward the idea that if a person cannot get by in today's workforce without at least one university degree, why are we talking about the public schools act being extended to include kindergarten through 12 and one's first university degree. If a person wants to specialized then he or she can find ways to finance that tuition.

If that had been the starting point of this debate perhaps then we could have had people tell us why it would be difficult or tough to implement, or to debate how we would get the financing for that. However I do not hear that kind of thing being debated here. I hear nickel-and-diming to offset the cutbacks to post-secondary education that has occurred in the last year which has put such a terrible stress on the provinces to finance the institutions that were once international leaders in terms of adequately funded institutions for which we could be proud.

The University of Winnipeg has a net mesh surrounding the exterior of Wesley Hall so that bits of crumbling brick and mortar do not fall on the students' heads as they go to university. That is the crumbling state of the institutions across the country, both figuratively and literally, because as much as there is stress on the physical side, there is an equal amount of stress on the budget to pay salaries, provide research money and to be at the leading edge of the subject matter on which they are supposed to be authorities. Our post-secondary structure is crumbling through neglect because it has not been prioritized.

For all the flowery and romantic language we hear from the Prime Minister and others that post-secondary education is the vehicle by which a generation shall rise from poverty, et cetera, access is getting more difficult. Yes, more students are going to university, so statistically the tuition rates have not been an absolute barrier to participation, but when we look at who is getting to go, it is not the children of the families who need it most. It is the children of middle class and well off families who are prioritizing education because they know they need at least one degree to make it in the world today.

That brings me to another aspect of my riding of Winnipeg Centre. I have an urban aboriginal population of over 16,000 who self-identify as aboriginal on the census. We believe there are many more who have come since the census was taken and some who do not fill out that box on the census. I raise this only to indicate that the stated policy objective of the Minister of Indian Affairs for this Parliament is to get more aboriginal and first nations kids into post-secondary education to help build the administrative capacity in that population and help lead their people out of the abject poverty that we know is a national social tragedy.

However this incredible glaring contradiction exists, which will come into effect on January 1. The government will start taxing all the benefits given to first nations kids for post-secondary education by their community as income. What a glaring contradiction. It should be exposed here in the House of Commons and it should be exposed publicly because the predictable consequence of this action will be that fewer first nations kids will be able to go to university. If they are given $10,000 this year to pay for tuition and living out expenses and they have to pay 40% of that off the top in taxes, the community will have to give them more money to live, ergo they can send fewer kids to school, ergo there will be fewer kids in university from first nations and aboriginal backgrounds.

This is more about a shot across the bow on aboriginal and treaty rights than it is about any kind of logic having to do with post-secondary education. I am critical of the government for coming through the back door in what I believe is a cowardly way. If the Liberals cannot win the debate publicly that they do not accept post-secondary education as an aboriginal and treaty right, they are trying to introduce this concept by saying that because we only view post-secondary education as a government policy, not an aboriginal and treaty right, we can unilaterally and arbitrarily change that policy and start viewing it as income and therefore taxable. That is the disagreeable part of this fundamental policy shift, notwithstanding the disagreeable nature of the predictable results, which will be fewer aboriginal kids in university. However, coming in through the back door with this kind of change is a shot across the bow on aboriginal and treaty rights.

Education has always been an aspect of treaty rights and the courts have always viewed education to be open-ended. However, to be fair, when the treaties were signed nobody ever expected an Indian would want to go to university. Maybe they were talking about education as basic literacy or basic reading and writing, but the courts have viewed education to be open-ended. There is no stated limit. In the absence of any language to the contrary in these treaties, education was viewed to be education period.

As of January 1 the government will challenge that orthodoxy. The government will say that it views aboriginal rights to education to mean kindergarten to grade 12 and that anything else is an optional government policy that it will allocate and award at its pleasure or will change the nature unilaterally without consultation at its pleasure.

If this is an indication of how the government is trying to deviate from or derogate aboriginal and treaty rights, it is very worrisome. It is also contrary to the flowery and even romantic language with which the Prime Minister began his tenure in this Parliament with the smudging ceremony and the Speech from the Throne that cited aboriginal progress, in the social tragedy that is aboriginal life in this country, as the number one key priority of his government, when it seems the government is going to chip away and erode aboriginal and treaty rights and look toward a completely different mindset in addressing those issues.

I could not make a speech on post-secondary education without mentioning this, as I am reluctant to deviate from the comments that have been made on Bill C-5. Bill C-5 and post-secondary education policy in my riding means aboriginal access to post-secondary education. I believe it is related in a way that is unavoidable.

I do not see how the government can ignore the fact that virtually every one of the stakeholders who came before the committee to speak to Bill C-5 criticized it resoundingly and made the point that it was going in the wrong direction. They were not satisfied.

Mr. James Kusie, the national director of Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, said:

The greatest problem of learning bonds, however, is that they place heavy expectations on low-income families that simply do not have the resources to contribute significant amounts annually to an RESP for each of their children. Even if families are completely aware of the benefits of saving for education, low-income Canadians cannot afford to save the necessary funds to pay for education funds while still putting food on the table. ...it's like giving a low-income family $500 and a Mercedes-Benz and expecting them to finance the rest of the car.

What a profound statement from Mr. James Kusie, the national director of CASA, who is probably a student himself. His statement accurately reflects the reservations that we have about Bill C-5.

[Alain Boire, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member said, as of January 1, tuition fees for aboriginal students will be taxed. I cannot comment on this point, because I was not aware of that.

I can say, however, that the Bloc Québécois proposed an amendment to Bill C-5 at committee. The purpose of this amendment is to help part-time students in financial difficulty, who have to work to put themselves through university, make ends meet. This aspect was not covered in Bill C-5. This way, less well-off students could take advantage of the provisions of Bill C-5.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the government is stating, by introducing Bill C-5, that it is a key priority to have more people access post-secondary education. I sit on the aboriginal affairs committee and we have heard our Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development say that one of his number one priorities is to get more aboriginal students into post-secondary education, so as to give them the administrative capacity to lead their people out of poverty.

As of January 1 this year any tuition money or living costs given by a first nation to an aboriginal student to go to university will in fact be taxed. This is a first. This is new. The government will begin taxing these benefits and the predictable result will be that the student will have less money to pay for income costs associated with being at university and the first nation will be able to send fewer aboriginal students to university.

Would the member, in his background and knowledge on post-secondary education, share the view that it is completely contrary to getting more aboriginal students into university by taxing their tuition and living costs paid by the community which sent them?

[Alain Boire, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we did hear representatives of the Quebec Federation of University Students at committee. As the hon. member indicated, the federation certainly takes a position for which we have great respect. However, I do not think they did the same research as us. Of course, the federation would like to resolve the problem for all of Quebec.

At present, Bill C-5 is designed to provide financial assistance to less well-off families, which means to individuals who cannot afford to go to university. That is why the bill provides for students in financial difficulty to receive $3,000 toward starting a university education.

There is no doubt that this bill will help families who are cash strapped. It cannot hurt. It is better than a pat on the back. What the QFUS states specifically in its report is that it wants the program in Quebec to be improved so that the problem is resolved once and for all. That particular problem cannot be resolved through Bill C-5.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, our research into this bill tells us that virtually no one across the country thinks this bill is a good idea or thinks this methodology is wise. Almost every stakeholder that came before the committee objected strenuously and said that the government was going in the wrong direction in the introduction of this bill for some of the reasons cited by my colleague from Hamilton.

There was a representation made to the committee in the province of Quebec. I have one reference from one of the witnesses to the committee on Bill C-5. His name was Mr. Pier-André Bouchard St-Amant, the President of the Quebec Federation of University Students. He represents 140,000 university students in the province of Quebec. He clearly stated:

We feel that this program provides assistance to people who don't necessarily need it. When you can already save $2,000 for post-secondary studies, it's not particularly useful for the government to supplement that with $400 in a registered savings plan. Therefore, the FEUQ believes that assistance should focus on those people who do not necessarily have the means to save for postsecondary education.

In other words, if people already have the ability to put money away from their income, that is not the group that should be targeted. Our focus should concentrate on those who are unable and there should not be any complicated scheme associated with it. It should simply be an access issue. The province of Quebec has done very well to keep tuitions down. I compliment the province of Quebec for the priority it has put on post-secondary education. Even though the federal government has cut and hacked, and slashed transfers for education to the provinces, Quebec prioritized education and I admire that.

I would like him to comment on the remarks from the president of the Quebec Federation of University Students. I would also like him to comment on the remarks from Professor André Lareau from Laval University. He criticized Bill C-5 by saying:

However, one of the objectives of the tax system is to distribute wealth fairly. How can we justify a government financial assistance program that targets the well-off members of society? To summarize, richer families are the big winners in the income splitting that results from the education savings plan, and they benefit from these amounts, because their children are less likely to have to work.

We have two credible authorities from the province of Quebec who are very critical of Bill C-5. I ask the member if he has taken those remarks into consideration as the Bloc Quebecois supports this bill.

[Alain Boire, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the social principle of Bill C-5, because creating an education savings bond program will help lower-income families generate savings so their children can have access to post-secondary education, which the Canada education savings grant did not do.

The Bloc Québécois is also in favour of enhancing the Canada education savings grant, a tax measure that benefits lower- and middle-income families.

Bill C-5 also helps lower-income families take advantage of the benefits of registered education savings plans and Canada education savings grants, which already benefit wealthier families.

However, this bill contains several flaws. The learning bonds will not help Quebec and the provinces provide quality education, because they do not provide any concrete measures to do so. They make students pay for part of their post-secondary education but do not improve the quality of that education.

The Canada education savings grant and the education savings bond program are not the best ways to fund and promote post-secondary education. An increase in direct federal transfer payments to Quebec and the provinces remains the best and cheapest solution.

Forty million dollars has been allocated to administer the program during the first three years. The administrative costs seem excessive. It is costing more than $13 million per year to distribute $80 million.

As a result of the fiscal imbalance that it created, the federal government must now provide financial assistance so students can access post-secondary education, since transfer payments to the provinces for education have been slashed.

Neither the education savings bond program nor the enhancement of the Canada education savings grant are helping Quebec to provide quality education. The bill must be accompanied by an increase in the CHST, since now is when students in Quebec need financial assistance and a quality education, not just 18 years from now.

Correcting the fiscal imbalance and reinstating equitable transfers between provinces would permit the Government of Quebec, which is the best placed to understand the reality in Quebec, to support Quebec's students appropriately. Quebec already has a loans and scholarships program, which it could greatly improve if it had the funds provided for under the Canada Education Savings Act.

The budget of this program includes funding for the creation of a management system to administer the registration of children born after 2003. As well, there needs to be an advertising budget for encouraging families to take advantage of the new measures in this bill, in order to avoid a repetition of the situation with the guaranteed income supplement, with those eligible not having any idea that they were.

We are quite used to the federal propensity to underestimate costs. One need look no further than the firearms registry for an example.

The government has no idea what the annual costs of administering the measures announced in Bill C-5 will be. These will, according to it, be determined after an analysis of the first three years of the program's operation.

The Government of Quebec could have distributed this money to students in greatest need at no additional cost, if the Canadian health and social services transfer had been increased. We could then save the annual administration costs of the program, which total $13 million, and improve equalization payments to the provinces.

We also again deplore the federal disengagement from education. Since the early nineties, federal transfers for post-secondary education have dropped drastically, and this bill will not, of course, compensate for the 40% that has been lost

We have long been aware of the federal government's decision to give priority to debt repayment, excessive spending and its own bureaucracy, rather than to health, education and social services. That is how the fiscal imbalance was created. The federal contribution to total expenditures in education and social programs is now less than 12%.

Instead of creating a learning bond program, would it not be wiser for the government to give the provinces the means to fund their own educational system and to use part of the recently announced federal surplus of $9.1 billion to invest in youth?

Remedying fiscal imbalance would be an absolutely simple solution to the post-secondary education funding shortfall, and would result in a substantial increase in post-secondary funding.

The Quebec education system is suffering from insufficient resources because of the cuts to the transfer payments. Both financial resources and teaching resources are lacking, despite the valiant efforts made by the Government of Quebec with what little it has.

The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Canadian Federation of Students have also denounced the federal government's refusal to increase post-secondary education transfer payments by $4 billion to compensate for the cuts during the 1990s.

This money would have given Quebec more room to manoeuvre in order to reinvest in universities and reduce tuition fees. Over the past 40 years, Quebec has had the lowest rate of post-secondary enrolment in North America. In 1960, only 63% of students who entered primary school completed their seventh year, barely 13% of francophones completed 11 years of schooling and only 3% went on to university.

Quebec made a decision to increase access and the results have been spectacular. Enrolment in Quebec has almost reached the level of the rest of Canada in certain fields and has even surpassed it in others. This emphasis on accessibility is supported by three elements.

First, Quebec enjoys a level of public financing for education higher than that of the rest of Canada. Second, the tuition fees are lower. Unlike in Quebec, 75% of university under-funding in the rest of Canada is covered by tuition fees. In Quebec, average university tuition fees are $1,625 annually. In English Canada, they are three times higher, at $4,825 a year. Finally, Quebec has a more generous financial assistance program. Quebec is the only part of Canada with a program of loans and bursaries.

When they complete their studies, Quebec students face an average of $13,000 in debt, whereas students in other provinces are faced with a debt of $25,000. Once again, Quebec provides a model for Canada with its free education system.

In conclusion, when Ottawa wants to interfere in provincial jurisdictions, it is to standardize rules across Canada. But in a number of fields, Quebec stands out as an example, with specific programs better tailored to meet the needs of its population.

Given the current context, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-5, while reminding the government that if it were to accept its own responsibilities at last, and stop spending money on a vast range of programs that are expensive to administer, it could return to the provinces the money that rightfully belongs to them and that has been denied to them by the fiscal imbalance. In Quebec, we would be able to ensure once and for all the accessibility and quality of the higher education system.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague knows that tuition fees are in the jurisdiction of the provinces. Therefore, the federal government cannot do anything about controlling those fees.

However, this government has improved the Canada student loan beyond recognition, billions of dollars have gone to students, admittedly in loan form. It set up the millennium scholarship program. A million students, mainly low income students, will receive millennium scholarships. It has set up other scholarship programs. In the last budget it established the $3,000 first year tuition payment for low income students. It established the $3,000 per year, of the current undergraduate year, for disabled students.

I would suggest that the government, given that it cannot control tuition fees, has done more than any other federal government ever has to support students. As a result, we have the highest participation in post-secondary education in the world.

The member is right. There are still many problems. Bill C-5 is a different tactic. We know that despite the fact that enrolment has gone up in the post-secondary institutions and despite these scholarship, grant and loan programs which we have established, participation in the low income groups is not there. There are a variety of reasons for that. This is a different point.

I believe the bond and the money that it will provide to young persons when they reach the age of majority is very useful. They will be able to use that for apprenticeships or any sort of post-graduate education. It is in some ways not a huge sum of money.

The important thing is that from birth, a family will know that it is helping to put aside some money for that child's post-secondary education. It will make these families think throughout the child's growth that post-secondary education is possibility. Our target is to encourage these families to look at post-secondary education. Many of them, if they did, would already discover that their children could afford to go to higher education. At the present time they simply do not.

Therefore, I would say to may colleague, and I know his interest in these matters, that the purpose of the bill is different than scholarship programs, loan programs and the like.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. His party has put forward the point of view that it will solve the problem of high tuition fees and, generally, access to post-secondary education with virtually every idea but what is really needed, which is out and out grants to enable more people to get into post-secondary education.

I heard the head of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations say that it viewed the scheme under Bill C-5 as comparable to giving students a $500 grant and a Mercedes-Benz, then making them make the rest of the payments on a car they could afford. In other words, it does not address the basic issue of access to post-secondary education in its purest form.

The hon. member is very knowledgeable of these things. I know he comes from a background of the post-secondary education system. However, he has danced all around the main fundamental issue of access for students and crippling and spiralling out of control tuition costs, which means fewer and fewer people from low income families can afford to go to school.

Does the hon. member honestly believe that Bill C-5 answers the pertinent questions about access to post-secondary education?

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, I especially welcome the opportunity to join in the debate on third reading of Bill C-5. I have participated in discussion on the bill both in this place and in committee. I am concerned that many of the comments I hear are not about Bill C-5 at all.

Bill C-5 has three key objectives. It complements the many other ways the government is working to ensure that students who need help with the costs of post-secondary education are able to get it. It will assist and encourage families to save for their children's education by making it easier for them to build the assets they will need in later years. It follows through on a commitment in the Speech from the Throne to increase access to post-secondary education, especially for low income families.

I will expand on this last point a bit, helping lower income families save for post-secondary education. One of the key features of the bill is that it brings a new focus to ensuring that low and middle income families can participate initiatives like the registered education savings plan, the RESP program, and the Canada education savings grant program. These are proving to be very popular with many higher income Canadian families.

Last March the Minister of Finance said in his budget speech that he was concerned that too many Canadians, especially those in low and middle income brackets, see post-secondary education as unattainable, not because of the academic challenge but because the costs are too high. That is why the budget for 2004 provided a needs based grant up to $3,000 for students from low income families to go toward their first year of university.

Bill C-5 includes specific ways the government can move to make it easier for low and middle income Canadians to save for their children's educational needs. For example, the bill introduces the Canada learning bond, which is an innovative way the government can provide families with an upfront cash contribution of $500 to kick-start their education savings plan and to build on it with annual instalments.

Up to and including the age of 15, children born after 2003 into low income families who receive the $500 bond will continue to qualify each year for a $100 Canada learning bond instalment, if the family is entitled to the national child benefit. Over a 16 year period, families could receive a total Canada learning bond of $2,000 per child. If parents never open an RESP, the child will not be penalized. Children will never lose their entitlement for the bond because, at the age of majority, they can then open their own RESP and claim their entitlement up to the age of 21 years.

The Canada learning bond serves as a kick-start to savings. After opening an RESP to deposit the bond, the bill supplies an incentive to save even more by increasing the Canada education savings grant match rates to low and middle income families, increasing them up to 40%. In other words, the bond will provide an important incentive for low income families to set up an RESP, and the enhanced education savings grant match rates will help those savings grow over the years.

If the bill is passed, we estimate that 120,000 newborn Canadian children will benefit from the Canada learning bond this year alone and another 4.5 million could benefit from the enhanced Canada education savings grant.

I do not want to see any of these children left behind. That is why I support this bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

[Joe Comuzzi, Liberal, for the Minister of International Trade]

moved that Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings, be read the third time and passed.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will commence with the third reading debate of Bill C-5, the learning bonds legislation. When that is completed, we will return to the second reading debate of Bill C-22, the social development bill. We will then return to the second reading debate of Bill C-9, the Quebec development bill; followed by second reading of Bill C-25, respecting RADARSAT; reference to committee before second reading of Bill C-27, the food inspection bill; and second reading of Bill C-26, the border services bill.

On Monday and Tuesday we will start with report stage and third reading of Bill C-14, the Tlicho bill, before going back to unfinished business.

Pursuant to Standing Order 53(1) a take note debate on credit cards will take place on Tuesday evening, December 7.

The business on Wednesday will be second reading of a bill to be introduced tomorrow respecting parliamentary compensation.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Finally, the government made a commitment to Canadians to treat compensation of parliamentarians separately and apart from that of judges. It is quite logical to take that step in an independent bill that deals only with the compensation of parliamentarians and to deal with the question of judges in a subsequent bill.

The hon. member seems to suggest that parliamentarians and judges should be treated exactly the same. We think that Canadians recognize that their respective duties, tenure and roles are quite different and that in fact they should be dealt with differently and separately. That is why we will be introducing the bill on MP compensation and dealing with it next week.

Canada Education Savings Act

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

moved that Bill C-5, as amended, be concurred in.

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the motions at the report stage of Bill C-5.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to say for the record that I am disappointed in the position that the Bloc has taken on Bill C-5. I always felt that the Bloc was a kindred spirit in many ways on issues of social policy and in understanding what is really needed for those of modest means to fully participate in our society. Quebec has done some very progressive things that members of the Bloc have had a significant hand in. They were very progressive, but this is not a progressive piece of legislation. This is not progressive public policy in any way, shape or form.

I am really disappointed, though, in the disrespectful intervention by the member from the Liberals, the member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell. To suggest for a second that he as a member of Parliament going to university on the side, I guess, in his off hours, was in any way similar to a family living on low income and the struggles it has to face to send either the parents or the children to university, sends us the message that he does not understand. He does not understand what is going on out there. He does not understand the challenges that are faced by poor and modest income families. He does not understand the passion and the understanding of the member for Halifax, who has put forward the amendments we are considering this afternoon.

As a matter of fact, it is not just the members of the New Democratic Party who do not believe that this bill is going to do what the government is suggesting it may do. Every person connected at all with the post-secondary education system who came before the human resources and skills development committee to speak about the bill opposed it. They encouraged us to oppose it as well. If that does not tell us something, I do not know what will.

The second NDP amendment that we are looking at today sought in committee to ensure that the bill would require the minister to clearly define what constitutes undue hardship. Again, when we listened to the intervention a few seconds ago by the member for Glengarry--Prescott--Russell, I guess we began to understand why the minister was not willing to accept that very simple amendment and why the minister would not put something more concrete on the table that would help those folks out there who are trying to get their heads around how this piece of public policy would help them.

Bill C-5 would give the minister broad authority to subjectively assess, in an unaccountable and non-transparent manner, whether a student is experiencing undue hardship. What could be defined by one MP as undue hardship being experienced by a constituent could be rejected by the minister, with no means of appeal.

As a matter of fact, I served for 13 years as a member of the provincial parliament in Ontario and over the last 6 to 10 years I have seen in that province a deterioration in the ability of families and students to appeal when they have applied for assistance to get relief from the pressure of a loan or debt they incurred because they tried to better themselves to go to post-secondary education.

That appeal system has become almost impossible to access and to get some positive response from. We can imagine a family of modest means or poor means trying to appeal a decision made by government regarding their participation in this program and how difficult and frustrating it would be in the end for them to actually achieve that.

I am standing in my place today as the member for Sault Ste. Marie to support the member for Halifax in her very sincere attempt to bring at least a modicum of sanity to the bill in terms of the two amendments that she put forward so eloquently and effectively at committee only to be defeated by every party in the House with the exception of the New Democratic Party.

They obviously did not understand that this is a bill which from its very inception is nothing more than an exercise in smoke and mirrors by a government looking to curry some favour as it prepares itself to go to the electorate yet again. It in fact would do nothing to better the lot of many Canadian citizens who want to better themselves by going to post-secondary education.

The bill is smoke and mirrors, but it is more than that for me. It is also a very dangerous piece of legislation because what it is doing is encouraging people who are already making some basic decisions on a day to day basis about where they will spend the little bit of money they have.

Many members may have heard of the project out of Ottawa. Low income individuals got together and started a project called “Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids”. That is the kind of decision that families of low and modest incomes are making in our society today. It is not about whether they can afford to go to post-secondary education or not.

These people are at a more basic level than that. They are trying to decide from one day to the next whether they will pay the rent or feed the kids, never mind paying the hydro or providing transportation for themselves or their children to get to places they need to go. It gets boiled right down to whether they can actually feed themselves or feed their children or pay the rent.

This group of people is acting on that level in terms of their income. These are people who are trying to make do and in fact in many instances are making do with the little bit of money they have. They are doing way more than those of us who are in this position of privilege as members of Parliament would be able to do.

To suggest for a second that they should somehow, if they could find some money, perhaps by cashing in the bottles at the end of the month, put that money into some kind of savings plan that will see them into the marketplace, is hocus-pocus. Because that is what this is all about. It is about the managers of funds, those who play the stock market, identifying another source of money that they can actually use to better their own fortune.

It is dangerous to veil that in the cloak of how this is a good program for low income people to set money aside for themselves so they can send their children to school. It is a dangerous road to be going down; it is the same road that we are trying to push workers down when we determine that their pension plan should be an RRSP program instead of a fixed pension plan such as that which is championed by organized labour in this country.

It is the same kind of hocus-pocus that is being perpetrated on working men and working women in this province. Now, by means of this bill, it would be perpetrated on some of our lowest income families. It suggests that they might set aside some money, throw it into the market and see it grow. Yes, it will grow, all right; it will go is what will happen to it. It will not grow. In fact, that money, if in the first place they have been able to find it to put in, will be gone at the end of the day. It will not be there to help them and their children.

I suggest that this government, if it really wants to put its money where its mouth is, if it really wants to do something, not only for poor families and families of modest income in this country but where post-secondary education is concerned, it should cast its sights across the water to Europe.

Many countries there have decided that post-secondary education is now so important to their economy, their community and their people that there will be no tuition fee for post-secondary education. They have decided to invest in post-secondary education in such a way that those who qualify, those who want to go and take advantage of that opportunity, will in fact not have that obstacle put in front of them. These students can go, maximize the potential they have to be educated, and then come back and participate in their community and the economy of their country.

[Alain Boire, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Madam Speaker, concerning the learning bonds bill, as we announced at a previous reading, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill because one could hardly be against investing in making post-secondary education more broadly accessible, contrary to what the NDP is asking for.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the establishment of the learning bonds program, as this would directly help lower-income families. Families who could not afford it otherwise will be able to save for their children's post-secondary education.

The Bloc Québécois is also in favour of increasing the Canada Education Savings grant because this is a tax measure that benefits middle and lower-income families.

Bill C-5 will allow less well-off families to take advantage of the benefits of the registered education savings plan and the Canada education savings grant, as better off families already do.

I would like to remind the House, however, that neither the learning bonds nor the increase in the Canada education savings grant will help Quebec provide quality education, because they do not give Quebec the means to do so. They force students to cover part of the cost of their post-secondary education, without improving the quality of this education.

This bill should be combined with an increase in the CHST, because now is the time when students in Quebec need financial assistance and quality education, not 18 years from now.

Correcting the fiscal imbalance and restoring fair transfers to the provinces would enable the Government of Quebec, which is in the best position to understand the Quebec reality, to support Quebec's students appropriately.

Quebec already has a loans and grants program, which it could substantially improve with the funding provided under the Canada Education Savings Act. A $40 million budget has been announced to administer the program during its first three years of operation. This budget includes an envelope for setting up the computer system to manage the registration of children born after 2003.

An advertising budget should also be included in order to encourage families to take advantage of the new measures contained in the bill and to avoid the kind of problem encountered with the guaranteed income supplement program and having people who are eligible for the program but do not know that this bill exists

We are used to the federal government's propensity to underestimate. We need look no further than the firearms registry for proof of that. The government does not know what the annual cost of administering the measures set out in Bill C-5 will be. It will be determined by an analysis of the first three years of the program.

It will cost more than $13 million annually to distribute $80 million over the first three years of the bill. The Government of Quebec could have distributed this to students in greatest need at no additional cost if the Canadian health and social services transfer had been increased. We could then save the annual administration costs of the program, which total $13 million, and improve equalization payments to the provinces.

The hon. member for Halifax has brought in a motion today concerning clause 3, calling for its deletion. As presently worded in the bill, clause 3 reads as follows:

The purpose of this Act is to encourage the financing of children's post-secondary education through savings, from early childhood, in registered education savings plans.

Hon. members will understand that clause 3 is the very heart of Bill C-5. Deleting it is tantamount to doing away with the entire bill.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the principle of this bill on learning bonds. It is in favour of the implementation of the learning bond program, because it will provide direct assistance to lower income families. It will enable them to have access to post-secondary studies and not to be penalized for not being able to save money for that purpose.

As well as being in favour of the purpose of the bill, the Bloc asked for an amendment to clause 3 in committee. That amendment reads:

3.1 The Minister shall take measures necessary to carry out the purpose set out in section 3, including making known to Canadians, through informational and promotional activities, the existence of CES grants and Canada Learning Bonds and any terms and conditions.

With this addition, the Bloc Québécois wishes instead to see the object of the bill realized and not have it share the fate of the guaranteed income supplement which some people are not receiving because they are still unaware of its existence.

In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois is opposed to the NDP motion calling for deletion of clause 3 of Bill C-5.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as we resume proceedings, we are debating two report stage amendments to Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings.

The stated purpose of the bill is:

--to encourage the financing of children’s post-secondary education through savings, from early childhood, in registered education savings plans.

The effect of this first amendment, to delete clause 3, would be to actually delete the stated purpose of the bill. Let me be clear about what we are talking about here. Clause 3 purports to serve the purpose of introducing so-called incentives to encourage families to save for their children's future. However, it fails to take into account the reality that many low and fixed income families cannot afford to put money into RESPs.

We heard from witnesses, who appeared before the human resources committee on Bill C-5, that the stated purpose was bogus and that the provisions contained in the bill could not possibly come close to achieving the stated purpose. It was the view of all but one witness of the many who appeared before the committee that Bill C-5 would actually widen the gap between upper income families who can afford to open RESPs for their children and those living on low and fixed incomes who cannot.

It cannot be ignored if there is not to be a total democratic deficit in the work of the human resources committee. Every single organization that spoke to the bill said to scrap it. Fundamentally, there were two reasons why they said to scrap it.

The provisions of the bill do not achieve the stated purpose. It could be documented in dollars and cents that low and modest income families would not be the chief beneficiaries of the bill. The greatest benefits of the bill would go to upper income families who could afford to set aside savings and who could draw down the benefits that are contained in the bill in a way that lower income families could not do.

Student representatives, spokespersons for anti-poverty groups and single parent groups spoke against the bill because it completely failed to address what was really needed to achieve the purpose of opening up accessibility for low and modest income students to our post-secondary education institutions.

There is absolutely nothing in the bill that even purports to address the current post-secondary education crisis that is sweeping this country. Every single education stakeholder who appeared before the committee as a witness demanded that what was needed instead was a needs based grant system instead of this woefully inadequate piece of legislation.

I have heard some people argue that Bill C-5 is better than nothing. The bill would not achieve its stated purpose and that is why we are proposing the deletion of the stated purpose because it is bogus. If it does not actually achieve its stated purpose, at least it does attempt to do something. There would be some people in the low and modest income family category who would benefit from it. It is true that some would benefit. One must take into account whether this is the best use of the money that would be invested.

The reality is that the principal beneficiaries of the money invested will be upper income families and therefore we have to take into account the opportunity cost.

As is proposed in Bill C-5, the forfeited use of that money would be invested. It was the overwhelming contention of everyone that if the government is sincere in its intention to do what is most cost effective in achieving the stated purpose, then that same amount of money will be invested in a needs based system of grants. Anything short of that would be bogus and should not be supported.

For that reason I am appealing to members of all political parties, particularly those who heard the witnesses again and again say that this was not where public dollars should be spent. They said that public dollars should be spent on addressing the crisis in post-secondary education to ensure we have a system of needs based grants, something for which we could all be proud and which together we could all support.

I want to be perfectly fair. We did hear one representative of an organization, unapologetically, which is fair enough, say that his organization supported the bill because his organization was in the business of dealing with registered education savings plans and therefore would be a principal beneficiary of the provisions of the bill.

However I do not think the purpose of the bill is to enrich the investment activities of an organization that is in the business. Nothing is wrong with that, and if that is the intention of the bill, then there will be such beneficiaries, but the stated purpose of the bill is to deal with low income students and families who face a major accessibility problem in gaining entrance into or maintaining their status as students in post-secondary education institutions.

With regard to the first amendment, I ask all members who heard those pleadings and the overwhelming evidence from witnesses, and representatives of all of our respective caucuses who are here to support this amendment, to recognize that the stated purpose of the bill is bogus and to vote in favour of the amendment that is now before us, which is to delete clause 3.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-5, in Clause 13, be amended by adding after line 32 on page 10 the following:

“(l) establishing a process for defining the conditions that constitute undue hardship under subsection 9.1(1) for a beneficiary or the primary caregiver of a beneficiary.”

[The Speaker]

There are two motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-5. Motions Nos. 1 and 2 will be grouped for debate and voted upon separately.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 and 2 to the House.

Committees of the House

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with the opposition motion. Tomorrow we hope to complete third reading of Bill C-7, respecting parks second reading of Bill C-22, the social development legislation, and second reading of Bill C-9, the Quebec economic development bill.

Next week we will give priority to second reading of Bill C-24, the equalization legislation. We also will try to complete any business left over from this week.

When bills come back from the Senate or committee, as the case may be, we will add them to the list. Hopefully this will include Bill S-17 respecting tax treaties and Bill C-5, the learning bonds bill. By the end of the week, we hope to be able to proceed with Bills C-25, the radarsat bill, and Bill C-26, the border services bill.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what the member for Mississauga—Brampton South had to say, and I really enjoyed his speech.

Quite rightly, the member has stressed some examples of the grants which the federal government provides to students in post-secondary education. He mentioned, for example, the millennium scholarships, 95% of which are directly targeted to qualified students who have student debt. I know my colleague knows well from his personal and family background the problems associated with student debt. That is one example.

He also mentioned the first year grant for low income students, which was in the last budget and Speech from the Throne. This directly targets students from very low income families and helps them through the critical first year. It encourages them to go to first year college or university.

He also mentioned the disability grants. Each year of college or university, there now will be a grant for disabled students. Again, we welcome that. It seems to me that there are various areas that we have to focus on in terms of our performance in post-secondary education. We have the highest percentage involvement in post-secondary education in the world. However, we know that in low income families the participation is still very low and we know there are problems with inclusivity of disabled students.

My colleague is absolutely right in mentioning those things. He also put particular emphasis on the Canada learning bond. He explained very well the RESP program, now extremely well established. He quoted those figures of billions of dollars of private savings, which have been encouraged through the RESP program. In addition to that, he mentioned that there was a grant portion in the RESP program, whereby the federal government, up to a certain maximum, would give 20% as a grant to parents who invested in RESPs.

Once we are in the area of grants, just like the millennium scholarship program which is helping students directly, we are also into something else, and that is to encourage the families themselves to invest and think in advance of their children's educations. The Canada learning bond, as my colleague rightly described, is an even greater extension of that. Under that legislation, which is Bill C-5, for families that earn between roughly $35,000 and $70,000, the grant portion of the RESP will be increased from 20% to 30%. Therefore, there will be a greater incentive for the families in that middle income range to invest in RESPs.

The Canada learning bond itself is a grant to families who open an RESP account. Assuming this legislation is passed, for a child born this year or later, if a family with less than $35,000 of income opens an account, $500 will be placed in the account in the name of the child. Every year thereafter, until the child is 15, $100 will be placed in the account. Therefore, there will be a $2,000 grant for that child. However, because it is an RESP program, the family will accumulated interest over the 15 years.

The other possibility is that, even though the family is earning less than $35,000, it might be able to make some contributions itself. If it adds to this grant portion of the Canada learning bond, it will get a 40% contribution. For example, a $10 deposit in the account by the family will produce a $4 response from the federal system.

The purpose of this is quite different from the grants, such as the millennium scholarships or the first year low income student program that we have. The purpose here is to encourage families to think of the educational potential of their children from the very beginning. I think it is something quite special.

I would be most grateful if my colleague would comment further on this aspect of encouraging all families, not simply the wealthier families, to start thinking early about the post-secondary education of their children.

[Françoise Boivin, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to begin by quoting the Prime Minister who said:

We want a Canada where every child arrives at school ready to learn; a Canada where everyone has the opportunity for post-secondary education regardless of geography or means; a Canada where universal literacy and lifelong learning are part of the national fabric.

Full of wisdom and vision, these words summarize entirely the purpose of the bill that is before us today in this House.

In December 2003, the government established the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development through a series of orders in council.

Today, by means of a legislation, we are specifying the mandate and responsibilities of this new department. By the same token, this legislation will formalize the division of Human Resources Development Canada, that is HRDC, into two separate entities.

The goal is not to make economies of scale or reduce the operating expenses. The resources of the previous department, that is Human Resources Development Canada, are rather divided in two in order to obtain better strategic results. That does not mean that we should prepare a negative report on the performance of HRDC for the last decade. On the contrary, this department has rendered valuable services to Canadians, both on the social and economic fronts.

I am thinking of the improved and extended parental benefits plan that allowed thousands of families to fully enjoy their newborn. I am thinking of the implementation of the Canada child tax benefit, deemed the most progressive social action since the universal health care plan. I am also thinking of the youth employment strategy that allowed thousands of young people to regain confidence and to realize that there was a future for them in this country. I am thinking of the transition from unemployment insurance to employment insurance that steered our society toward employability.

In 2003-04, more than 700,000 Canadians received help from the department through the employment benefits paid under the Employment Insurance Act. In Quebec, more that 50,000 people re-entering the labour force received assistance.

I am also thinking of all the measures put forward to ensure that certain groups facing specific difficulties, like native Canadians, handicapped people, older and seasonal workers, can fulfill their dream.

All these measures, programs and initiatives are a testimony to the considerable efforts made by HRDC to strengthen the social fabric of Canadian life.

With this bill today, we are proposing to start writing a new chapter, without erasing the previous ones of course. In short, this bill gives the Human Resources and Skills Development minister and department the mandate, legal powers and tools to ensure that the labour market and the skills development programs, including support programs for students, work properly.

If we create this department, it is mainly because our government wants to pay more attention to some important issues, like giving workers more opportunities to develop and increase their expertise in the workforce. We are studying a few issues, including the promotion of training opportunities in skilled trade, literacy training and the enhancement of skills for workers.

This is why we are working with the provinces and the territories, businesses, unions, workers and the sector councils to develop a skills development strategy in the workplace.

Such a strategy would help to develop a highly qualified and dynamic workforce and a flexible and productive labour market, while meeting the needs of employers who want to create productive and innovative workplaces.

In this changing world where new technologies are redefining complete areas of our society, we have a duty to give all of our citizens, young or not so young, the means to educate themselves, to create and to innovate.

The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development spent a good part of his career in education. I am convinced that he will be an important ally in our efforts to ensure that all Canadians can learn and develop at all stages of their lives.

Having worked a lot in the area of labour relations and in numerous businesses before being elected to this House, I can assure you that the successful ones are the ones who emphasize in-house training, the ones that are not just marking time,but who decide to go forward and ensure that their human resources will always keep up with cutting edge technology or with the environment in which they are operating.

Thanks to the new department, we will have the opportunity to intensify our efforts to assure that every youth in this country will be able to get a post-secondary education if he or she wishes so. It is estimated that, in the future, 70% of all new jobs in this country will require post-secondary studies. Moreover, only 6% of jobs will be open to people without a high school diploma. These figures are revealing.

As a country, we can't allow young people gifted with talent and potential to miss the boat of the information age because they lack the financial means to afford an education and to get on board. As a government, we must make sure that they can not only get on board, but take the helm, as soon as possible.

To this end, last month, the minister of Human Resources and Skills Development tabled Bill C-5, aiming among other things, to help lower-income families to save money to eventually pay for post-secondary studies for their children. The bill will also allow such families to take greater advantage of the registered education savings plans and the related subventions.

As you can see, that department will help us to promote access to higher education, but it is clear that its mandate will be extensive and far-reaching. It will help us to face other emerging challenges.

Estimates show that by the year 2011, our workforce will not be able to grow without immigration; by 2020, there will be a shortage of one million workers in Canada; and by 2025, our population growth will depend exclusively on new arrivals. This means that over the next two decades, we will have to ensure that our immigration policies are as effective as possible and allow a total and complete integration of immigrants. If we do not meet this challenge, our ability to ensure an harmonious future to our children and our grandchildren will be broadly questioned, as well as Canada's competitiveness at the international level.

This new department's mandate will be, inter alia, to cooperate with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, other federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, professional licensing bodies, sectoral councils, employers and a large number of other organizations on the important issue of recognizing foreign credentials, in order to facilitate the integration of immigrants in the labour market and in society.

May I digress for a brief moment to talk about the extremely important issue of the recognition of foreign credentials. No later than a week or a week and a half ago, in Gatineau, there was a symposium held by the Conseil interculturel de l'Outaouais, which I am sure you know as well as I do, Mr. Speaker. The theme of that symposium was indeed the recognition of foreign credentials. Having spent the afternoon with them and having had dinner with them, I can tell you that I was absolutely flabbergasted.

One does indeed hear about it. One does hear stories about medical doctors waiting to be recognized and so on. I tried to draw a very dramatic parallel between that problem and our shortage of doctors and nurses, and our shortages of all kinds of skilled people in the Outaouais, among other places. I was looking at that skilled labour which is there, which exists, just waiting to be recognized by Quebec and Canada who were supposed to welcome them with open arms. That really flabbergasted me.

I heard horror stories from people who showed up that day, for example, a dentist from Colombia, a physician from another country, people that Canada will not even have to train in any way, because they are ready to practice. Nevertheless, we must be very realistic; there is always the issue of protecting the public. On the other hand, we must be careful not to hide behind this notion of protecting the public, what I call the closed shop mentality of a number of professional bodies.

As I told the participants that day, on the other hand, we must carefully respect jurisdictions. In this respect, Quebec has obligations. No doubt we will have to work with the Government of Quebec. If we can help it, that will certainly be very much appreciated. I have talked to a few of my colleagues in the Government of Quebec, and they have told us how much this concerns them as well.

On the other hand, what came out of this symposium, which was attended by very diverse cultural communities in the Ottawa valley, and the following symposium, is that it is indeed the professional bodies that are making the admission process difficult, that are complicating the process and that are making it prohibitively expensive to get these qualifications recognized.

We let these people in and, then, we have a dentist who works on the cleaning staff of a hospital instead of working for the community.

I met a pharmacist. There is a terrible shortage of pharmacists in Quebec. These people are there, they are ready, they can be tested, but not one test after another at a cost of $2,000, $2,500 or $3,000. What my friend the dentist from Colombia explained to me that day is that the cost of these tests was close to $10,000.

This is the challenge we will probably face. We should offer our assistance to our friends in the provinces to ensure that we meet the needs of the people who elect us. Apart from the issues of jurisdiction, I believe that by working together we will find the solutions. Indeed, it was on that day that I realized that it was not just a few isolated cases.

I had a case in my practice. Without revealing any identities, I met a doctor and saw how complicated it was. There was a hospital, in this region, that was ready to accept the individual.

Unfortunately, because of the decisions of some professional bodies and their lack of openness to people from abroad, qualified people cannot practice their profession or sometimes end up on welfare, or they move to other provinces.

We can tell we really have a problem when a physician comes to Quebec and cannot work there, and he or she is accepted as a practitioner in a New Brunswick hospital.

Like the Colombian dentist said, Colombians and Canadians must have very similar teeth. And the rest of their bodies must be very similar too.

That was just an aside. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development minister has said that he intends to work very hard on a new Canadian strategy to recognize the credentials of immigrants. That is great.

In Quebec, as I said earlier, it will be most important to get certain professional bodies to understand how important this is for Canada, so that it can function properly, particularly given the shortages we are experiencing in certain professions. These shortages are sometimes acute in some provinces, including Quebec.

This strategy will focus particularly on crucial sectors—so much the better—like medicine, nursing, where we are already feeling the first effects of the manpower shortage.

Briefly then, these are the mandate and objectives of the new Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, a department that will have a free hand in helping us tackle the challenges of the knowledge economy, a department that will focus on the development of human resources and the acquisition of skills.

Our government is in minority, but certainly does not intend to tread water. For us, the status quo is not a viable option nor is living constantly in the past, going back 10 or 15 years and looking at what has been done or not. This is 2004; we must move forward. The needs are huge and we must respond to them.

This new department that we want to create will allow us to pursue the efforts of recent years. However, first and foremost, it is further irrefutable proof that we are still innovating to ensure an even better future for our children, our youth, our retirees, our communities and our businesses.

Our government wants to make Canada a land of ever wider horizons, where each citizen will be able to benefit from the new economy. I was talking earlier about cultural communities that come here, to Canada, believing that they will find a land that welcomes immigrants and that they will be able to lead a productive life; they cannot wait to do so.

Words alone will not do. We will have to help them and ensure that these people feel totally integrated into the Canadian society.

I know, because I was told during the seminar to which I alluded earlier and which took place last week. I congratulated them, because this was one of the first times that I saw a variety of cultural communities sitting in the same room and not arguing with each other, but working towards a common goal and trying to find sustainable solutions, not only for cultural communities, but for the whole country.

Among other initiatives—and surely everyone heard about this, but I will mention it just in case—they are preparing a petition and they are preparing to sign it. Therefore, while the House is sitting, I urge hon. members who live close to my riding to sign this petition, which will be tabled at the Quebec national assembly. I made a commitment to do the same by adapting it for the Canadian Parliament.

This area and this issue concern us all. In all fairness, we have to get moving and ensure that we find solutions.

In conclusion, as our Prime Minister so aptly said it when he took charge of this country, “The world is not waiting for us, it is evolving, changing. So we must be ready to meet new challenges with new solutions, new ideas.I am not talking about changes that will be required 10 years from now; I am talking about today, about now”.

Today, I invite hon. members to support this bill, which shows our will to act now to help Canadians, and which builds the foundations of the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development. As I like to say, if it is good for Canada, it is also good for Quebec and for the riding of Gatineau.

Human Resources and Skills Development Act

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak on this bill to create a Department of Human Resources and Skills Development.

This is particularly gratifying to me as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, since it allows me to speak about such topics as the importance of helping Canadians access the skills development and lifelong learning opportunities they need to make their own special contribution to our country, and also how this new department will make this goal a reality.

On December 12, 2003, the government announced the reorganization of the old Department of Human Resources Development into two new departments: Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, HRSDC; and Social Development Canada. The Department of HRSDC was created by a series of orders in council approved on that date. This was done within the statutory framework of the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act, a statute which allows the governor in council to reorganize the institutions of government to address priorities and public needs.

Since then, HRSDC has been subject to the Financial Administration Act, the Public Service Employment Act, the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. Parliament is now being asked to consider legislation that formally establishes the department and sets out the powers, duties and functions of the Minister of HRSDC and his mandate. The legislation also sets out the powers and duties of the Minister of Labour, as well as his mandate.

Let me inform the House that we are proposing as part of the legislation to include a uniform set of privacy provisions governing the disclosure of personal information. These provisions would apply to all programs and activities of the new department.

Since December 2003, HRSDC and Social Development Canada have been working together to ensure uninterrupted services to Canadians. That working relationship will continue as the departments jointly provide services to Canadians on behalf of each other, a fact which will be duly reflected in the draft legislation.

With this legislation we are confirming our improvements to date and building on them by giving the minister and the new department the legal means to fulfill their mandate. The mandate as we have set it out in the proposed Department of Human Resources and Skills Development act is to improve the standard of living and quality of life of all Canadians by promoting a highly skilled and mobile workforce and an efficient and inclusive labour market.

In my opinion, having a department focused primarily on skills development and learning tells Canadians that we are ready to address the profound changes that face our economy and society in coming years, including skills shortages due to the aging of our workforce and an increasingly global and knowledge based competitive environment where having good skills and access to lifelong learning opportunities are key to finding a job and having enough skilled workers are the difference between business success and failure. They are also sound bases for a high quality, fulfilling life.

These profound changes make it vitally important that we have a department in place that can focus on enhancing Canadians' access to skills development and lifelong learning so they can fully benefit from the many opportunities being created by our economy every day and working closely with its partners to share ideas and resources and develop common approaches to preparing our citizens for this very challenging future.

That is where the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development comes in. With a mandate to foster a culture of lifelong learning, where people at every stage in life can pursue lifelong learning opportunities and acquire the skills they need for career success, as well as personal fulfillment, and organizations can find and access the highly skilled workers they need to take on the world.

Access to learning and skills development involves making sure students with the ability and desire to pursue some sort of post-secondary education can get the financial help they need to make their dreams come true. Statistics point clearly to the changes demanded by an increasingly knowledge based economy. Some 70% of all new jobs in Canada will require some form of post-secondary education and 25% will require a university degree.

With that in mind, the Government of Canada already provides considerable assistance. The Canada student loan program helps 360,000 students every year and last year provided $1.6 billion in loans. Some 90,000 students in financial need have been awarded $285 million per year in the Canada millennium scholarship program.

Canada study grants worth over $70 million annually have been awarded to approximately 50,000 students. The Canada education saving grant program has provided almost $2 billion in grants since its inception, leveraging over $13 billion in private savings. To date, some two million children between one year old and 17 years old have benefited from that particular program.

We all know that access to post-secondary education is a work in progress, so the new department will have to find innovative and better ways of improving service and responding to emerging needs. For example, we will need to work with our provincial and territorial government partners to find new ways of enhancing the access and affordability of post-secondary education so Canadians can pursue learning opportunities throughout their lives. This cooperation will be vital in implementing the enhancements to the Canada student loans program contained in the 2004 federal budget.

We will also need to work with our partners to improve assistance to high need students, such as those living with disabilities and those from low income families, to help them overcome the barriers they face.

The 2004 budget announced a new grant and improvements to an existing grant that will help these students as they pursue a post-secondary education. For disabled students that involves a grant of $3,000 each year in college or university.

Finally, the department will need to improve the uptake of RESPs and the Canada education savings grants by low income families to enable more families to start saving early for their children's post-secondary education. This will involve introducing the new Canada learning bond and enhancements to the Canada education savings grant to kick-start savings by low income and middle income parents. The legislation includes informing low and middle income families of the importance of saving early for their children's education and providing assistance to help them access these benefits.

For those reasons I would encourage all members of the House to join me in supporting Bill C-5, the Canada education savings act, which is currently at committee stage, which would enact the provisions that I mentioned in the 2004 budget. Among other things, interestingly enough, Bill C-5 has built into it cooperation with one of our key sets of partners, the provinces and the territories, in the RESP program and the RESP grants program, which is proposed in the act.

Many or these initiatives will involve areas of provincial and territorial responsibility and will have an impact on key stakeholder groups. Therefore the department will continue to work closely with all its partners, including other levels of government, the private sector, educational and training institutions, financial institutions and other stakeholders, to ensure their needs are represented and addressed.

This is exactly what this new department has already been doing from the beginning, through its participation and support of a number of working groups. For example, the intergovernmental consultative committee on student financial assistance brings together federal, provincial and territorial officials at the director general and director level to develop common approaches to post-secondary education and student financial assistance.

Again, the national advisory group on student financial assistance allows colleges and universities, student groups and representatives of the full spectrum of post-secondary institutions to make their views known to the Government of Canada on federal assistance to post-secondary students.

Another example, the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada helps provincial and territorial ministers of education to develop common approaches and cooperate with national educational organizations and the federal government on educational issues.

It is my personal view that the new department should become, as it were, the federal government's designated hitter to the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada. This does not mean that HRSDC should be the only federal department involved in lifelong learning, far from it. Departments like Justice, Corrections Canada, Defence and Indian and Northern Affairs will, for example, continue to deliver literacy programs which are part of lifelong learning. However the Minister of HRSDC, fully briefed, can become a consistent link between the federal government and the provincial and territorial ministers of education in the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada. This will strengthen the partnerships that must exist between us and the provinces and territories in the area of lifelong learning.

I chaired the standing committee that unanimously recommended that the former Department of Human Resources Development Canada be split. This bill is, in a very real sense, the enactment of the clearly expressed will of the House of Commons at the time that HRDC be split. The committee recommended the division of that department, not only because it was a very large department but also because it was too diverse to be manageable.

When HRDC was formed by an earlier government, several former federal departments were simply rolled into one. They never really reconciled their different cultures. The bill addresses this directly. It brings together different but related regimes under one set of rules and procedures. As chair of the standing committee that considered these matters, it gives me special pride to speak to the bill today.

Also, speaking personally, I believe strongly that in addition to its formal duties within the federal system, the new Department of HRSDC can become a valuable point of first contact for all federal departments in matters related to lifelong learning and training.

Those are some of the challenges facing the new department to be created by the bill. While addressing these issues may be challenging, the rewards Canada reaps will be enormous. By improving access to post-secondary education and lifelong learning for all Canadians, we will go a long way toward ensuring that no Canadian gets left behind and that businesses and organizations will be able to find the skilled workers they need to compete and thrive in the global economy. This represents a win-win situation for all Canadians.

For most of my time in this House, I have worked with the government caucus on post-secondary education and research. This is a group of MPs and senators who have followed, all the way through from the middle nineties, the various roles of the federal government in higher education and research. It is a group that has a very active interest in those matter, but which has made it clear from the very beginning that we have no interest in the federal government encroaching on the roles of the provinces and territories. Quite rightly, in our Confederation the operation of the elementary schools, high schools, colleges and universities are provincial and territorial matters, which is the way it should be. It produces across our country a network of related but different educational systems that are extremely productive.

This is not to say that the federal government and other governments do not have responsibilities in those areas. I can give very direct examples where, very badly in many cases, the federal government organizes elementary schools on the first nations. Some of them should be changed very quickly. We have a used computer program where we give the high schools used computers, and it has worked very effectively. When they get to the end of high school, the millennium scholarship program is a federal program that helps high school students.

We work with the community colleges of Canada. They are, in many ways, a rapid response system that helps Canada keep its economy current.

For example, it was this government that first flowed research moneys to community colleges, recognizing their role in applied research and their role in the commercialization of research. We still work with the community colleges in all sorts of ways. Aboriginal education is a really good example. English and French as second languages are other examples. The federal government has important links with them, as it does with the universities, and has moved the public funding of research, largely in the universities, from being 14th or 15th in the world to perhaps 5th or 6th.

These are all examples of the ways in which the federal government, and not just one department of the federal government, is involved in higher education. Let me say that the Department of National Defence runs a university, the Royal Military College, where one can get degrees in engineering and so on.

The federal government has these roles. One of its roles is to capture the best practices. If in Quebec, Nova Scotia or Nunavut there is something going on which the whole country should know about, it is the federal government that can capture it in higher education.

My enthusiasm for the legislation is that the federal government is going to have a new department, a very large and powerful department, which will be focused on these matters of lifelong learning. It is my hope that, first, it will perform very important functions itself, but second, that it will become a point of contact for all federal departments that work in the area of lifelong learning and that it will also become a key point of contact with the provinces and territories.

I believe the new department represents a win-win situation for all Canadians.

For this reason, I intend to support this bill and urge all members to do likewise.

Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-15, an act to amend the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, introduced at first reading on October 26, 2004.

Note that this bill received very little consideration in the deliberations of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. The bill is the defunct Bill C-34, which was introduced in the 37th Parliament. The federal government wanted to pass the bill quickly by using the Liberal majority steamroller and without hearing testimony at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on the bill's repercussions and application.

I was a little surprised because a bill as important as this one certainly deserved special attention from the standing committee, which should have heard witnesses such as the Shipping Federation of Canada, or other representatives of the environmental sector. These witnesses could have explained how to improve Bill C-34.

The former Chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, the former member for Davenport, will remember a session at the time when I became enraged at the behaviour of the Liberal members. I remember this bill was rammed through, and the Liberal MPs did not even want to hear witnesses.

Why not? Because it was the eve of the election campaign, and the Liberal Party of Canada was trying to make us forget the fines that some courts had imposed on Canada Steamship Lines. The government also wanted to show that it had good faith by tabling Bill C-34.

Today, a new version of this bill is being presented as Bill C-15. We are in favour of the principle of this bill because on this side of the House we believe that the practices of some companies with respect to coastal oil spills are totally unacceptable for the protection of migratory birds and their habitat and ecosystem.

It must always be kept in mind, if we really want to protect species, whether endangered, at risk or otherwise, it is always vital to protect the habitat. When companies behave irresponsibly, we have a duty, as legislators, to face up to our responsibilities and to introduce a more stringent bill.

I will come back later to the real repercussions Bill C-15 could have. We have to do more than just introduce a bill, we have to ensure that the bill itself, and the spirit of that bill, are respected in its application.

As I have already indicated, we are of course in favour of this bill in principle because, from the environmental point of view, it makes it possible to impose far stricter sanctions on shipping companies that discharge toxic substances illegally at sea.

I hope, however, that our committees will afford us the opportunity to hear a number of witnesses on this subject, unlike our experience in committee during the last Parliament. Then, the majority government literally shoved the bill through, giving us no opportunity to improve it. Unfortunately, that bill met a sad end.

This bill is an amendment to the 1994 Migratory Birds Convention Act. We must place that in its proper context. We on this side of the House have always admitted that this legislation was indeed within an area of federal responsibility. When various bills were being considered, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or Bill C-5 on species at risk, we always agreed that the migratory bird legislation and public lands were federal jurisdictions. The principle, the very spirit, of this bill confirms our willingness to respect an area that is, of course, federal.

We need much more rigorous legislation. Moreover, what the government is proposing is, in fact, harmonization, an adaptation of what is already done in the United States. We know that the laws there are much stricter than here in Canada.

In Canada, according to Environment Canada estimates, over 300,000 seabirds are killed each year off the coasts of the Atlantic provinces by ships that illegally dump their polluted bilge waters as they pass through these waters.

Under the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994 and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, we needed to act quickly. Why go through the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994? Because this law applies in the exclusive economic zone of Canada, and because it is intended specifically to protect migratory birds from the effects caused by deposits of harmful substances in that zone. The provisions of the bill will now apply to vessels.

We should have taken action through more restrictive legislation. Nevertheless, some questions do arise about the actual enforcement and the desired effects of the bill before us. We must remember that in the past we have seen large-scale catastrophes, some of them on the east coast, in the Maritimes, that ended with fines of $20,000 or $30,000, sometimes up to $170,000 as in the case of the fishing boat Olga .

Measures were taken. What was the impact of these measures? One: we arrested the operators of the vessels. Two: we turned them loose. Three: fines were not paid to the federal government.

In short, I would like to tell the House that we support this bill in principle. We believe in more rigorous legislation. However, we must be sure that the measures that will be taken will have a real impact, so that the spirit of the law, that is, protection of our migratory birds, can take effect as soon as possible. We shall work in committee to improve this bill.

Canada Education Savings Act

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise to address Bill C-5, the Canadian education savings account, I am mindful of the fact that this is the first time that I have actually stood in the House to participate in a debate since I was elected to serve exclusively as the member of Parliament for Halifax.

I no longer carry the responsibilities of federal leadership and now have the privilege of sitting behind my leader, the member for Toronto--Danforth, who was successful in being elected to represent his constituency in the House.

It is indeed a pleasure to pledge in a very public way my commitment to work as conscientiously and diligently as I possible can to serve in that manner as a full time member of Parliament. It is an added privilege to find myself seatmate to a former leader of the New Democratic Party under whom I first ran for politics in the federal election of 1979, unsuccessfully I might say, never imaging that some day we would in fact be sitting in the House backing a subsequent leader. It is indeed a privilege to take up my new role in this august body.

I am also very pleased that in addition to my new responsibilities assigned to me by my leader as critic for foreign affairs, I now have the added responsibility of being the post-secondary education critic.

I am extremely pleased with that challenge for a couple of reasons. For a number of years before I entered politics, I had the opportunity to be both a professor at Dalhousie University and also for several years I served as a field instructor for graduate students in the school of social work in employment settings with the City of Halifax's social planner and with the Province of Nova Scotia in the social development division. For me, it is something very close to home.

However, perhaps more important than that is the fact that my riding, the constituency of Halifax, is host to more post-secondary education students per capita and more post-secondary education institutions per capita than any other riding in the country. That is perhaps an accident of history.

It is partly a geographic thing, that they happen to be concentrated in the riding of Halifax, but it is also true that for many years it has been said that because of the excellence of post-secondary education students in Nova Scotia, that one of our best contributions to Canada in fact is the educational experiences gained in our province by students from across the country.

Unfortunately, all too often translating into the deportation of those students to other parts of Canada because they do not have the opportunity to remain in their native province. We continue to need to address that very serious problem.

I am pleased, because of how exceedingly important post-secondary education issues are to my constituents, to have the opportunity to rise in this place as the post-secondary education critic.

Having said that, as I turn my attention to Bill C-5, it is regrettable in the extreme that the bill can probably be described as an attempt by the government to divert attention from the fact that it continues to fail students and their families in regard to the adequate level of post-secondary education funding desperately needed, both at the level of individual student aid and at the level of educational funding for post-secondary education institutions.

Our universities and colleges are forced into the situation of driving tuition fees up even higher than they are now creating an immense access barrier to far too many students in the country today. That is the real crisis that we face in the country. That is the real challenge that the government has sidestepped again and again.

It sidestepped addressing that issue in the spring 2004 budget. It absolutely sidestepped dealing with it in the throne speech. During the election campaign that intervened between the spring 2004 budget and our return to Parliament we saw how little the government had to offer. We heard all kinds of promises from the Prime Minister about finally addressing the crisis of student aid and skyrocketing tuition in this country; however, they were very fleeting commitments.

Nothing in Bill C-5 even begins to make a dent in this serious problem. Bill C-5 is grossly inadequate in our view for a couple of fundamental reasons.

The maximum contributions that will be forthcoming for the Canada education savings grant amount to a paltry $7,200. That needs to be put into perspective. The government needs to recognize the fact that in some Canadian universities, even at the undergraduate level, tuition is now $6,000. Tuition is a great deal higher than that in a good many graduate programs and professional schools.

It is not an unduly pessimistic prediction to make that it is possible that the entire contribution from the government toward the education of a student 19 years from now could amount to less than the tuition fee for half a year of post-secondary education, in other words, for one term. The reality is that there is nothing in this legislation that will begin to deal with the really serious crisis that exists.

There is a fundamental flaw in the government's thinking regarding the real problem. I want to acknowledge that the government has accurately identified that for low income families any possibility of gaining access to post-secondary education under the current circumstances is virtually nonexistent. That is an accurate diagnosis, but the remedy provided is both grotesquely inadequate and flawed. It seems to be based on the premise that there is a real problem about the motivation of low income families to save money and invest money in education.

It is not a motivational problem for families living in grinding poverty in Canada not to save dollars. The problem is they do not have the money to do it. It simply does not meet the minister's own stated objective of levelling the playing field for all students who want to gain access to post-secondary education to say that this program will now make a significant difference. It will do no such thing.

We will have an opportunity in committee to deal with the bill on a clause by clause basis and we will do so. Let me use one or two examples.

First, I do not know how anybody could refuse to acknowledge the fact that families in the lowest income categories, which is what the minister said the objective is, are not going to be able to find money for post-secondary education from their scarce incomes. They do not have sufficient money now to pay for their groceries and keep decent shelter over their head. It defies the reality of the grinding financial poverty in which a great many of those families are living.

Second, when we see what a bureaucratic and administrative nightmare is going to be involved in setting up this program, at least as I interpret it, then one must really wonder about the decision to spend the limited resources the government is prepared to make available to feed a bureaucratic monstrosity.

I want to express appreciation, and I do so genuinely, for a briefing that I obtained earlier today on the legislation. However, as the opportunity to ask some questions was made available and as the discussion unfolded, it seemed to me more evident that for such a very paltry sum of money being made available to low income families, if and only if they could actually access it by finding money out of their scarce incomes to participate in these programs, it is simply unwarranted to set up what is going to be such a bureaucratic nightmare.

It also denies eligibility to a number of categories of young people that surely is unwarranted. For example, if we go to page 7, clause 7, it makes it quite clear that the Canada learning bond may be paid in respect of a beneficiary under a registered education savings plan only if the beneficiary is resident in Canada.

What that means is that the aspiration expressed by the minister, when he spoke to this on first reading, that immigrant families should benefit from the program will not be fulfilled. Immigrant families who might arrive here with children ages 7, 9 and 11 would have failed to qualify year after year for the very small sums that are going to be made available to other families. They are going to be even more disadvantaged.

In such a mobile workforce within a globalized economy with more and more workers being required to go outside of the country by their employers, one must also recognize that they too will presumably not be resident in Canada and not be eligible for the years in which they did not live in Canada. That is just one of the flaws that we are concerned about.

At the end of the day the real concern is what an enormous shortfall there is in the response of the government to deal with the real crisis that is happening. Perhaps the minister needs to have the kind of reality check that would be available to him by sitting down with leaders of the student governments across the country--I did this in my own province with the leaders from across the province from every post-secondary education institution--and be reminded of what it is that they face today with the crippling debt load.

Nothing in the bill is going to change that situation for students for the next 18 years, let alone do anything for those who are already crippled by debt and are having to drop out of university because the resources simply are not there for them.

It is lamentable that the government has not responded at an appropriate level to deal with the serious access problems. We need a post-secondary education act in the country that sets out certain principles. We need stable, solid, adequate funding that is appropriate and will deliver on what the government says that it wants to see happen, and that is that every young person who is able to avail themselves of a post-secondary education institution has the opportunity to do so.

We absolutely need to recognize that we have to freeze tuition fees and it is going to take some funding to do that. We must improve the student aid programs as well as the student debt relief programs, instead of constricting what is available to students by changing the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to put them at an even greater disadvantage when they are in major financial difficulty through no fault of their own.

There are a number of remedies that are desperately needed. It seems to me that in this paltry and narrow response, which will not have any impact for any students for a minimum of 18 or 19 years, the government has simply not responded to this very serious crisis.

We absolutely need to replace the flawed millennium scholarship fund with a needs-based system of grants. It is clear that it is the view of students in the country, as expressed through all their national advocacy organizations. It is clear that it is the position of all the faculty who have stood behind them in this demand. It is clear that it is the view of the university administrators that the number one crisis that has to be addressed is that of crippling student debt and the access problems being created for students who do not have deep pockets or whose families do not have deep pockets. Yet we have absolutely nothing on any of this in the Speech from the Throne, and the legislation does not even begin to address that problem.

During the election I had the opportunity to participate in a student-sponsored debate in my province, and I very much appreciated the opportunity to do it. A student who was involved in the whole discussion made a very telling but simple point that what was a student crisis now has become a family crisis.

As a result of the failure of the government to provide increased funding and as a result of the government's the massive cuts to post-secondary education over the last number of years, a lot of young people are being driven out of their communities and provinces because of student debt. It becomes a deportation or out-migration program for students from northern and rural communities in less prosperous parts of the country. They go where they can get the fattest, fastest salary and income to pay off their crippling debt load. That becomes a crisis in many cases for families who are either left behind or have to relocate.

We have a lot of grandparents who are barely able to make ends meet. They now are having to dig deep into their pockets to help put their grandchildren through university or to help them with their debt load. We have a lot of working families who are sacrificing big time to make it possible for their young people to go to university.

This is what is so sad about the rhetoric around recognizing, and the minister said it, that the Canadian dream cannot be fulfilled in today's world without a post-secondary education. Yet we are not prepared to make it available to young people. What we have is an erosion of the quality of that education. Students have to work at poorly paid jobs simultaneously when they go to school. Universities have to rely more and more heavily on private funds or on corporate sources of funding, which skews curriculum choices. In some cases literally faculty contribution to the educational effort is being measured, not in terms of their excellence in teaching or the quality of the research, but in terms of how many corporate or research dollars they can draw down to help deal with the university's inadequate funding base. These are all distortions that are being created. The minister is quite right that the Canadian dream for future generations cannot be fulfilled without an adequate post-secondary education these days, both because we live in a globalized economy and because it is important in economic competition terms.

This is my final point. Surely the greatest, most compelling and urgent reason for our young people to have the opportunity to get advanced education is the magnitude and complexity of the challenges we face in the world, such as dealing with environmental degradation that could destroy the planet, or with disease and hunger, which is unnecessary in today's world because we cannot find the solution, or with the horror of the possibility that we will destroy this planet with increasing weapons of mass destruction and nuclear threats.

These are the real reasons and the major challenges that our young people face in the future. We are failing them in equipping them with the post-secondary education they need to meet those challenges.

[Alain Boire, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have spoken in this House. I want to thank the voters in the riding of Beauharnois—Salaberry, and all the election volunteers and workers who gave me their trust during the last election in June.

I would like to say from the start that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-5 in principle. However, we want to consider it thoroughly in committee.

This bill raises several questions that require answers. It is intended to encourage and facilitate access to post-secondary education for children of lower-income families. It enhances the Canada education savings grant.

The Bloc Québécois finds it useful to set up an education savings bond program, as this will directly help lower-income families, which the Canada education savings grant currently does not do. This will be a big help to children of lower income families, who have greater difficulty accessing post-secondary education.

The Bloc Québécois agrees that this measure helps families in planning and saving for their children's education. Accessible education and equal opportunity for everyone are two priorities of the Bloc Québécois and Quebeckers.

We think this measure is clearly inadequate; correcting the fiscal imbalance and returning to equitable transfers between provinces would obviously permit the Government of Quebec to support Quebec's students appropriately.

The Bloc recognizes that Bill C-5 will definitely encourage education for all families, whatever their income. There are figures showing that only 50% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 are pursuing post-secondary education.

As the critic for youth, I am greatly concerned about this situation. This measure will make it possible to increase attendance at post-secondary institutions, but it must not look like federal interference in the system of loans and bursaries. That is why we need thorough study of the bill in committee.

Moreover, this learning bond program is a non-negotiable means of adding to the savings options for low income families. This learning bond program will help children from low income families get into post-secondary studies, which is a comfort for their parents. The Bloc Québécois is concerned about social justice in this matter. This is clearly a sign of hope that the less well off in our society may have access to higher learning.

Although many questions related to his bill have yet to be answered and will be studied by the committee, I can already point out certain weaknesses in the bill's current wording.

First of all, the learning bonds will not help Quebec provide quality education, because they do not give Quebec the means to do so. They enable students to cover part of the cost of their post-secondary education, but do not improve the quality of services provided by the educational system.

I want to point out that, in its current form, the bill says that the government will take back the money it has invested when the beneficiary of the program reaches the age of 21 years. That seems very bizarre because college education is totally free in Quebec.

In addition, the learning bonds will be automatically taken back when the student reaches the age of 21. Only those who go to university will benefit, and not a great deal more. It will only be for a year or two, to use the money provided by the federal government. The Bloc Québécois therefore proposes that the maximum age be set at 25.

Any money provided by the government that has not been used for post-secondary education will be taken back instead of being reinvested where it belongs, that is, in the education system. The Bloc Québécois reiterates that, if it were not for the fiscal imbalance, this money could be put directly into Quebec's education system, instead of being spread around in federal aid packages. Quebec alone can determine what the province's educational priorities are. It should benefit directly from federal transfers in order to distribute the money where it is needed.

With this bill, the government announced a $40 million dollar budget for the administration of the program during the first three years. We are used to the federal government underestimating costs. We need only think of the firearms registry. The Bloc Québécois promises that it will keep a very close eye on how such a registry will be administered, to ensure it is managed properly.

I feel that the administration costs are excessive: more than $13 million annually to distribute some $80 million. This is a fine example of the priorities pursued by the government with this bill: instead of assisting students fully by financing the education system properly, it would rather take a piecemeal approach.

With this bill, the government is trying to improve an existing program, namely the Canada education savings grant introduced in 1998, which, incidentally, has missed the mark vis-à-vis its initial objectives. This grant program does nothing for the least well off families, because the government only contributes up to the amount invested by the parents. Obviously, families with an income under $35,000 seldom manage to set money aside for their children's education.

With this bill, the government is improving the current program by 20%, which contributes up to 20%, to a maximum of $400 per year. The bill not only establishes the learning bond, but it also increases the amount of the education savings grant, which is an additional contribution made by the federal government for each dollar contributed to a registered education savings plan until the beneficiary under the plan turns 17.

The Canada education savings grant rate will double, from 20% to 40%, on the first $500 of savings placed in an RESP by families with a net income of up to $35,000. For families with a net income greater than $35,000 but not exceeding $70,000, the Canada education savings grant contribution will increase from its present 20% to 30%. Any subsequent investments by the family or the beneficiary will remain at the current 20% level. The Canada education savings grant cannot, however, exceed $7,200 for the 16 years during which families and beneficiaries remain eligible.

The Government of Canada announced the creation of a learning bond program for post-secondary education in its March 2004 budget. This takes the form of a bursary of a total value of $2,000 for each child born after 2003, but this is of course only for children of families entitled to a national child benefit supplement. After the initial $500 at the time of birth, the child will receive annual Canada learning bond instalments of $100 a year until the age of 15, provided the family continues to receive the national child benefit supplement.

However, parents must initiate the process by setting up a registered education savings plan. The learning bond is valid until the child reaches the age of 21. Then, the federal government takes back the money that it invested in the registered education savings plan and leaves the family's interest and savings, which become taxable. The purpose of the learning bond is to encourage low and middle income families to save money for their children's post-secondary education.

The Bloc Québécois likes the idea of making higher education more accessible to low income households. Quebec families that qualify for the national child benefit will be eligible for this bond program, without having to contribute to an education savings plan. The Bloc Québécois believes in accessibility to education. Thanks to the improved Canada education savings grant and to the learning bonds, students will be able to pursue a higher education, regardless of their social condition.

However, let us not forget that this program will be very costly to administer and that the federal government could, if the will was there, refrain from needlessly wasting public funds and taxpayers' money by dealing with the fiscal imbalance. The Quebec government would then not be subjected to the current budget cuts and would have the necessary money to invest in education and to improve its loans and scholarships program.

We are very pleased to see that the federal government is concerned about young people and the low enrolment rate in post-secondary institutions. However, we want to mention again the fiscal strangulation of the provinces. Quebec would prefer by far to manage the money to which it is entitled, instead of benefiting from ad hoc and arbitrary donations from Paul Martin.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the minister will table the document at the first available opportunity.

With respect to the business going forward, this afternoon, tomorrow and Monday, we will continue with second reading of Bill C-5, which is on learning bonds, followed by second reading of Bill C-6, which is establishing the department of public safety; second reading of Bill C-3 which is the Coast Guard bill; second reading of Bill C-7 respecting national parks; second reading of Bill C-8 creating the public service human resources agency; and second reading of Bill C-4, which is the international air protocol bill.

There will, as the House knows, be divisions at 3 p.m. on Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be the last two days of debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, and Thursday will be an allotted day.

Canada Education Savings Act

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the crisis was provoked by the Prime Minister himself when he was finance minister. With the efforts of balancing the budget back in 1995, it was done largely on the backs of the provinces. It is quite clear that was the case and that crisis continues today.

In fact, we had the vision last month of the Prime Minister claiming to be a hero for finally reversing some of the damage that was done. While it was only some of the damage, as the hon. member has pointed out, it continues to be the case that provinces are working to recover from that.

Certainly there will be upcoming discussions that hopefully will give the government an opportunity to advance that exercise. That crisis is an example of how the government has continually operated. It creates the crisis, causes the problem and then comes up with legislation, such as the bill before us, Bill C-5, which would never have been necessary if provinces were not faced with those cuts to post-secondary education.

The problem is being addressed now and I think that is a positive thing for Canadians.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to deliver my first address in this chamber. I am particularly fortunate to be able to do so on the subject of post-secondary education and the establishment of the Canada learning bond through Bill C-5.

I am pleased that this bill has the support of the Progressive Conservative Party. We feel that further education is a priority if we are to have a prosperous future for each and every Canadian, and for our society.

That is why the Conservative Party supports Bill C-5.

The Canada learning bond is an initiative that I expect will be welcomed by the residents of my constituency of York--Simcoe. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for the confidence they have expressed in me by sending me to represent them in this great chamber.

York--Simcoe was the place my grandfather chose to make his home after a remarkable life journey, one that figures greatly in my reasons for getting involved in public life.

My grandparents lived in a small country, Estonia, which asserted its nationhood and became a free and independent country for the first time out of the chaos of World War I. In that new freedom people prospered.

My grandparents prospered too and enjoyed the opportunities that came with higher education. My grandfather worked his way from a farm boy to the respected position of county agronomist. My grandmother became a lawyer, a career that few women had the courage to choose in that time, the 1920s. They made a better life and gave back to their community.

However, with World War II came successive waves of Soviet and Nazi occupation and the ultimate annexation of Estonia into the U.S.S.R. My mother and grandparents had little choice but to flee. Paradoxically the education that they possessed made them a threat to the occupying Soviets and they faced an otherwise certain fate at their hands if they did not leave. In fact many family members did face that fate in Soviet Siberian camps or otherwise at the hands of the Red Army.

My family as refugees in search of freedom ultimately chose Canada. The agronomist went to work in a paper factory in Riverdale and the lawyer went to work on the order desk at Sears. They found what they were looking for: freedom, hope and opportunity.

One of the things that often comes with a higher education is a recognition of the possibilities that exist to improve one's life and that of one's family and to build a better community, regardless of the barriers that may be faced, the hurdles that may be encountered and the setbacks that come along the way in life.

The importance of education was impressed upon my mother, who would do her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Toronto, and upon her children, who both followed their grandmother's footsteps into the career of law.

My grandfather thought that an important part of education was to see what real life was and in his opinion that happened on a farm. So, after I was born, he marshalled his resources and bought the farm in Georgina which anchors me today.

Freedom, hope and opportunity are to me what my contribution in public life should be about, what all our contributions should be about. In Canada we are often complacent about the freedom that we enjoy and the opportunities which present themselves, but among many new Canadians these things are immediate and important. Education plays a crucial factor in all three.

It is not a coincidence that new authoritarian governments and occupying forces target the educated in society, for with that education often comes the ability to organize and to fight for freedom. Education is a companion of liberty. Higher education also gives us hope to understand our world better and to improve health, security and the quality of life that we enjoy.

As the economists and educators continually remind us, education brings with it opportunity for personal growth, career advancement and economic prosperity. When the citizens prosper, all the country prospers.

For the people of York--Simcoe the opportunity for all, not just those who have the resources and the means, but the opportunity for all to send their children to post-secondary education is an important objective. For too many it is a challenge that creates anxiety, that is daunting, that is a big mountain to climb.

The typical family profile in York--Simcoe is a young couple, both working hard, trying to pay their mortgage, get ahead and make a brighter future for their children. It is not easy for them. They are good citizens with solid Canadian values that we believe in as Canadians, values that we believe in as Conservatives.

Like those families, we believe that hard work should be rewarded. We believe in self-discipline and responsibility for individual actions and for our families. We believe in honesty, that a promise made should be a promise kept. We believe in property rights and the rule of law. We believe in compassion and support for those who are genuinely in need in society.

They are time tested values that have built civil society. They are the values that have underpinned the advance of humanity. They are values that are all too often ignored by this government through its policies. In that way, the government does not reflect the interests of my constituents in York—Simcoe.

For the people of York--Simcoe the opportunity for them is a frustration. It is something they are grasping at. At every turn those hardworking families are met with heavy taxes and a government that does more to intrude into their lives than to help. They do not understand a federal government that tells them they are not good Canadians if they do not want to pay higher taxes. They would dearly love to save for a child's post-secondary education, but how?

For them they face real choices. Will they give up sending the children to play hockey this year, or will they tell them they cannot have a new bike in the spring? Those are the kinds of choices and sacrifices some of them have to make in order to save for a post-secondary education.

The government could help them most by letting them keep more of their own money. That would give them greater freedom, more hope and genuine opportunity. I hope ultimately the government will do that.

We also believe that Bill C-5, by giving modest income families the means to establish registered education savings plans with an initial $500 contribution, not from the government, but from the taxpayers of Canada, we will help more Canadians achieve their dreams of a higher education. The increased matching grants from the taxpayers of Canada for contributions that those families themselves make to RESPs will also build for that brighter future.

The riding of York--Simcoe can become an even better place if more young people succeed in school and achieve post-secondary education. An educated workforce means more jobs and more prosperity.

An educated population in York--Simcoe can use those skills and ability to improve the quality of our treasured environment. We have a beautiful landscape and environment in York--Simcoe, especially Lake Simcoe. It is our playground. Many take their drinking water from that lake, but it is a lake whose health remains dangerously precarious.

An educated community will mean a richer cultural experience in a community that is already proud of its theatres, its art galleries, its historical sites ranging from the famous Red Barn Theatre to Sharon Temple, a national historic site.

A more educated York--Simcoe will be a better place to live, to work and to raise a family.

Just as York--Simcoe can benefit from encouraging families to save for post-secondary educations for their sons and daughters, so too will all of Canada. Canadians want change and the Canada learning bond represents a change for the better.

In this minority Parliament I am pleased to have been able to stand in a spirit of cooperation to welcome the government's finally taking this initiative. Our party made the Canada learning bond part of our platform in the last election. We are pleased that the government in this case is following our advice and moving forward. Let us hope that that constructive spirit can be an example of how we can work together. If we focus on areas of common ground, we can really see true and genuine benefits for all Canadians.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

moved that Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker,I am delighted to be on the agenda as the first speaker to this bill. I want to begin by giving due credit and thanks to my parliamentary secretary, the member for Peterborough, as well as the Minister of State for Human Resources and Skills Development, the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, for their assistance the preparation of this proposed legislation.

In addition to being a legislator and a representative of the general public, I too am a parent, like most people in this chamber. Like all parents, I want the very best for my children. In fact some of the have already gone through school, so I am speaking more from a historical perspective than I am from an active perspective, although my children have graced my wife with grand kids. Therefore, I want to provide for them in the same way that I took the disposition for my own children.

I would like to instill in them, as I am sure every single member in the House would like to do, a confidence to tackle life's challenges and to ensure that they have every opportunity to experience the satisfaction that comes with success,.

Like everyone here, I want for my grandchildren and for everyone else's children to have them live a life that is healthy, productive, prosperous and satisfying leading up to adulthood. I obviously want that for their adult life as well. Perhaps this is idealistic but I hope everyone shares in this idealism. I would like to offer my children and their own children all the advantages that living in this great country of ours has to offer. This is true of all parents whether we are rich or poor, no matter where we live and whatever our backgrounds.

Canadian families from coast to coast are doing everything they can to ensure that their children can fulfill their Canadian dream, a dream which, increasingly, cannot be fulfilled if our children do not have access to post-secondary education.

Three out of every four new jobs require post-secondary education, whether it is trade training, a college diploma or a university degree. By comparison, people who have not completed their secondary education now have access to less than 6% of all new jobs.

To give members a sense of just how great this imbalance is, consider that between 1990 and 2003 some 1.4 million jobs were created for university graduates, while 1.2 million jobs were lost for those who had barely completed high school. Consider too that over their lifetime, university students on average earn $1 million more than those without a degree. The advantages can be seen almost immediately.

There is another imbalance that should concern all of us as parliamentarians in the House as it also has serious consequences for our country. Statistics Canada recently reported that 93% of Canadian parents hope that their children will go on to post-secondary education, yet only one-half are currently saving for their education. The majority of that one-half come from the most affluent of Canadian families.

Research indicates that 68% of parents with an income greater than $85,000 are putting money aside for their children's post-secondary education, whereas just 26% of parents with an income of under $25,000 are doing the same thing. Of course for lower income parents, we should not be surprised to find that only 8% are taking advantage of a registered education savings plan which tax shelters the compound interest on their investments. The poorest people in this country who do save are struggling to do so on their own, largely without the benefit of the Canada education savings grant.

This is an imbalance that we ought to rectify. I am pleased that the Speech from the Throne has underlined, underscored and emphasized our commitment to increase access to post-secondary education through Bill C-5, the Canada education savings act.

The bill introduces an innovative new initiative and improvements to existing programs to ensure that each and every youngster with the ability and the desire to pursue post-secondary education studies has the chance to do so, no matter what his or her family's financial circumstances are.

The innovative new initiative to which I am referring is the Canada learning bond, which will help underprivileged Canadian children by allowing them to set up an education savings plan.

The Canada learning bond begins with a one time payment of $500 for children born into families receiving the national child benefit supplement. Families with a net income of $35,000 or less qualify. The bond is available to all eligible babies born since January 1 of this year. The initial payment will be followed by successive instalments of $100 per year up to and including the year in which the child turns 15, provided the family remains entitled to the national child benefit supplement.

By the time such children turn 18, their Canada learning bond, combined with the interest earned on the bond, could be worth up to $3,000 not considering any additional supplements or savings that the family might have contributed. To receive these funds, parents need to open an RESP. If necessary we will provide an additional $25 to help cover the cost of the administration and setting up of such a fund.

The big advantage, as colleagues will soon recognize, of an RESP is that the Government of Canada also tops up the parents' contribution through the Canada education savings grant program. That is another innovation, by the way, that we introduced just a few short years ago to help families increase their savings for their children's post-secondary education.

The Canada education savings grant provides a 20% grant on parents' contributions to a current maximum of $400 per year. We want to go even further. With this legislation we propose to dramatically improve the odds for low and middle income children by giving them an even larger savings grant.

Once the bill is adopted, as I am sure colleagues on both sides of the House will be eager to do, the current Canada education savings grant rate of 20% will double to 40% on the first $500 of savings made by families earning up to $35,000. Let me give an idea of just what kind of difference that can make. If a low income family contributes just $10 per month to a child's RESP from birth, there would be some $7,000 available by the time the child is ready to go to university.

We also want to make sure that children in families with modest incomes have a greater chance to take advantage of a post-secondary education. The Canada education savings grant contribution for them will increase to 30% on the first $500 of savings set aside by families earning a qualifying net income greater than $35,000 but not exceeding $70,000.

These higher rates will affect the contributions made by all eligible families as of January 1, 2005. According to our projections, the Canada learning bond could benefit some 120,000 newborns and the enhanced Canada education savings grant could benefit up to 4.5 million children from low and middle income families each year.

For thousands of young Canadians, these figures mean increased opportunities for learning, improving and developing their potential. Over time, these investments will generate huge dividends for our economy and our society as a whole, when these young people become workers, taxpayers, parents and leaders in their communities and in our country.

Such initiatives have never been as critical as they are now, at a time when the whole world is giving priority to learning and to knowledge. An educated population is a cornerstone of Canada's competitiveness internationally, and it is also critical to maintaining our high standard of living.

I have presented many facts and figures thus far, but as impressive as colleagues will find them, we need to look beyond the numbers. Aside from the tremendous monetary value of these investments, there are other equally important benefits. Studies demonstrate that children with savings for post-secondary education have a more positive attitude toward their schooling. They have better marks and they go further in school. It seems that if the expectation is there that they will go on to college or university, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Other research has shown that youth with savings are 50% more likely to go on to study at a post-secondary level than youth who do not. The flip side of that story is that not having money set aside for post-secondary studies presents both a practical and a psychological barrier to many. That is an assumption on the part of some that a person who is poor today will inevitably be poor tomorrow. Their assumption does not recognize that learning is the key to rising above poverty.

In our society education is the great equalizer. Knowledge is blind to race, gender, disability and income status. It creates a level playing field for all who are able to take advantage of learning opportunities.

I might say with some humility that I know this first-hand. I have worked in classrooms, in corridors in Canada's schools. I am not only a politician and a parent, but I am a former educator and I do not want to cast aspersions on members of that profession by trying to tie myself to them.

I have seen first-hand what financially disadvantaged kids can accomplish when given the chance. I have witnessed their successes time and time again. When they get that extra bit of encouragement and support, they succeed like no other. I can say that what might sound like pocket change to some can mean a world of difference to families and children doing without.

By supporting this legislation, the House of Commons will give a vote of confidence to Canadian children. We are sending them a very clear message. We have confidence in them and they believe that they can fulfill all of their dreams. We are doing our share to help them achieve that goal.

These initiatives are just the latest expression of that commitment. My colleagues are well aware of that. The Government of Canada provides a wide range of financial incentives and support measures to ensure that Canadian children get a good start in life, and to make post-secondary education accessible for all Canadians.

Since the first budget, in 1997-98, about one quarter of all new federal spending has been on education and innovation. This means more than $36 billion.

The Canada learning bond and enhanced Canada education savings grant programs contained in the Canada education savings act are critically important steps in this continuum of progress. These strategically targeted initiatives will help increase access to post-secondary education for children of every culture who might not otherwise have that opportunity. They will help to make sure that children currently living in disadvantaged situations have a reason to hope for a better future.

More to the point, they will help to ensure that they have a better future. Post-secondary education will get Canadian children on the right track, but we know it is a long term investment, so let us turn for a moment to the present. What is the Government of Canada doing today to help adult Canadians such as these children's parents in their own efforts to attain the Canadian dream? The answer is, “Many things”.

Complementing our investments in the Canada learning bond and the enhanced Canada education savings grant is a continuum of programs and services to help all Canadians acquire the skills to find meaningful and productive work: literacy and essential skills programs, a national apprenticeship strategy, and speedy and effective recognition of professional credentials earned in other countries. These are the essential contributions we need to make to support a labour market in which Canadians can find and keep meaningful jobs.

I will speak to these priorities in greater detail in the very near future. Suffice it to say that making post-secondary education more accessible and more affordable is just one element of the workplace skills strategy that will enable Canadians to seize more opportunities to obtain and keep meaningful work.

The 21st century will belong to the best and the brightest and to those countries that take early action to respond to this new reality. Just as parents want to do the right thing for their children, so must we as legislators do the right thing for our country. I urge all members in the House to adopt this very necessary and very worthy legislation so that we can make an important down payment on our collective future.

Post-Secondary Education Savings Assistance Act

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)