I didn't say lower tuitions. I basically said tuitions are increasing and scholarships are an important vehicle. Certainly, the biggest part of education is not tuition; it actually is living costs. As you start seeing the cost of living going up in communities, the cost of going to school goes up, and it's exponential.
The other key element that I think you're raising is that in fact one of the key issues with that significant growth is what is the game plan. Certainly we've launched here in Alberta a game plan with human resources, but it is not tied together on the federal and provincial jurisdictions of dealing with growth. It's not one department. It cannot be just education, but it has to involve how we look at municipalities, how we look at infrastructure, and so forth, so that you pull that string and we have a combined strategy across Canada.
As you start looking at the significant projects, whether it's in the east or in the west, again some of the referencing around the tremendous growth is really looking at how do we handle that growth in some areas. Certainly in other areas we're seeing massive layoffs of 300 and 400 people. Again, I think we need to have a strategy of looking at Canada as a whole and not just individual components.
The last thing I'd say in terms of looking at education is that our completion rates at the high school level are dropping, and that's what you're really referring to. We're trying to encourage business and industry to ensure that they're looking at students completing school before they go into the work environment. Apprenticeship is a great model, in that you can start apprenticeship work right away but still come back to post-secondary. As a reference, the completion rate again is an issue for us. We need to have a combined strategy, and it cannot be just one department versus another, HRSD versus Industry Canada. I think we need a strategy in the budget that looks at issues, and then from that, there will be certain areas that will be segregated out to the other departments.
Thank you.