I'd like to provide just one historical perspective and a couple of quick thoughts.
First, as someone involved in the negotiations in 1995 on the Canada social transfer, I think we should understand one thing. We talk about restoring the transfer, and in fact it was restored, because the major universities, the four or five big universities, at that time lobbied very hard that the money go into research and innovation, CFI and technology. That's where the money went, and it was the lobby of the universities that asked for it.
Hopefully, the CST was to have a merged, blended form. Clearly the money was cut back to deal with the deficit issue, but the question is, how do you rebuild it? My view, which I've expressed twice now, is that if it is to be dedicated, it should be dedicated to those areas in which the federal government has clear responsibilities, such as aboriginal education, where there is a clear jurisdictional issue, and I think you can also begin to provide it in other areas where there is clear federal responsibility.
On housing--this is where I'll make one other point--I think members of the committee would be interested to know of some research that I did a few years ago, where, if you looked at what happened in this country after the Second World War, when a depression generation, which didn't have two nickels to rub together, came back as veterans--over a million and a half Canadians came back--there were two federal programs, one on post-secondary education and one on housing, and we created a middle class in this country as a result. That was the basis of our economic changeover from a depression country to a middle-class country. Those were two national programs closely integrated with the provinces and municipalities. It wasn't one on. But you can go into any city in the country and see post-war housing that was provided, which gave people ownership. It was turned over to them and they became the middle class. And it was the same thing with education.
You gave people a stake in their country--that was all you were doing--and I think that's what we have to look at now. I favour dedication, but with clear targets, meeting federal responsibilities.