Thank you, again.
I'm going to go back to the issue of the dedicated transfer. In my view, there are two things. One, the most important recommendation the committee should make to the government is how do we get a handle on post-secondary education?
Secondly.... We have four people from distinguished institutions, so I want your opinion on this. I haven't got a lot of time, but I want to try to be as specific as possible.
Judy indicated that the percentage of post-secondary funding from the federal government has declined to single digits. In fact, it stayed constant, and those are numbers from the government's budget document, but it's been taken from that allocation to the provinces. Lloyd indicated that some of it goes to research. We set up the millennium scholarship, learning bonds, and all that sort of thing. So if we do a dedicated transfer.... I brought this to a Liberal policy convention last March, and got it passed as a priority resolution. So I support the dedicated transfer.
I have two concerns. One, a dedicated transfer does not do anything to close the inequities in Canada between a province like Nova Scotia and a province like Alberta, which can afford a lot more now than Nova Scotia can. If there are dedicated transfers per capita, then I assume it won't close that gap. It also won't allow us to target specific areas that are a problem, like the aboriginal communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but I do want to try to get a succinct recommendation from you guys. The choice is a dedicated transfer.... And negotiating with the provinces is not all that easy. We did it in health, but it didn't come without a certain amount of blood on the floor. So the choice is either a dedicated transfer and allow the provinces a large amount of control, or the federal government saying they are going to continue to invest in research and innovation and they're going to go directly to students, particularly, as Dr. Axworthy indicated, not to lower tuition overall but specifically to help aboriginal Canadians, low-income families, and persons with disabilities.
I would like your views. I'll start with Jeff.