Thank you, Chair.
I'll start from scratch, just to make sure you understand my point and my question. It's for all the representatives of universities.
We had a lot of colleges, universities, and student unions come before us, and the recurring recommendation was to raise the education transfer--in fact, up to where it was before the cuts in 1995, and taking into account the inflation and the growth of the student population, which was getting us up to $4.9 billion per year. That was almost everywhere, in all provinces, Quebec and outside.
When I look at your brief, there's no such number. There's not even the word “raising”, in terms of the money transferred for education. You just talk about creating a dedicated transfer. Right now, we have an amount of money that is given for both social programs and education. To say our recommendation is just to put in a line doesn't cost a lot. That's probably fine for Conservatives, but it doesn't put any new money into the education system.
On the other hand, in your brief you go into detail on where the money should go. In my opinion, it's not our role as federal MPs to do that. This is a provincial jurisdiction.
Some of you just talk about renewed infrastructure and human capital. Once again, I think it's a very nice thing, but it should be up to the provinces and the colleges and universities to decide what they will do with this money.
Others go very far, to put in place or improve a learning program for college. I really don't see why the federal government should go that way--funds to improve installation and modernization of equipment, and stuff like that.
Don't you think it would be preferable to ask this committee to just raise the transfer to the provinces for education, and then do your lobbying with your province?