Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of you for being with us this morning.
I think I'll start with post-secondary education, beginning with students and then universities, partly because I've spent twice as many years working for a university as I have in politics. I have some understanding and sympathy for the case.
Beginning with the students, I certainly agree that more student aid is desperately needed, partly because the unemployment rate for young people is at record high, so it's harder to get a job, and the parents of students may be financially more pressed than normal because of the financial crisis.
I certainly agree that gimmicky things like the textbook tax credit should be replaced with core grants to students. My only question though—and I'd ask Peter George to answer this question too—is about your proposal for a post-secondary act and the transfer of $1.2 billion or whatever the number is. I have a little bit of a concern over that--one, because it gets into all sorts of jurisdictional issues, notably with Quebec, and two, because money is fungible. If you give an extra $1.2 billion to the provinces dedicated to post-secondary, there's nothing to stop them reducing the amounts they contribute.
So I'm not sure it's all that effective, and I'm not sure that it wouldn't be better to use that same amount of money to put it directly into the pockets of students. The money would then flow to the students rather than flowing to provincial governments. Once it flows to provincial governments, it's kind of like a black hole. You don't know where it will end up.
Ms. Melanson, what would you say to that?