Thank you very much.
Thank you all for your presentations. There is so little time to deal with hugely complex issues.
I'll start with Mr. Brown. I'm very impressed with the way our college systems—I'm most familiar with the one we have in British Columbia—seem to allow seamless transition to university and, where required, strong apprenticeship programs, and so on, but I've also been concerned about the underinvestment by the last Liberal government. There is certainly an indication in this budget of some investment, a transfer to provinces, which is welcome, still below the level that we had even in the early 1990s, but nonetheless a welcome addition.
I've argued for a long time for strong legislation to ensure stable long-term funding for accessible post-secondary education, quality post-secondary education, to publicly administered colleges and universities.
You raised the issue of the need to establish pan-Canadian targets. We don't seem to have the tools to do that at the moment. It seems we spend most of our time squabbling between jurisdictions. What tools are missing to make that happen? That's the first question.
The other one is that this budget has been virtually silent on literacy, and from everything we've heard at this committee, we know about the importance of it and the need for federal leadership in this area because of the implications for the labour market.
I wonder if you'd comment on those two.