I'll be sharing my time with Patrick.
You mentioned the millennium report. I just want to mention that Statistics Canada recently released a report stating that financial constraints were not the major reason why youths from low-income families do not attend university.
You also talked about the investments in education. I want to say that, yes, we do think it is important, and the tax credits are important because they're part of the big picture. We have a bigger picture, I think, than you have, with $5.4 billion annually to support the students. We believe eliminating the federal tax on the scholarships and bursaries was a very important aspect of it, this year particularly.
When you want to talk about lower-income people or people who don't have access to university, some of the immigrants who have moved into my city have been able to access grants and were very happy to be able to get scholarships. It can indeed help even those who perhaps don't have a lot of money.
We expanded the eligibility for the Canada student loans and reduced the expected parental contributions. We did put $5 billion into research grants and loans for students, and provided $2 billion through grants, scholarships, and bursaries. We also provided apprenticeship incentives. I think we were looking at the big picture.
Of course, this is just another need; as Ms. Savoie said, maybe you're missing the middle class as well, or some of the people who maybe can take advantage of that. I think even those in the lower income will take advantage of those costs. My daughter went to university, and I think she would appreciate it. It's something that I think maybe you should have considered.
You also said that you were here when this legislation started, and you know it's good. How do you know it's good? How do you know it's successful? It's only going into its second year. There's no analysis.
The reason I'm asking is that I did meet with the department, as I think you did as well. I asked the department what they thought was the measurement of success here. With these grants, do we know that young people are accessing university because of it, and if they are, are they completing university or are they completing the first year? Is this what they need? Do you have any measurement of success?
Most programs in a prudent government would do that, would want to know how successful these programs are, or if we should perhaps look at it another way to have young people or lower-income people and families access these grants.