The former government recognized the importance of the Canada access grants and the great help they have provided to students. But there is a need to expand that. The economic update of 2005 included $550 million over five years to extend Canada access grants for low-income families to all years of undergraduate education. In essence, its the proposal you have adopted in this measure.
I think it's really important that we understand that you are trying to do something very specific on what I consider to be the number one issue in the post-secondary environment, which is access.
There are a lot of needs. Universities need infrastructure; universities have deferred maintenance. We need to keep the pressure on research. We made a lot of strides, up until the last government was elected, in terms of research and innovation. The economic update put more in that. We've seen some since then, but not as much.
Access, to me, is the biggest issue. You're not trying to cure all the issues of post-secondary education, as I read this, Mr. Regan. What you're trying to do is say that you think we need to do something to make sure that students from low-income families can get to university. An $80 tax credit doesn't do it. Making scholarships untaxable is not of any advantage to these people. If we're actually going to move people who can't go to university or community college in there, this is the way to do it. This is a very specific instrument for those people.
Is that a fair assumption?