The federal contribution to the infrastructure program will be very tangible and very significant. We are providing the provinces and municipalities with a total of $2 billion over the next two years. For the most part the federal contribution will be matched equally by the provinces and municipalities. This will provide for a total joint program of $6 billion and that is a very significant sum of money.
Another issue that had a major impact on me during the campaign concerned women at home. These were mothers who stayed at home. Over and over again it was repeated to me at the door by mothers who choose to stay home with their children
that they were not being given equal status to their counterparts who are mothers who went out to work.
There were two or three particular areas. One was with regard to child care. The mum who was at work was able to claim this on her income tax. The mother who stayed at home was not able to claim the child care on her income tax. The woman who went to work was able to pay into the CPP. The woman who was home was not able to and thus was not able to collect a pension. There are inequalities in the system that we must recognize. We must work to negate those inequalities.
I heard from small businesses about how they are overburdened with taxes. The amount of paper work just consumes far too much time, effort and money.
We heard about the banks and how they were just putting the arm lock on businesses and not allowing them to expand as they should. We know that they create 80 per cent of the jobs in this country. We know there are approximately 800,000. Would it not be wonderful if all of them could each hire one person? We must work with our investment institutions to solve the problems of inadequate capital in small and medium sized business.
The other evening I was at a dinner and the guest speaker was the human resources director for a local high tech company. He said the universities today are not graduating engineers suitable to his high tech company or they are not graduating enough engineers. They were going to the U.K. to hire engineers for a Canadian high tech company.
I find that absolutely disgraceful. I hope that our government will work with our schools, colleges and universities to ensure that we are putting out engineers or whatever profession is needed in the market today. The market is changing from day to day so our universities must make sure that our young people's education is headed in the right direction.
It has been a real pleasure to speak here on such short notice in this House of Commons this afternoon. I thank you very much, Madam Speaker.