Mr. Speaker, this question has been brought up before. I do not know how long the member opposite has been out of school but as you can tell I have not been out of school that long. I remember when I borrowed money from the government through the system that was in place at that time which basically has not been changed very dramatically since then.
One of the issues the member talks about is the fact that there is a proposal to make cuts in the funding that flows directly to provinces. I totally encourage that. In fact I have discussed it with my colleagues. The present system of dollars flowing to the provinces for post-secondary education has totally failed young Canadians. It has not worked.
If the member is concerned that tuition is rising, he should look at what has been happening around him. It has been rising 10 per cent per year for the last four or five years. It is on the move up.
The government is suggesting a system where students can pay back the dollars they borrowed based on how much money they make when they get out of the system. It is a system used in other parts of the world and is much more efficient.
If he talks to the staff in his office about one particular constituency problem he may regularly face, he may find that young people are coming in on a regular basis because they cannot afford to pay their student loans. There has to be a way of changing the system and that is one of its major problems.
Last, he asked about training. One of the proposals is about transferring dollars to training and supplementing the people on welfare with training dollars. We are not reducing the amount of money that a Canadian will get. We are increasing it with a built-in incentive which is a much more appropriate process than saying to someone: "Here is your welfare cheque. Don't ever bother coming back into the system. Stay where you are. We like you being on the poverty line". We are saying that we will give a minimum amount of welfare but we will supplement it with training dollars so people can improve themselves and get back into the workforce. In this way they will be a part of the constructive society we are trying to build.