Madam Speaker, in his speech, the member for Durham claimed that our system was ill. I have to support his position in this regard. It is true that the system is ill. Of course, we must have the same definition of what he means by system. For us, it is the federal system. It is the one which is now holding up the provinces, especially Quebec, with its duplications, its entanglements and its various restrictions. It is even said somewhere in the document that the authors feel that the federalist system had been too strict in the past.
Tonight, certain comments I heard and the member's view surprise me somewhat. Prime minister Campbell was defeated in the last elections because, one night, she said on television-and I remember it full well-that it would not be appropriate to discuss spending cuts during an election campaign. Later on, when cornered, she had to admit that there would be cuts. A little pushed the same way, the current minister told us before that the reform would not change the level.
What can be felt, now in this House, is that the Liberal Party is seeking a new mandate to cut spending, which it has already begun to do in any case.
I concur with the statement that our system is ill, but not with the other comments of the member. According to him, some people seen in the unemployment insurance office look happy to be there. It is as though they are unemployed on purpose. He did not say that, but he was speaking about regular claimants.
Later on, he spoke of some single women with children who were able to put some money aside. I think this attitude is completely depressing, even if I know that we must respect everyone's freedom of expression in this House.
On post-secondary education, he seems to think there are too many students attending university and that these students choose the wrong field of study. To reduce the number of wrong choices, we should make some study programs less expensive than others. I would like to have more details on this.