Mr. Speaker, last spring we proposed a new three year agreement on manpower training to all the provinces. As I said yesterday in the House, it included a transfer of responsibility for institutional training and training that is purchased in community colleges and CEGEPs.
We indicated our willingness to invite the provinces to plan priorities for federal resource investments in each province. In the case of Quebec where we spend about $800 million, that takes in an envelope of almost $500 million. We indicated our willingness to work with them on a system of guichet unique, of single window deliveries. We also indicated that if the provinces would be willing we would look at transferring responsibility for some of the programs which are more clearly in the educational field, such as stay in school programs and others.
Several provinces have responded positively and quite constructively. We are in the process of negotiating with them. We have not heard officially from the new Government of Quebec as to what its response to that agreement would be.
Let me make one important point. These are our proposed three year agreements. There is no point in having longer term agreements until we know what the new structure of our programs will be. There is no point in reassembling or reallocating programs that may not exist or that may be changed or altered. Therefore, the three year interim agreement is a very good demonstration of how we are prepared to be flexible. We are prepared to assign more responsibility to the provinces in areas of their competence. We want to work in co-operation with the provinces.