Mr. Speaker, if I may be allowed to make two corrections to the hon. member's assertions to begin with.
First, the green paper is only a series of options for discussion. There is no government policy at this point in time.
Second, the assertion that the government is withdrawing funding from higher education is totally false. At the present time the federal government provides over 50 per cent of the funding of higher education. We intend to maintain our commitment. What we have pointed out is that the provinces will receive the same amount, $6.2 billion, except more will come from tax revenues.
If you can get the provinces to start living up to their responsibilities to ensure that the transfer of money totally goes to higher education, then there would be no problem with tuitions or funding.
In fact what we are proposing is to find ways of adding more money, upward of $12 billion over the next 10 years, to higher education. That is the truth. Not a reduction but an addition.