Madam Speaker, education is a universal norm. I used to be a teacher. One thing about education is that it is dynamic.
In a lot of cases although people develop ideas in different municipalities those ideas might be the same. There has to be some central body to make sure there is some kind of uniformity. That is the role of the federal government.
We are not trying to stifle creativity in whatever this government is drafting. We are trying to make sure that we enhance and use all the knowledge and talents from all the provinces. I do not think any one province has talents exceeding those of another province.
For instance, in my municipality a youngster at one of the high schools I taught at qualified recently for a global scholarship. He will be leaving for Japan. I will be making a statement in this House about that. I know that all provinces, all peoples and all races produce people with these talents.
It is the role of the federal government to make sure that the educational facilities throughout this great country of ours have some semblance of order. Notwithstanding the fact that provinces are innovative and the province of Quebec has done extremely well with its economic base and some restructuring of its industries. In fact, it is a leader. Certainly the rest of Canada from time to time could copy some things from Quebec, but I am sure there are also things in Ontario which could be cross-pollinated.
There is always this movement of the provinces wanting more responsibility. They ask the feds to collect the money and then pass it on. However the feds do have a responsibility to maintain that uniformity.