Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether I want to thank the hon. member for St. Boniface for the question because I would not dare try to speak for our separatist friends opposite.
To answer my colleagues question in its simplest form, the parties opposite, especially the Bloc in this case, have to realize that education is not some sort of commodity like pork hocks or apples. It is a national principle. Education is a national principle. Education is a natural resource and I am now working with
the minister to prove how the country can actually export this natural resource.
We have a natural resource called education. With this bill, as I have outlined, we want to do many things to make post-secondary education accessible to all Canadians, whether they are working or not working, whether they are young or old, whether they want to be retrained or whatever their situation. They must have equal access and not just because they have some money in their pockets they can go to school. That is not very fair.
If the Bloc can take politics out of the issue, if the Bloc can understand that we are not talking about the resource of education being something with which to balance the books or to trade off. If Bloc members say that with the bill the federal government is attempting in some way to make a power grab away from the provinces, especially the province of Quebec, they are missing the fundamental point that education is not a commodity.
Education is a natural resource. Education is something precious that must be made available to all Canadians whether they live in B.C., in the Northwest Territories, in Ontario or in Quebec.