Madam Speaker, one must congratulate the Minister of Human Resources Development on Bill C-28, an imaginative approach to updating and modernizing a measure that has been on the books for some years.
We work in an area of some constitutional doubt. That has existed since the immediate post-war period when Prime Minister St. Laurent and his successors ventured into the field of higher education in the knowledge that without a national presence, a national leadership, we might fall behind in the race to achieving and maintaining world standards.
That remains the situation today. There are limits to constitutional power. They necessarily condition what it is possible to do at the federal level in the field of higher education, although with imagination and some civil courage governments are doing their utmost in that area.
It is also important to remember that we live in the era of budgetary restraint now with us. There are limits to what you can do in any area without taking away from other priority areas.
What this legislation does is change something that has not been fundamentally changed in 30 years. It is very noticeable in terms of the financial provisions, the benefits available to students, which were frozen by the preceding government at 1984 levels. It is very much to be welcomed that the minister has taken the lead here with the substantial increase in the loan limits, a figure of 57 per cent, reflecting the growth in education costs borne by students over the intervening 10 years.
In fact, if you examine the projections for the next five years, the value of aid for students from the federal government would be $6 billion, an increase of $2.5 billion compared with the previous five years. That recognizes the commitments made by the Prime Minister during the election campaign to bring our standards of education in line with the best of the world community, that we would meet the standards of Japanese education, German education, education for society on the leading edge of technology. This is without derogating from the necessary provision which we all respect for the arts and other areas apart from the natural sciences.
Investing in students in higher educational institutions is an investment in Canada's future. The government is honouring its commitment made during the election campaign.
I think there is merit in examining the sensitiveness with which federal-provincial relations have been handled here. For provinces which for their own historic reasons, related perhaps to different views of the role of education, want to opt out of the program, provision is made for compensation so that the students in those provinces can benefit from the increases in federal provisions.
The other measures in the bill relate to rationalization, streamlining and updating the legislative scheme in existence for the past 30 years, increasing the loan limits for full and part time students and special opportunity grants to meet exceptional education costs of students with disabilities, high need part time students and women in doctoral studies, and establishing objective but regionally sensitive approaches to assessing needs.
The issue of repayment of student loans is one which all candidates in the last election who have institutions of higher education within their constituencies or who themselves have experienced education in higher institutions are aware of. It is a matter of extreme concern in a period where summer employment has largely dwindled away and where the economic opportunities and the times of the affluent continually expanding society are no longer there.
Many of us in the last few months have been concerned with approaching the minister or the officials in charge and arguing on a case by case basis the merits of flexibility and adjustment of the terms of student repayment of loans. I must report, although this has been a certain amount of work for my staff, that we have been delighted to assume the burden and that we have had a good success record.
This raises one of the issues which is always true for students of law and society. How much do you try to do by legislation? How much do you try to produce in your legislation an exhaustive code of many many pages? How much must you leave to administrative discretion with proper controls over the discretion to ensure that it is exercised with flexibility and compassion where that is needed?
I believe in amelioration of the conditions of repayment of these student loans. In particular I noted the repayment terms become income sensitive. Borrowers are able to choose between floating and fixed rates of interest based on lender to prime. I think these are measures from which we can take great encouragement.
I would suggest more flexibility in the timing period. There are ways of doing this administratively and, as I said, on a case by case basis. I and I am sure many other members on both sides of the House have experienced a warm response on the part of education officials when we raised the cases with them.
The importance of this is that all eligible students across Canada continue to have access to Canada student loans whether it is directly through the federal government or through their own provincial governments in the case of those provinces that
have opted out or may wish to opt out in the future from the national plan.
The costs of the reform are controlled through development of a consistent method of assessing student need. This is being developed jointly with the provinces. The federal aid sharing approach is caught up with the larger inquiries now being made for harmonizing and improving federal-provincial relations and administrative machinery in the areas where the federal government makes grants-in-aid to the provinces.
On this particular aspect I think the government has already made considerable progress. What is here essentially is a program of updating, modernization, with more flexibility, more compassion, more understanding, if you wish, of student needs that is related to the realities that there are limits to federal power in the field of education. This government and preceding Liberal governments have done their best to interpret federal powers flexibly in the light of the higher policy needs.
There is also the recognition in a period of genuine budgetary restraint that if you grant in one area you cut in another. What is very impressive here is the high priority that this government gives to education. Higher education is the key to our future. It is the key to the job strategy at the beginning of the 21st century. Education that is put forward now trains people with the technology that is necessary to build our industrial recovery and expansion in the next century.