Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on Bill C-28, the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act.
The way the federal government is acting here exemplifies, in a way, the failure of the Canadian federal system and can explain, to a large extent, why a sovereigntist political party like ours was voted into the House of Commons of Canada.
Student financial assistance is obviously an education matter. And in Canada, under the existing Constitution, education comes under the jurisdiction of the provinces. The government, the English Parliament that passed the British North America Act in 1867 had clearly defined the jurisdictions of each of the two levels of government we have in Canada: the federal government and the provincial governments. And each of them have exclusive powers within their jurisdictions.
Under section 42 of the British North America Act, education was defined at that time as an area of provincial jurisdiction. But for years, actually decades now, the federal government has been invading this provincial area of responsibility. By virtue of what authority? By virtue of its own power to spend.
It is somewhat ironic to see, while jurisdictions are clearly defined in the Constitution, the federal government is intruding in an area under provincial jurisdiction, saying: "We are rich. We have loads of money. We have money to spend. Therefore you have to take our money".
The bill before us speaks volumes about the government managing to ignore the uniqueness of provincial governments in the end. In time, this practice has caused the federal system to fail in Canada, with the result that communities like ours, in Quebec, have decided to take responsibility for themselves and run their own state business in their interests, according to objectives set by and for themselves.
This bill sets out standards any provincial government would have to meet to avail itself of something we have been enjoying in Canada for over thirty years, namely the possibility of opting out. As you know, since the 1960s, many voices were raised in Canada to warn the federal government: "You are interfering in such and such an area of provincial jurisdiction". With things heating up, the federal government of the day put forward the opting-out formula, which means that a provincial government can invoke its right to opt out, get full compensation for and administer certain programs in the interest of its people.
Quebec opted out of a number of these programs, including the loan and bursary program.
This bill preserves the opting-out formula, but the conditions each province must meet in order to exercise the right to opt out are so stringent that the day will come when opting-out will not be in a province's interest.
The bill says that if a province wants to withdraw, its program must have essentially the same criteria as those of the federal program. So what are they really telling the province? They are telling it to administer-repeat, administer-the federal program in such a way as to obtain the same results.
At first glance, we could say: "Yes, it is quite normal in a federation. The federal government has a responsibility to ensure that all parts of the country and all citizens are treated the same way". We would then completely ignore one important aspect: Within the Canadian federation, there are some very obvious local differences. British Columbia, Newfoundland and Quebec often face particular situations that require adjusting the programs from which they asked to withdraw. Also, they cannot always pursue the same objectives and effects if they want to ensure that the people who stand to benefit get the most out of the programs.
I think it is rather obvious in the area of education. I myself am a teacher by profession. Before being elected to the House of Commons, I worked as a guidance counsellor in a secondary school. I saw that the Canadian education system has its peculiarities. It was quite obvious every year during Canada Career Week. Schools then received boxes full of brochures suggesting activities, in French, of course, because we are still Canada's French-speaking province. We received documents in French suggesting activities geared to the various levels.
Every year, it was something of a novelty for everyone. We were eager to see what was proposed. The school's guidance counsellors and teachers tried to find out together what Canadian people elsewhere thought up for us in French and wanted us to do during Career Week. Often, it was written in acceptable or sometimes even in excellent French. We had difficulty understanding the type of activities proposed and figuring out to which students or levels they were aimed at. The various systems work differently and also the values underlying them vary from province to province. So, in the vast majority of situations, we simply could not use the material provided to us.
Nevertheless, we would do like the rest of Canadian schools and have a career week, except that we would use material prepared in our own school, and it would work very well. This example illustrates how, in a field as critical as education, Canadians and Quebecers have different approaches, views and ways of doing things.
At the time, we more or less did what Quebec wants to do in the next few years, in that we decided to act independently. We told ourselves: Our school will have its own career week, based on our own methods, objectives and procedures, and activities will be geared to our students.
This modest work experience has taught me that, in fields as important as education, the needs of citizens and provinces must be taken into account, and those needs are not the same throughout Canada. That is why the bill before us is a bad piece of legislation. It includes several clauses promoting such standardization, and some provinces might not be able to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that the system runs smoothly.
Let us go back to clause 7, which refers to the interest-free period for a borrower who ceases to be a student.
Why does that clause impose a standard procedure for every province in the country? We all know that the unemployment rate varies from province to province. It is not true that a student in a given province has the same chances of finding a job when he graduates as a student in another province.
Yet, based on that clause, the situation is presumably the same right across the country. I will conclude by simply asking the House to support the amendment tabled by the Bloc Quebecois to delete this provision which forces provinces to adopt and implement standard procedures, thereby making the option to withdraw from the plan non applicable for all intents and purposes. If this bill is passed in the form proposed by the Liberal government, it will confirm once again that Canadian federalism cannot work in the current context. Consequently, those who are looking for an alternative in the interest of their community have no choice but to withdraw from it, as I hope Quebec will do in the next few years.