Mr Speaker, I would like to say as an introduction to this bill-although it includes an opting-out provision that we shall discuss later in a third amendment and that has become extremely finicky and departs from what has been the spirit of this type of legislation since 1964-that as Official Opposition we worked very hard to keep one thing in this bill. Some people might say it is not the most important thing, or our business, but we wanted to do our job as Official Opposition. We wanted to stress the historic change of replacing appointment of the appropriate authority by the provinces with direct appointment by the federal minister, with no compulsory consultation of the provinces.
This bill was introduced late, and as a result the legislative process has been speeded up.
Although the hon. colleague who spoke before me said that he had consulted-and we know he carried out consultations; so did we-it is not all that clear that the provinces know their rights, for the plain and simple reason that in this bill they have only one right left, one single right, and that is the right to opt out.
Aside from opting out, any initiative or power in this matter, which is extremely important to education, belongs to the federal minister, and we shall see in the second amendment that the minister has even been given an amount of latitude that is rare, not to say unheard of, in a piece of legislation.
Why, in order to establish the co-operation between the provinces and the federal government mentioned by the parliamentary secretary, must the federal minister take the place of or decide in this bill to take the place of the provinces? Some people in Canada may think-and we saw this in committee-that education must become an area of shared jurisdiction. Of course, everyone made an exception for Quebec, which would always oppose that notion with all its might. And it is understandable that, in light of economic imperatives and the importance of education to a country, some people might think that way.
But let us debate this issue for what it is. It does not concern only the provincial minister of education who is left dangling; I think it concerns Canadians, because -and maybe this is becoming the case-unless the provinces of Canada are just administrative authorities with no real power of initiative, education, their field, has to be of concern to them.
Why do we find it so dramatic that the appropriate authority will now be appointed by the federal minister and not by the province? Because, elsewhere, this bill addresses only relations between the minister and the banks, in broad terms; but students-and I shall come back to this point later-despite the good intentions listed by the minister, nowhere does the bill mention any obligations to students. Nowhere! And if we look at the budgets, there again, nowhere is there any mention of students: between last year's budget and this year's budget, after all the terrific promises that were made to us, how much of an increase is there? A million dollars for the whole of Canada! Congratulations! What openness!
Where is the extra money, the stuff that promises are made of, going to come from? Where? The banks are supposed to go and get that manna from graduates, that is where; there is no money anywhere else. At none of the hearings did I hear that there was any money anywhere else; there certainly is none in the budgets.
So I come back to my question: why is it so dramatic that the appropriate authority will now be appointed by the federal minister instead of the provinces? Because the appropriate authority has essentially two powers; including that of designating institutions, as my colleague said earlier. What does a designated institution mean for ordinary people? It simply means that Queen's University cannot accept students who qualify for scholarships unless it is designated by the appropriate authority.
So we can see the decisive importance of designation. We could say, "But does not that go without saying? Come on, what university could lose its designation?" Well, Mr Speaker, let me tell you that the Association of Universities, which may have the right to an opinion here, is extremely worried by the very next provision, which provides not only that the minister may appoint the appropriate authority to designate, but also that that appropriate authority, reporting directly to the federal minister, is empowered to revoke designation.
Now, the universities told us that they have been threatened for a long time that if they do not participate and do not know how well students actually pay back loans, if their rate of defaulting on loans is too high, they could lose their designation.
And what could the province do in that case? Nothing. It is the federal minister-as if that person did not have enough to do with that immense department that accounts for nearly half of federal government expenditures-it is the federal minister who, in the end, will consider the case.
There is another worrisome aspect to the bill. If I were speaking on behalf of another Canadian province, it seems to me that I would be saying exactly the same thing. Where designation is concerned, is it to ensure effective co-operation among the various provinces, which are responsible for education, and I shall speak-How much time do I have left? Three minutes?
Why is it assumed that the provinces cannot co-operate except under the appropriate authority? They will no longer be equal; they will be subjected to the authority of the minister. People may say, "Oh, but there is no bad faith on the part of the minister; the minister is going to consult". Sure. I can already hear my hon. colleague telling me that, with characteristic flair. But you do not draft legislation for the incumbent minister. You draft legislation for as long as it lasts. There have been two acts since 1964, so you can guess that this one, too, will last for some time.
The provinces have only one right left, one single right, and that is the right to opt out.
I want to return to the appropriate authority. That authority can designate and revoke designation, but it also has an extremely important power, the power to determine which students will qualify for loans. That, too, is important.
Which students will qualify for loans? According to which criteria? We read:
12.(1)( a ) to have attained a satisfactory scholastic standard;
If the student has "attained a satisfactory scholastic standard" and, obviously, if the student needs the money. Whether the student has attained a satisfactory scholastic standard is clearly an institutional matter; but, what is more important, the use of this provision can have a decisive influence on all degree courses at every institution and every university.
I must say that there has not been much of an uprising in Canada in the face of that provision, although Canada is a big place for an uprising. People have not read it carefully; they have not looked at it carefully; they trust the minister. That provision is eminently dangerous.
To the fact that the minister has been given latitude to appoint the appropriate authority-and of course we would have liked to retain the former wording, the wording of the present act, which-not this new wording- until it is amended, is still the current act and the one we shall defend-I add the fact that the minister can also appoint a bank, a financial institution. In committee, it was very clear that a financial institution could decide whether the student has attained a satisfactory scholastic standard.
People may say, "No, no, that is not the ministers intention". But there is nothing in the bill to prevent that from happening.
We could not ignore this extremely important provision. It is easy centralization because it is about student loans; however, it indicates a worrisome trend, not just for Quebec, which I hope will settle that problem once and for all, but for the provinces in general.
I suspect that, even without Quebec, Canada will be talking about the Constitution again.