Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate.
Human Resources Development Canada I believe, from my longstanding commitment to the Liberal tradition, is central to the government's maintaining its credibility with the people of Canada. Of all government departments Human Resources Development Canada is the one at this time that should get the most support and the most encouragement from all members of the House.
As we are going through a period of restructuring we have these incredible forces from the right that say cut, eliminate, offload, decentralize. When we are doing that for the purpose of eliminating waste I am sympathetic.
I believe human resources development has to be one of the departments of the national government that remain strong and intact. It must be the counterbalance to provincial forces that quite often are shortsighted and think in a parochial way rather than in the interest of the whole of Canada. I maintain that unless we have national programs with national standards it will be very difficult for us to maintain a sense of national will.
I am totally opposed to offloading any more of the decision making process in an area like human resources development to the province of Quebec or to any other provinces. All of a sudden we will have that parochial thought process emerge. We will become a country in which essentially we have about five or six different standards, thought processes emerging. When we are trying to develop national standards it is virtually impossible when we go that route.
I will give an example in terms of my own province, Ontario. We have a Conservative government which is being very shortsighted in the way it is treating its human resources development opportunities.