Mr. Speaker, the member made comments about his experience with Catholic education at St. Jean de Brebeuf high school in Toronto, a great institution. The football teams were not that good but the academics were pretty good.
The member talked about the inadequate education system in Newfoundland. I cannot understand where the member is getting his information. This is one factor which is leading him to the decision to support this amendment.
I raised specific information from Premier Tobin's red book in the House earlier today. And we all know that those red books are only guidelines. I quote a statement from Premier Tobin's red book, the platform of the Liberal Party in the recent provincial election: "Since Confederation we have made tremendous progress in education. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have built an educational system in which we can all have pride".
Then there is this from Chris Decker, former minister of education: "The percentage of the population attaining less than eight years of schooling has decreased from 24 per cent in 1976 compared to the then Canadian average of 9.5, to 5.6 per cent, slightly more than the Canadian average of 3.8 in 1991. That is an improvement of 18.4 per cent for Newfoundland compared to an improvement of 1.8 per cent for Canada as a whole. Students in Newfoundland perform just as well as students in most other provinces in the Canadian average".