Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I am astounded that the member and the government try to defend the numbers, the billions of cut dollars, whether we talk about education, social programs or a health care system.
The government has no credibility to debate this point. It can throw mud at provincial governments and say that they are at fault. The record shows that because of the dehabilitating demise of funding for these programs, particularly education, we are now in the crisis we are in.
The member says that somehow the millennium fund should be based on merit, that this is a legitimate issue. I remind the hon. member that what he read from his own material was merit. If students are in post-secondary education they have already gone through that test. They have already gone through the entrance requirement and demonstrated that they have the merit to be there.
The issue the government has to tackle is the issue of financial need. To set up another scholarship program, another merit program, is a totally misdirected political grandstanding exercise.