Debates of March 12th, 1998

Supply

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Can you hear them. They are raising a ruckus opposite, because the truth is upsetting, the truth hurts.

I would like to know what the member for Rosemont thinks of the fact some that students said, on the very day of the budget, “We want to look at the program and to have access to these grants”. Why does the member for Rosemont, who was speaking on behalf of young people on the weekend and whose work in other areas I respect, not join with the government on the issue of the millenium scholarship fund, so that, together, those of our generation can give young people access?

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

For heaven's sake.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

You have no business there.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

The first problem is young people's debt.

We have assumed our responsibility to ensure young people's access.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

After cutting transfers to the provinces by $10 billion.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Instead of listening to the member for Quebec who is whining as usual, I want to know what the member for Rosemont think about accessibility.

Is he one of those who think that scholarships are strictly under provincial jurisdiction, when we know that it has been a shared cost program since 1964 and that, if the federal government had not gotten involved, there would have never been a scholarship program?

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I can see that the member for Bourassa listened carefully to my speech. He seems pretty worked up.

He just said a lot of things in two minutes. He talked about student debt. Yes, student debt is a reality in Quebec. However, I would remind him that the average student debt is $11,000 in Quebec, compared to $25,000 for the rest of Canada.

These are the facts. That means that our scholarship system works. The member opposite talks about accessibility. Does he not recognize that the present system helps only those who are in a particular situation?

It does indirectly what it cannot do directly. But I remind the member that Quebec has a very effective loan and scholarship system and does not need any lesson from the member opposite, let alone from the government opposite.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, before asking my question, I would simply like to correct certain remarks that were made previously in this House by the Secretary of State for Regional Development. I think his figures were wrong and I want to take this opportunity to correct them.

He said that the federal government has increased transfers to the provinces. I want people to know that, in reality, these payments were reduced by $7 billion. They were at $18 billion in 1993 and they are now at $11 billion. That money was invested in education. I wanted to make this correction so that everybody has a good understanding of the situation.

I would like the member for Rosemont to talk again—maybe I did not catch what he said—about student debt in Quebec compared to the rest of Canada. I would like to hear again the statistics he just gave, and maybe he could elaborate on that.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, just a quick answer. As I have just said, it is true that Quebec students have the smallest debt load—let me quote the figures again—with an average student debt of $11,000, compared to $25,000 in the rest of the country. Of course, the whole situation is quite bad, but when we compare our situation to that of others, what the member opposite does not seem to understand is that the system we have in Quebec is rather efficient.

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say how much of a pleasure it is to get the opportunity to speak this afternoon, not only about one particular component of the Canadian opportunities strategy, the central piece of that particular strategy, but the direction that this government is taking for the betterment and future of the young people of this nation.

There are two themes in the budget that will go down in history as very important turning points. As we all know and will continue to read and hear about in the history books long after we are gone, one is the fact that for the first time in my voting life we have a government which has produced a balanced budget. No matter what the opposition or people feel about what was in it or not in it, that will always be the central theme that people will remember.

There is one other very important central theme and one only in essence because this is the most important budget in our generation as it relates to post-secondary education and to students, that is that this is an education budget.

Those are the two themes in this budget that people will remember the most as years go by. They will not remember the machinations of the Bloc Quebecois or Reform or the Tories saying we should have done this or that. Those are the two themes.

In those themes I want to deal extensively with the Canadian opportunities strategy. In that strategy there is one fundamental issue as it relates to the Government of Canada, and that is access to post-secondary education for our young people today and tomorrow and to help those who have gone through the system in the last few years and have accumulated a very large debt after completing university, college or some other institutional program.

Let us go back just a little bit and look at the most fundamental part of the Canada opportunities strategy, which is the Canada student loans program.

I do not hear members of the opposition complaining about the Canada student loans program which has been giving billions of dollars to students since its inception in the early 1960s. Since 1975 and into 1995, the number of Canada student loans program recipients rose by 148% while university enrolment increased by 54%.

That program, instituted by the Government of Canada, helped generate the access to post-secondary education that was missing before my generation. It came into being at the beginning of my college and university days. There were many people in my age group and a little older who would have never gone to college or university if it had not been for the federal government.

I do not hear the members opposite telling us not to continue with the Canada student loans program because it is a bad program or that it is jurisdictionally unacceptable to be involved in education in that regard because of the provinces. As a matter of fact, they are involved in only one particular aspect today. It is because of their fear that the federal government has again launched another initiative that is going to help students obtain access to education.

I want to read something to our NDP friends who continue to ask why we are putting in a millennium scholarship fund for the year 2000 when there is a need to do something today. I will read what was in the federal budget that will help students immediately. We have recognized that there are some problems as they relate to students not only in accessibility but in planning for tomorrow and for dealing with debts today.

Some of the measures in the budget are easing student debt load; helping parents save for their children's education; promoting lifelong learning by allowing Canadians to make tax free withdrawals from their RRSPs to upgrade their skills and knowledge; and increasing funding for SchoolNet in the community to help bring the information technology into more classrooms and communities across Canada.

Our goal is to continue to introduce steady and progressive reforms to the Canada student loans program to meet those evolving needs.

I want to make sure for the record that people understand when they listen to this debate that it is not just about the millennium scholarship or the Canada student loans program. It is about the whole issue of accessibility. More important, it is about partnership with students, with parents and of course with provincial governments. I put these in their proper order because that is where they belong. The partnership has to be with students, their parents and, lastly, with the provincial governments.

The new measures announced in the budget will do these things. They will provide a new study grant of up to $3,000 for students with dependants beginning August 1 of this year. Well over 25,000 full and part time students in financial need who must support children or other dependants are expected to be eligible for this grant. For the first time, the government will provide expansion of interest relief to students who are experiencing difficulty making repayments.

Next year graduate interest relief will be introduced for others based on income. It will provide a measure to protect borrowers from defaults and bankruptcies due to high student debt.

As members can see, the Canada student loans program is evolving, changing and improving to continue to allow the children and parents of today and tomorrow the opportunity for post-secondary education. Why should we, as a federal government, be concerned about that? If we listen to the head waiters of the provincial governments in the opposition, they think the federal government should not be involved in these things because they are provincial jurisdiction.

We cannot dissociate social policy from economic policy. It is impossible to do that sort of thing. I have said this in the House before and I will say it again: The unemployment rate for those who have a post-secondary education drops to 5%, half the rate of unemployment in Canada. That is the rationale for the federal government being involved in post-secondary education and in access to post-secondary education now and in the future.

A central piece of this strategy besides the Canada student loans program is the new millennium scholarships fund. I appreciate the opportunity the Bloc has given us to promote the Canada millennium scholarships fund and to bring it to the attention of all Canadians. It is a lot cheaper to promote it standing here while people listen than it would be to spend money on sending promotional material and booklets across the country. It is a good saving for taxpayers.

Why would anybody be opposed to a millennium scholarships fund? It is at arm's length from the government. It is a foundation. Those appointed to look after it will be people with experience in education who understand the needs of students across the nation.

An interesting aspect is that the private sector has an opportunity to put money into this foundation. The $2.5 billion we start with will not be the end of it. We could end up with a $5 billion foundation for scholarships if the private sector comes to the table to help us and if the provinces see fit when they have surpluses, like Alberta, to put some of their money into the foundation. They could do this instead of whining and bellyaching about what the federal government should not do.

There is one most important attitude which federalists and Canadians should have. For years the federal government has helped in areas of provincial jurisdiction because we believe in partnership. We believe in partnership with citizens, not necessarily with governments. Those are institutions created to serve people.

The millennium scholarships fund, the Canada student loans program and the Canadian opportunities strategy are intended to deal with partnerships with students, partnerships with parents and partnerships with those levels of government that have the fortitude and long term vision to understand what this will mean for future generations and for the country as an economic trader and exporter.

I am thankful for the opportunity to say why this is such an important undertaking. The budget we have just submitted to Canadians will go down in history as the budget that balanced the books for the first time in my generation. It is giving Canadian young people an opportunity to be successful in a global economy.

[Ghislain Lebel, Bloc, Chambly, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened very carefully to the hon. member. One thing he seems to be forgetting in this debate is that—in the Fall of 1995, I think it was—the House passed a resolution on Quebec's distinct society. As usual, members opposite have forgotten all about it, of course. At the time, we kept saying it was wishful thinking and we have been proven right.

I want to say to the hon. member who just spoke that regional development depends quite a lot on manpower training. He voted in favour of Quebec's distinct society. If we were to go through Hansard , we would see that the hon. member has acknowledged it. Quebec, as a distinct society, can adjust its regional development according to its manpower training or can train its manpower according to its regional development.

For instance, if Quebec were to decide to focus its manpower training and education program on the aircraft industry and the federal government, just to please the Reform Party, were to centre its manpower training program on the cross-breeding on corn, this could very well hamper the manpower training and regional economic development initiatives of the provinces.

This is one part of the problem that the hon. member opposite, despite all his good intentions, I am sure, as well as the government tend to forget.

Is it not time for him to recognize that economic development is closely linked to the quality of manpower training? When we talk about manpower training, we are also talking about schooling leading to it. This problem has been completely ignored by the Prime Minister and his finance minister in the budget he recently brought down.

Therefore, my question to the member is this. How does he reconcile the maple leaf, Quebec regional development and the quality of manpower development? Can we find all this in the millennium fund or is it only window dressing to bring young Canadians to realize how heavily subsidized they are by the federal government, that the Liberal Party of Canada is their only hope for salvation, that only through the narrow ways of the Liberal Party of Canada will they go to heaven, and that besides that there is no salvation? This is what the federal government is trying to show us.

This is basically linked to economic, social and demographic considerations. Manpower training should meet our needs. I would like the member to comment on this.

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Kenora—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have to tell the member it is obvious I am a strong federalist and I have no reason to be ashamed of such. I am a Canadian first and foremost. I do not have a lot of time for this parochial kind of discussion.

I tell my children and the people I talk to at high schools very quickly that we can be Canadians and we can be different. There is nothing wrong with being distinct.

When I go from northern Ontario across the border to Manitoba, which happens to be a two hour drive, I do not think I am in another country. I do not think I am somewhere distinct even though Manitoba has a very distinct and different culture from northern Ontario. There are a lot of francophones. There are a heck of a lot of francophones in St. Boniface and Richer. In places near Winnipeg there are a lot of franco Manitobans. Many of them are related to me.

The point I am trying to make to the member is if he is disappointed or disagrees with the federal government's involvement, why does the Quebec government take the transfer payments in social programs? We believe as Canadians that we should all have equal opportunity no matter where we live, whether we live in Newfoundland, British Columbia or in Quebec.

It was not too long ago when Alberta was a have not province and the federal government helped it. Now Alberta is helping others. We help Quebec in a lot of ways and we will continue to do that. The millennium scholarships will be given to Quebec students simply because it is the right thing to do for them.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, for the people watching this debate, I thought it would be instructive just to repeat what the motion is. It says that this House censure any action by the federal government in the area of education, such as the introduction of the millennium scholarships program or national testing.

Since we are talking about education today it seemed appropriate that we look at various report cards. The report card on the educational system in Quebec says that at best, its educational system is mediocre. Many reports confirm this. For example, only one youth in two finishes secondary school grade 11 in the Catholic school commission of Montreal. After Alberta, Quebec has the highest dropout rate of any secondary level in Canada. Thirty per cent did not complete high school. It is 40% in Montreal compared to 15% in New Brunswick. We spend $7,132 per student at primary and secondary levels, the highest rate in Canada and one of the world's highest with unimpressive results.

It is alarming to me when I hear a number of members from that province stand up and object to our assisting each other in moving along as a country with higher technology.

The Conference Board of Canada has just reported that some of the main problems we have had competing in the world have been because our productivity and our ability to embrace new technologies is lagging behind many of our competitors. A big portion of this lag has to do with access to higher education.

The millennium scholarships program recognizes that a number of children who graduate from secondary institutions for one reason or another find it very difficult to make that leap into post-secondary education. It is for very profound reasons that the federal government has moved in this area. It realizes that our future, our greatest resource, and we used to talk about Canada being a great resource based country and indeed it is, but our greatest resource is between our ears. The budget generally talks to those resources and specifically with the millennium scholarships fund.

I had the opportunity to visit a classroom in Chicoutimi about a year ago. I talked to some of the students and I was amazed by what they told me. They told me that this country is very much part of all of them and they want to continue with that vision of Canada. It makes me feel good today to realize that as a federal government, we can help all citizens of Canada whether they are in Quebec or any other province.

It has not just been the millennium scholarships fund. We have also changed the registered education savings plan. This will have a tremendous impact on parents in that province who want to save for their children's post-secondary education. It is the federal government in partnership with parents and students. A $2,000 deduction is going to be backed up with a $400 grant from the federal government.

Who are the benefactors of all these programs? Ideally of course they are the students. But do not forget that money is being spent in post-secondary institutions mandated by the province. The reality is that the money from the millennium scholarships foundation is being paid over to institutions which are mandated by the province.

I do not know why this would concern the hon. members. Do they think they have a possessory right to the grey matter of the people in their province? I do not understand. I would have thought they would be standing here today with us rejoicing in the fact that we want to empower those people to have a great future. That is what this is all about.

My hon. colleague mentioned as well the ability of people to take money out of their RRSPs. We paid a lot of lip service to the concept of continuous learning. We have come to the realization that it is for real. The reality is people are going to change their careers two, three or four times during their lifetime. We have to find a way to make that viable, to make them make those transitions, to make them continue to be useful to their employer. They may not change their actual employment but even within their employment, their job descriptions are going to change many times.

This was another positive way in which the federal government could say “We know you are saving money in your RRSP for your retirement, but maybe what you really need is a down payment on improving your skills today”. That is the best retirement program people can have. It is going to continue assisting them with their economic well-being during their lifetime. It allows the resources to build up savings for their retirement, $10,000 in any one year capped at $20,000.

I do not care if they are federal or provincial governments when it gets right down to it. The reality is governments owe one thing to their people and that is to give them a good education, to give them those resources that are going to help them in the future to secure good employment conditions.

I just read the report card. Why would the members not be rejoicing in moving in this general direction? It is not that we are telling the people in their province what educational programs they can have, what institutions they can sign up for. I do not think anybody would want to have that kind of power. The money is being spent in provincially mandated institutions.

In my riding I have Durham College. It was also mentioned in the budget. The president of the college slapped my back and thought that was the greatest thing. He did not care whether the money came from Ottawa, Toronto or anywhere else. He thought it was great that we had empowered students to get a good education.

I have great difficulty with the members across the way who can actually stand there today and complain about it. It seems odd to me.

The second thing they have complained about is the concept of a national testing program, as if we are going to put everybody in the litmus of a focus and that the federal government is going to pass or fail people across the country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The program they are referring to is called the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. Although I have not read it intensely, my understanding of this program is basically to go across the country and measure how well children are doing. It is not just education. It is about health and all kinds of other things.

We talk a lot in this room about young offenders. If you go back behind those statistics you will find children of neglect in various forms. Sometimes it is nutrition. It seems to me that as a government if we want to really solve some of these problems we have to get at them before they happen rather than after the fact. The provinces are partners in this and they participate in it.

One of things it does is measure the capacity for lifelong learning skills. It also measures a number of other aspects such as the third international mathematics and science study which is part of this. I presume this is something that really bothers my hon. colleagues. Others are the international adult literacy survey, the pan-Canadian education indicators program. Quebec is a member of a sponsoring association as well as the council of ministers of education of which Quebec is a member.

I am at a loss today as to know what this motion is for and whose best interest it is promoting. I do not see how it promotes anybody in this country.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not know if I will be able to bring my colleague opposite to understand why in Quebec we demand a different solution to a problem which is different. When the federal government is offering millennium scholarships across Canada it is showing us it knows nothing about the needs of the provinces.

It is as if the federal government had decided to make access to school easier by providing bus transportation for every child in Canada, including those living in the North Pole. It might have been a better idea to provide snowmobiles to students in the North Pole so that they could go to school. It might have been a better idea to provide bicycles for those living downtown and school buses for those living in the suburbs a bit further from the school.

But the federal government, which claims to be quite familiar with the needs of each of the provinces, says: “This year, we will give snowmobiles to everyone so that children can have access to schools, even in summer. There will be no school buses. The federal government is generous, it realized there is a problem with access to the schools and it is offering snowmobiles, whether you like it or not”.

What we criticize the federal government for is not that it makes money available for education. We criticize it for wanting to do so by meddling in areas it knows nothing about. If it wants to help Quebec students have better access to education, it should give that money to Quebec, which is more familiar with its own needs and knows how best to ensure that more students have access to education.

Perhaps the member does not know that there are hundreds of thousands of children who go to school in the morning without a piece of toast or a single glass of milk in their stomach. Perhaps the member does not know that, in Quebec, the suicide rate among high school students is one of the highest. Will millennium scholarships reduce the suicide rate in our secondary schools? Will it increase the number of teachers, who, in some regions, must teach three different classes at the primary level? Will it provide more psychologists and guidance counsellors at the secondary level to help students who are desperate, who cannot find their way or who need assistance and supervision?

Through its transfer cuts, the federal government has taken away from us the means to pay for these student services. We cannot provide them now, because it has taken away the money that it used to give in transfer payments. It has taken it away in the areas where we needed it and it now wants to give it back in areas where the need is less urgent. This is what we are trying to tell the federal government when we say: “Do not intrude in provincial jurisdictions. Give us the money that comes from the same taxpayers and we will take care of these needs, because we know them better than you do”. This is all we want.

[Alex Shepherd, Liberal, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I heard about bicycles and snowmobiles but I did not hear too much about what we are going to do about this report card.

He said the system worked well before the federal government changed transfer payments.

Once again we are back to the 30% to 40% dropout rate. That is what I am talking about. I am talking about how we can increase the awareness not only in Quebec but throughout the country of the importance of getting a better education.

The millennium fund is just one way of helping. I repeat that the money will be spent in provincially mandated institutions. The course material is provincially mandated.

The federal government has not interfered in provincial jurisdictional. It has made resources available for some students who have the required merit to attend post-secondary educational institutions but who do not have the resources.

Why the member wants to talk about bicycles and snowmobiles rather than defending the best interests of his people is beyond me.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Québec.

First of all, I would like to remind the House of the Bloc Quebecois motion before us:

That this House censure any action by the federal government in the area of education, such as the introduction of the Millennium Scholarships program or national testing.

By moving this motion, the Bloc Quebecois has expressed the clear will of all stakeholders in Quebec, including university presidents, student federation spokespersons, union leaders, and well-known federalists.

Mr. Alain Dubuc, editor of La Presse , has condemned this federal encroachment in education through the millennium scholarships program. Moreover, the Quebec Liberal Party, which represents federalists in Quebec, pointed out that this kind of scholarship made no sense.

Why is this feeling so unanimous in Quebec? Is it just a matter of safeguarding one's jurisdiction? I do not think so. I feel the issue is much broader than that. Over the last 34 years in Quebec, we have developed, following many rounds of consultations and a debate that have been quite fierce at times, a financial assistance system made up of loans and scholarships to students, so that their average debt load when they graduate is about $11,000.

Other Canadian provinces did not go through the same exercise, and students there have a much bigger average debt load of some $25,000. Canadians in other provinces have to find a way out of this problem.

Their solution is to have the federal government take this kind of initiative. It may be the way the rest of Canada wants to go, but it is certainly not what Quebec wants.

What is also clear is the intrusion of the federal government in this area. Government members ask us why we are proposing motions such as the one now before the House, or whether we are trying to start a constitutional squabble. The truth is that the federal Liberals are out of touch with what is happening in Quebec. They cannot understand that this matter was settled long ago in Quebec.

The money must be made available through the transfer payments. This money comes from taxpayers. The federal government does not just print money. It collects this money by imposing taxes and then redistributes it.

What Quebeckers want is for the money to be redistributed through transfer payments, because we realize that the cuts made in the last few years have had a severe impact on the education system in Quebec.

Seventy-five cents out of every dollar that the Quebec government has had to cut in health and education since 1994 can be traced back to the federal government's cuts to transfer payments. We are looking for a way to put our hands on enough money so that our educational institutions and our students can have access to the resources they need to meet the requirements of the next decade. We want to train students who are going to succeed, who will be ready to face the labour market and who will be able to adapt to the new realities.

Quebec has no need for scholarships based on merit. Gifts of $3,000 or $5,000 to a minority of students will not do much for Quebec's education system as a whole.

This is a bit like a house owner deciding that next year, he or she is going to invest in repainting the house. His uncle decides he will put up $5,000, on condition that it is used for a chimney and a fireplace. An attempt is made to explain to the uncle that what the house needs is not a chimney and a fireplace, but paint. But the uncle has a bee in his bonnet, and so does the federal government. It wants its visibility.

I have been a member for four years, but the most astonishing statement I have heard in the House was made only recently. The member for Lac-Saint-Jean, one of the youngest members here, asked the Prime Minister if it was not purely for the visibility that he created the millennium fund. The Prime Minister candidly replied that yes, it was.

This is terrible. They are repeating the same mistakes that were made 25 years ago. They had to be careful for three or four years because of the catastrophic financial situation. But, as soon as there is money available, the first thing the federal government does is say: “How can we rope in a group that is more attached to Quebec than to the Canadian federal system? How can we buy them?” That is what they are trying to use this fund to do.

I think there is an important message for all Quebeckers and all Canadians as well in this. It is echoed by the Premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, and by Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow. These are not sovereigntists from Quebec, but people living in Canada, people who have read the Canadian Constitution and who say that education is a provincial responsibility.

They too realize they have educational needs that will not be fulfilled by the millennium scholarships. They are telling the federal government the same thing the people of Quebec are telling it. The concrete, realistic, appropriate thing to do would have been to put the money back into transfer payments to the provinces.

To ensure visibility in this regard, you could just have written on the largest poster in the world the amount paid back to the provinces. At least, that would not have been as ineffective as the millennium scholarships will be.

When I hear members suggest that Quebec should let the millennium scholarships be integrated into its system, I cannot believe my ears. The days when Quebeckers bent over backwards to please the federal government are over. That is a thing of the past. Today, people want programs to be effective and to have a positive impact. That is what we want.

We have seen Quebec students take to the streets these past few weeks. The staff of educational institutions in Quebec did the same. They are knocking at the Quebec government's door knowing that education is an area under the Quebec government's jurisdiction. In addition, they now realize that Quebec was economically strangled by a choice made deliberately by the federal government not to put the money back into its transfers payments to the provinces and that, as a result, Quebec is caught in the middle between students with substantial debts and educational institutions that need funding to operate, on the one hand, and the federal government, which is turning off the tap, on the other hand.

This is really what today's motion is all about. We are saying that the federal government does not have the right to get involved the way it has been doing for a long time in the education sector. This is no longer tolerable.

Our motion also points out that we do not want national standards. What we have before us does not only reflect a position of the Liberal Party of Canada, but a federal practice that has been in effect for many years.

Regardless of which party sits across the way—positions can vary—the federal bureaucratic steamroller decided a long time ago that Canada should have a national department of education, that these issues should be settled in Ottawa, because the solutions come from Ottawa. Ottawa is the one that understands how things work and how money should be spent. The branch offices will merely have to administer the programs.

Quebeckers do not share this vision of Canada. Nor do most people in the other provinces. People want provinces to be responsible for education. If Quebec and the rest of Canada have a different model, then let us respect what was established in 1964. It was 34 years ago that Quebec developed a successful student loans and grants program.

It definitely has nothing to envy to the federal initiative, considering that, in the rest of Canada, the average debt incurred by students is $25,000, compared to $11,000 in Quebec. We can certainly understand that Quebec students would want to have a smaller debt.

But giving money to students by going over the heads of the provinces is not the way to ensure the future of the education system, because it will have a major negative impact on education networks. The money must be made available so that educational institutions can have adequate curricula and provide proper training, and so that students will want to attend these universities, thus alleviating the current problems.

I will conclude by saying that while Quebec has a problem with students dropping out, the federal government is proposing a scholarship program based on merit for those who have successfully pursued their education. This is not what we want in Quebec. We want concrete solutions to our problems. But the federal government is once again showing it does not have the right solutions. This is what we are saying on behalf of all Quebeckers.

[Maurice Godin, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have listened to my hon. colleague with great interest. It seems to me that there is a common denominator, practically the same in every case, running through several fields.

Taking the application of the 1867 Constitution as one example, we know very well that Quebec and Canada have never managed to reach agreement on this. As far as trade versus free trade is concerned, we clearly remember how Mr. Turner said in 1984 that, if he were elected, he would tear the agreement up. In a word, if Canada is involved in free trade today, it is because Quebec dragged it into it.

Taking Canadian pensions as another example, the Minister of Finance recently stated that he had been dreaming for 30 years of a fund identical to the Caisse de dépôt et placement in Quebec. Today we see Canada moving into another area, education, with the millennium scholarships, once again because of the success we have had in Quebec.

So, the question I would like to ask my colleague is this: is the problem between Quebec and Canada not due to the fact that Quebec is always 25 or 30 years ahead of Canada?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Châteauguay for his comment and question. I do not know whether Quebec is 25 or 30 years ahead of the rest of Canada in all areas. But I do know that different paths have been taken in certain sectors.

This is somewhat of a heritage of the Pearson years. I believe that history might have been very different if Trudeau had not succeeded Pearson. But today we cannot change the past, only the future.

The member cited the Caisse de dépôt et placement as an example. The loan and bursary system might be as well, along with the use of the tax points obtained by Quebec during those years in various sectors.

Yes, in many of these instances, Quebec has performed far better than the rest of Canada. It is not necessarily because Quebecers are smarter than other Canadians, but because Quebec is very aware of the needs in areas such as education, which is under provincial jurisdiction, it had a chance that the other Canadian provinces did not have with regard to loans and scholarships.

Maybe, if British Columbia had decided to opt out 30 years ago, members from that province would join us today in saying that this kind of action on the part of the federal government makes no sense at all. I think that, in a sense, the position expressed by Mike Harris and by Mr. Romanow, on behalf of all the premiers, is a recognition of that phenomenon.

Many provinces in Canada have realized that letting the federal government administer their money, letting it decide that federal taxes paid by Canadians will be used in a variety of ways that are not in line with each province's policies, has led to our current failures.

In conclusion, and this may be the most important message today, on this issue, the Bloc is speaking on behalf of all Quebecers. I will quote what Alain Dubuc wrote in La Presse . “In spite of growing pressures, the budget does not allow provinces such as Quebec to opt out so they can manage their own share of the $2.5 billion that the federal government wants to invest in higher education. Nothing in the still vague and undefined project presented yesterday can justify the fact that Ottawa wants to manage these funds itself, other than the desire to be visible and to see a maple leaf on the cheques that students will receive”.

There is no greater irresponsibility for a government than choosing visibility over effectiveness, and that is the message we want the government to understand today.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am keen to take part in today's debate for, as the deputy critic on human resources, I am extremely interested in the funding of education. I am also aware of the real problems in Quebec. What the federal government is doing is not suited to Quebec.

The motion tabled today by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean focuses on a debate on the importance of the future of education in Quebec and the threat the federal government is posing to the entire system of education in Quebec.

The motion reads as follows:

That this House censure any action by the federal government in the area of education, such as the introduction of the Millennium Scholarships program or national testing.

Why are we so upset by the new measures in the budget the Minister of Finance has just delivered? Because the Minister of Finance, through the creation of the millennium fund, is meddling in a provincial jurisdiction and preventing Quebec from withdrawing from the program with all sorts of shenanigans. We know they are tricky.

They also want to have national testing and this too is clearly an indication of just how meddling the Liberals and the Conservatives can be. This testing reveals the Liberal government's bad faith and bad habit of trying to introduce national testing in education.

What have they written about it? I will read it to you. It is contained in the action plan on page 30 of the red book written in 1993. So it is not the freshest strategy. This desire of the government to meddle in the jurisdictions of the provinces has been around for a long time. I will read just a short passage. “A Liberal government, in collaboration with provincial governments, will introduce a voluntary National Achievement Test in math, science, and technology so that students and their parents will be able to compare their work in this area and track the progress of our educational systems in meeting the goal of higher achievement for our students in math and science”. What business does the federal government have interfering? And they have just told us they do not want any conflict. When you do not want any conflict, you respect your partner.

They tell us they want a genuine partnership, but what kind of partnership is possible with such an associate? This centralizing attitude is not confined to education. Take the drinking water bill, which is a direct threat to the activities planned in this field in Quebec, and the Canadian Securities Commission, which would mean the short or long term transfer of all activities in this exclusively provincial field to Toronto.

What is the government up to and why is it making such a deal of it? Is it trying to win over a group that has to be won over? Is it a question of partisan visibility? This visibility precludes effectiveness. That is the Liberals for you.

They want millennium scholarships to be awarded on the basis of merit. Once again, they will not reach agreement with Quebec because Quebec does not want to focus on merit alone. Need is also important. Is the government really going to alleviate the problem of indebtedness?

For a period of ten years, beginning in 2000, a budget of over $2.5 billion has been earmarked for the fund. The provinces have just been cut $10 billion and there are cuts in provincial transfer payments. The figures show that we have dropped from 23.5% in 1992 to 15% today. Provincial transfer payments have been cut by over 8%.

Why interfere in an area of provincial jurisdiction, such as education? I can understand that the other provinces do not have systems as well established as Quebec's, but Quebec is entitled to serious compensation. We have just heard a motion about respect for a distinct society. This will be accomplished not just through words, but also through actions. This government's actions with respect to the millennium scholarships are at odds with its fine words, its empty motions to show us it cares. Quebec was cut $3 billion to be put towards the millennium scholarships.

Why are they bent on interfering in Quebec's jurisdictions? I think it was a wish to mark the new millennium. As my colleague said earlier, they could just have put up a great big flashy sign pointing out that the federal government was giving $3 billion, say, to Quebec as it entered the third millennium. But no, it prefers to go and cosy up to clients, and I find that completely unacceptable and partisan.

Earlier I heard a member opposite telling us “We are well aware of the student debt problem”. If Quebec is not aware of the problem, this is not what we are hearing in the field. On average in Quebec the student debt is $11,000 against $17,000 to $25,000 in English Canada, in the other provinces.

As for tuition fees, the Quebec government is well aware they have to be kept very low; they are $1,700 in Quebec against $3,200 elsewhere. This is what students are telling us.

Many people are against the creation of the millennium scholarships. The population was polled on this issue. Several stakeholders in the education field told us “This is a waste, a bad strategy”. If we were to believe the Liberal members, they hold the key to the truth. They told us a while ago we were talking through our hat.

Polls tell us that 48.5% of the population wants the provinces to manage these scholarships. A meagre 16% said the federal government should manage them. And only 22% said they were designed to help students. This poll was carried out by Sondagem for Le Soleil and Le Devoir .

Another poll carried out by Angus Reid for The Globe and Mail , I do not believe it is a sovereignist daily, showed that 71% were in favour of prioritizing transfer to the provinces.

That is what the premiers told the Prime Minister at the June conference. But the Prime Minister always goes for half-truths. They talked about the student debt, but they said the issue should be dealt with through an agreement with the provinces. When you want to reach an agreement with someone—as you and I know, this is how its is done in a couple—when you want to agree on something with your spouse you do not play a trick on him or her as the government just did. The way to go about it is to sit down and say what you plan to do. If you are seeking a different arrangement, you know when you are listened to that you are respected; this is not what I am seeing on the part of the government.

Some columnists are not very favourable to sovereignty. We are often told that in Quebec we have sovereignist plans in mind. Lysiane Gagnon from La Presse said “This is a glaring case of duplication”. She then added, and I quote “In Quebec, these scholarships will be grafted onto an already well subsidized system with a proven track record. The criteria are different”.

Again, how are we going to agree if the criteria used by the federal government and the province of Quebec are different? She adds “Provincial policies will be thwarted”.

What did Alain Dubuc, from La Presse , have to say? “The cat is out of the bag”. This is bad federalism and these politicians belong to another generation. They are out of touch and already one of them is realizing that her older colleagues are hanging on to an outdated attitude.

The Liberal government has no right to act as it is acting, according to Alain Dubuc, who often agrees with the positions of the Liberal government.

Earlier, we were told that we, the members from Quebec, were to blame. But even Daniel Johnson said that the provincial areas of jurisdiction have to be respected.

Whether you read the red book or the blue book, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. The red book is entitled Preparing Canada for the 21st Century . The blue book is Charest's Plan for Canada in the 21st century. What the Conservatives and the Liberals are proposing is the same thing. They agree that provincial areas of jurisdiction must be respected. What we are asking for is real respect for provincial areas of jurisdiction, which is why we have moved this motion today. This motion asks that the provincial areas of jurisdiction be respected. It is not a minor motion concerning the distinct society that will be voted on in the House of Commons and forgotten about when the time comes to match actions to words.

Let me conclude by saying that I hope the Liberal government will listen to what Quebec wants in this area.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Quebec was saying that this government has some difficulty putting its words into action. We would have expected, in the spirit of the love demonstration, in the spirit of the resolution approving Quebec as a distinct society, that the government would recognize Quebec as such and would allow it to exercise some of its powers to live up to and improve on its distinct characteristics. But we see these are words without any meaning.

I would like to quote someone. This is a little like a riddle. I would like you to guess who said these words. I will help you at the end. This is a text that goes back a while, to 1957, under Liberal Prime Minister Louis Saint-Laurent, who wanted to establish a federal fund for universities, a fund similar to the millennium fund.

The person I am quoting said “Unconscious, but nonetheless specious, paternalism. How can the central government be so hypocritical? We are entitled to suspect that the federal government's gifts are made in bad faith. This is insulting for the provinces. This is harmful to the principles of representative democracy”.

Later on, another individual responded to him, and that ended this special edition of a Quebec magazine called Cité libre . The person who was talking at the end was Pierre Laporte, a former Liberal minister. He said “The majority of supporters of federal assistance to universities say that autonomists are latecomers. Not only is the autonomists' argument defensible, but it will have to prevail if we want French Canada to be well prepared for the tasks of the future”.

Who said the first part about federalism, paternalism and all the rest? It was the great mentor, the person who inspired many policies of this government. Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

[René Laurin, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

So, this must be true.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Exactly. I hope this will be food for thought for the Liberals. They accuse us, the separatists, of being the only people to defend a position such as the one we are defending today. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, if he were here, should agree with us. We would be able to count on his support. Let us hope that his pupil, his spiritual son, will think likewise.

I would like my colleague to tell me what she thinks about the words of that distinguished politician who inspires the Liberals, Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thought he was asking me to guess. My answer would have been Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Again, we are wondering why the Liberals keep encroaching on provincial jurisdictions. We know, actually, but we can always ask the question. The President of the Treasury Board stated last year that once Quebec was forced to cut, the federal government would be in a position to show they can safeguard social programs.

This is bad faith. I would not like to associate with a partner having so little credibility. They are trying to demonstrate that only Canada can save Quebec, and that is part of the plan B strategy. The Prime Minister should perhaps call Mr. Trudeau to get the benefit of his influence.

Ordinary people are the ones who will suffer because of this. Every time the federal and provincial governments discuss standards, the people, particularly students in this case, end up paying the cost. What we need is a real strategy to reduce student debt loads. The Fédération des étudiants du Québec and the Fédération des collèges du Québec are asking for a new strategy, and they want the money returned to the provinces.

The dropout rate in Quebec is a problem. Universities and colleges are underfunded. Quebec students have already begun to ask for a freeze on tuition fees. This cannot be done without restoring transfers to the provinces for education. Otherwise, how are we going to maintain the quality of education we in Quebec have achieved?

This is an insult. Mr. Trudeau should be consulted about the millennium scholarships. Would he change his mind? I doubt it. The Liberal and Conservative governments are all the same. They all favour a centralizing federalism that is insensitive to the provinces' needs.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to thank the member for Lac—Saint—Jean for a bright and interesting intervention. If I may say so, he has a promising career ahead of him. I will be sharing time with the member for Waterloo—Wellington.

Let me enter into the substance of the debate. The Prime Minister has stated, and it is the reality of our times, that the next century is the knowledge century. Without knowledge, we are left behind in the competition of historical forces, not simply the economic forces and the social forces, and education is the key to that. The key to this element in the federal budget strategy was the recognition of a national emergency, that we have fallen behind other countries and other post-industrial societies in the educational battle.

This has no specific relationship to Quebec, but the provinces have not fulfilled a constitutional mandate in education. They have invested federal moneys in many cases that were intended for education, in highways or other projects that were no doubt interesting, but they did not direct it to the main element of the time, that is to say education.

Facing this situation of national emergency the Prime Minister, with proper constitutional advice, decided on the series of measures members have seen in the last federal budgets; the Foundation for Innovation which is dedicated to creating new infrastructures for medicine, science, technology, engineering; the centres for network excellence, the moneys again for advanced research in science, medicine, technology; the greatly ameliorated programs for student assistance, student loans and aids to their parents.

Now, you would say if we were addressing this to all the provinces, where is our constitutional base. If I may say so, one of the elements of sadness that I have with the constitutional debate as it has developed to date is that it began so promisingly and has dissipated into rather sterile and mundane arguments over constitutional divisions of power.

I can remember the early days of the “quiet revolution”. I can remember my students from the University of Toronto Law Faculty saying to me, as they came to give evidence before the Bilingual and Biculturalism Royal Commission, why do we not have a revolution ourselves? What a pity there is not a “quiet revolution” in English Canada because the thinking is not enlightened, the thinking is not exciting and there are no new feisty ideas.

I hearken back to the days of Paul Gérin Lajoie, Gérard Bergeron, my dear friend Jacques-Yvan Morin, Jacques Brassard, Claude Morin and Gérald Beaudoin, who is in the other chamber here. The “quiet revolution” had a lot of interesting ideas. I do not see much advance in federal thinking in either English speaking Canada or French speaking Canada. This is one of the “what might have beens” of the “quiet revolution”, the lack of contribution to a general process of constitutional modernization.

I took part in the B.C. unity panel. The Prime Minister was asked to delegate a member. He asked me to sit on this. The message we conveyed to the members of this panel was that in this period, act with generosity, do not seek quid pro quos, recognize the uniqueness of Quebec, recognize it generously without demanding return, and that was done. It is a dramatic reversal of the 70%:30% vote against the Charlottetown accord in the referendum in British Columbia. It is a unilateral act of good will.

One might ask on the other side could you not offer something in relation to federalism.

The reality of federalism is that the studies in Canada as a whole have been sterile studies rooted in the a priori truths of British scholars who never themselves lived under a federal state. Their new prime minister, Mr. Blair, has taken them kicking and struggling into a new century by recognizing that perhaps Scotland and Wales are unique societies and that they should do something about it.

The British have never lived under federalism. They exported it to their dominions and gave us essentially a very rigid sterile system of federalism in which the debate was about division of powers in the abstract without focusing on the fundamental issues which the European Union is now facing.

There are social problems and the problem of community decision making. If we try to solve the problems and agree on the solutions, the issue of who has the power will fall logically in place. That is key to the concept of subsidiarité that the European Union is concerned with. It is already clear in Canada that many of our problems were viewed by the privy council and others in the old days in watertight compartments, either federal or provincial, which do not yield themselves to intelligent, useful, long range solutions if one government acts alone.

Co-partnership, cogérance and co-management are the order of the day. All the new federal systems, the non-Anglo Saxon federal system, realize that. I regret that in some ways this debate remains an abstract exercise in a priori concepts instead of facing up to the modern issue of what to do about solving the problem.

If there is an approach to power sharing in this area, come and join us. The facts are that no province has moved substantially to modernize its educational system to face the demands of post-industrial society. That is the real tragedy.

Who can object to money being spent on students? Why cannot any government take the initiative? Why cannot other governments join in and say “we will join with you; we will share with you”? That was the real challenge.

I noticed my colleagues, the lady members of the House, are honouring the people involved in the persons case with a monument on the Hill. Not to denigrate the ladies, but I would say the real hero of the persons case was Lord Sankey, an unknown British Liberal lawyer in the House of Commons who was suddenly promoted to lord chancellor. The Labour government did not have any Labour lawyers so it put him there. Lord Sankey discovered the elemental truth that it is obvious that women are persons. He gave the ruling.

Later he announced the doctrine that the constitution is a living tree. It is not rooted in the concepts of 1867. The period at the end of the century we are approaching requires a new attitude to constitutional powers, a new emphasis on power sharing.

In the last few days, in his response to the B.C. unity panel on the fisheries issue, the B.C. premier who was widely viewed as intransigent on fisheries matters indicated areas of co-operation with the federal government. If we are to beat the Americans on the Pacific salmon treaty the federal and provincial governments have to work together with no issue of division of power.

On the immigration issue, Quebec and Ottawa have worked together. René Lévesque signed the Cullen-Couture agreement with Prime Minister Trudeau. Quebec and Ottawa share power on immigration.

With respect to education the question is come and join us in this new adventure. Education is the key element in constructing the new society for the new century. That is the challenge in my view that this debate has not fully responded to.

On that particular attitude I will end my formal comments.

[Roy H. Bailey, Reform, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy listening to my learned colleague. My question will not be negative but will ask for his background to a very important question. I believe it is important to the provinces and to the House.

The provinces have very jealously guarded section 93 of the British North America Act concerning education since its inception. We are into a new era, a new world in which we will have to see a greater amount of co-operation at the provincial level. We are being motivated by a new global educational system, one of universality.

Would my learned friend not agree that we should do everything we can from this level, albeit the provinces want to hang on to their traditions, cultures and so on in that given area? I agree with that, but we should have more universality and a more national scope in our education curriculum and planning than we have now.