Mr. Speaker, I must say I was a little confused about the member's commentary about fitting the programs that students are taking to the jobs available.
I fail to see how the need for software programmers, engineers and all kinds of other high tech and knowledge based training that will be necessary is somehow the responsibility of a government.
I have three children. They go to school. I think they are taught in a number of disciplines. They get guidance counselling. They know from their guidance counsellors and from what is happening in their lives where the opportunities are. This is not a secret. It is certainly not the responsibility of the government to somehow conduct some social engineering to steer people into things that we want as opposed to dealing with what they want.
The member concluded, therefore, that the millennium scholarship fund was a failure because it did not address directing students into programs that they want. These are the kinds of things that are the responsibility of the schools before post-secondary. These are the responsibilities of individuals.
The millennium scholarship fund, if the member did not follow the budget, has to do with the issue of accessibility. The member well knows that one cannot simply say we are going to provide all funding for all things we need in the very first budget of a mandate. The direction is here and the priority was established that accessibility to post-secondary education was a very serious problem. With the endowment of $2.5 billion there was going to be 100,000 scholarships provided over 10 years, not just on the basis of merit but on the basis of need.
It really has to relate to those students who probably have the ability to be successful at post-secondary education. I know this member knows how important that is. However, they are not prepared or able to take on the financial burden because of their personal family circumstances of not only tuition but the living costs and ancillary costs of an education.
I would simply ask the member whether or not he would like to reconsider the issue about not having enough software programmers and whether or not he really believes that this is a role for the federal government.