Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise in the House to speak about Bill C-36, the budget implementation act. There has been much debate about this bill already in committee and certainly in the House coming out of the budget that was presented. We have heard a lot of discussion about the millennium fund and whether it will improve the situation for post-secondary education.
Having looked at the document in committee where some of this discussion has taken place it is quite clear that post-secondary education is in a very deep crisis. One of the reasons that we are facing a crisis with post-secondary education is the retreat of public funding to our post-secondary educational facilities.
Although we have heard a lot of talk about the millennium fund, this grand fund of $2.5 billion, the reality is this fund will not even begin until the year 2000 and will in reality help only about 7% of students.
By the time the fund begins in the year 2000 we will have experienced cuts of around $3 billion from post-secondary education. So it becomes very clear that the millennium fund does not even come close to replacing and compensating for the massive drain and cuts we have experienced in post-secondary education.
This is causing enormous concern in terms of where public policy is going but also for the impact it is having on the lives of individual students. It is because of the retreat of public funding that tuition fees have skyrocketed. We have seen an increase of 240% in tuition fees over the last 10 years. We have all used the figure that average student debt is now at $25,000.
There is a direct relationship between the pain and the debtload students are facing and the retreat of public funding as a result of a loss of transfers from the federal government to the provincial government. There is absolutely no escaping that fact, and the millennium fund cannot make up and does not make up for the loss we have experienced.
In addition, the other really serious situation that the millennium fund creates is it begins to take us down a slippery slope of privatization.
New Democrats are very concerned that with this foundation, a private foundation being set up which will have representation from corporations in the private sector, there will be less and less control in terms of public administration and public direction of our post-secondary educational facilities.
For that reason alone, this fund should be rejected and we should go back to the drawing board and say that the real issue here is to support publicly administered, publicly accessible post-secondary educational facilities.
We have already seen examples in Canada where the corporate influence on board of governors of universities and colleges and now on this millennium fund is beginning to have an impact on curriculum of deregulation of tuition fees and deregulation of programs. All these things are creating an environment where there is increasing privatization and corporatization of our post-secondary educational system.
The millennium fund is a part of that direction and for that reason must be rejected.
The NDP believes very strongly that we must have an open discussion with the provinces because education is a provincial jurisdiction. Members of the Bloc Quebecois have pointed out very well the huge concerns they have with the millennium fund. It is not only in Quebec. This is echoed across the country in terms of unilateral decisions being taken by the federal government with regard to post-secondary education and the establishment of this private foundation with no consultation whatsoever with provincial jurisdictions.
The NDP believes we need to have leadership from the federal government. It needs to be the kind of leadership done in co-operation and collaboration with provincial jurisdictions to design a national program of national grants that deals with different provincial jurisdictions and different provincial contexts where there is a clear understanding and a principle that accessibility for all students in Canada is a national standard.
The NDP believes that is the starting point of ensuring that our post-secondary education system is protected and strengthened and not destroyed as we have seen over the last few years.
Canada is one of only two OECD countries that do not have a national grant system. We need to ensure federal funding is provided in co-operation with provincial governments to establish a national system of grants.
In my province of British Columbia as well as in the province of Quebec there has been leadership shown in terms of trying to keep education accessible for students even in the face of massive cutbacks.
In British Columbia we are now in the third year of a tuition freeze. That has been very difficult to accomplish given the massive cutbacks we have experienced in transfers from the federal government.
The NDP is calling on the federal government to show the leadership that is necessary. We have heard a lot of rhetoric and concern expressed by government members about the level of students debt, but there is nothing in this bill that will really alleviate the pressure and the huge debtload now facing students.
I have talked to students in my riding and here in the Ottawa area and have been really shocked to hear stories of students who are now facing debts of $40,000, $50,000, $60,000. What kind of way is that to start a life?
We need to go back to the drawing board and say clearly that this millennium fund is taking us down the wrong road. We need a national grant system. We need accessibility. Most important of all, we need restoration of federal funding for post-secondary education in Canada.