Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-36 at report stage. This bill makes it possible to implement certain provisions of the budget.
Our first group of amendments indicates our strong opposition to this government bulldozing over Quebec's jurisdiction in the education sector, and not deciding, in the present situation, to complete negotiations. The Prime Minister of Canada and the premier of Quebec have given themselves two months to come up with a solution that will respect Quebec's jurisdiction and Ottawa's need for visibility. This is the only reason Ottawa has intervened: to ensure its visibility on the cheques it may send students.
Not respecting the negotiating process either means the Liberal majority is ignoring the Prime Minister, or the Prime Minister's promises are worthless. Members of the Quebec education coalition, who support Quebec's position, were present at a meeting of the premier of Quebec and the Prime Minister of Canada.
It is important to know who these people are. They are not just sovereignists. They represent the entire education movement in Quebec. We are talking about the following groups: the Alliance des manufacturiers exportateurs du Québec, the Centrale de l'enseignement du Québec, the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec, the CSN, the Fédération des associations d'étudiants universitaires québécois en éducation permanente, the Fédération des cégeps, the Coalition d'ex-leaders et étudiants québécois, the Fédération québécoise des professeurs et professeures du Québec.
All these people, 41% of the witnesses heard, came to say the same thing. The Liberal majority was unable to find a single witness from Quebec to say that the millennium scholarships made any sense. Why does Quebec feel this way?
In 1964, there were two men who had a conception of Canada that was completely different from that of the Prime minister today, Mr. Pearson and Mr. Lesage. I remember because I was quite young at the time but my father was a Liberal supporter and he knew that they were trying to come to an agreement. In the 1964 agreement, it had been decided to recognize Quebec as a distinct society.
The people of Quebec and Canada were told “There is indeed a Canada Student Loans Act, but one province wishing to develop a different model will be allowed to do so”. That is what distinct society is about. This philosophy worked for 34 years and led to the best student assistance system in Canada. Many witnesses agreed on this, not only those from Quebec who were defending their system or Quebec students who came to speak out in favour of their system, but also witnesses from the other provinces of Canada. It was very clear what was on the table.
The federal government had to choose between two alternatives. To put in place a student loans and bursaries program like the one available elsewhere in the country, all it had to do was to amend the Canada Student Loans Act. This way, the rest of Canada could have benefited from a loans and bursaries system similar to the one in Quebec.
Why did the federal government not take that route? Because this meant automatically allowing Quebec to use its right to opt out with full compensation. This right is already provided for in the legislation. Since 1964, Quebec has been using this right to opt out with full compensation and has apparently been doing so properly. The system it has developed could be a model for all Canadian stakeholders.
In Quebec, the average debt load of university graduates is $11,000. In Canada, it is anywhere from $18,000 to $25,000. Obviously, Canadian students are curious about what makes the Quebec system so successful. The main reason is the fact that there is a bursaries program within the Quebec system.
The federal government decided, in order to create a scholarship program, to use a rather extraordinary legal scheme called the millennium fund. The government claims that it must absolutely promote students' performance to achieve great results. But the real reason is that it did not want Quebec to be able to opt out with full compensation. The federal government wanted to make sure Quebec would be forced to ask the foundation for the authority to grant scholarships, according to specific criteria.
This House must realize that if there is one thing on Quebec will never compromise, it is its jurisdiction over education. This government's claim that providing financial assistance to students has nothing to do with education is hogwash.
Any Quebec student or member of the Quebec coalition against the millennium fund knows full well that financial assistance to students is part of the balance, part of the whole system in the education sector. It is what determines accessibility to education. It is thanks to the financial assistance provided to students that there are now as many young women as there are young men in Quebec's universities. This financial assistance has helped children from low income families complete their education. The program was established in 1964, because we had an old and obsolete system which, while quite successful in producing a high quality elite, did not allow others to succeed.
During the Quiet Revolution—and this was an initiative taken by a Liberal government—we wanted to make sure we would have an education system that would be accessible. We are proud of the model that we developed in Quebec, even though it is not perfect.
Let me give you an example of what this system allows us to do. We have a project to recognize students' good performance. One of the ways to achieve this in Quebec is to forgive part of a student's debt if that student completes his or her education within the normal timeframe. This means six semesters for a BA. If a student completes his or her BA in six semesters, he or she can get a 15% reduction of his or her debt. This is a nice way to acknowledge the efforts of someone who works hard to complete his or her education.
Along with that program, we will now have the millennium fund. Under that fund, students will get scholarships based on merit, but not necessarily their financial needs. Students will be facing the following situation: elsewhere in Canada, in the nine English-speaking provinces, some students will be granted millennium scholarships. Good for them, but several others will have to do without.
However, in Quebec, when a student will be granted a millennium scholarship, if the legislation is not changed, Quebec will have to withdraw any financial assistance it was providing that student, because it will have to take into account this additional income.
For the student at the receiving end, it does not change a thing. It only creates a whole new bureaucracy. The members opposite do not seem to know how education works. To apply for a loan or a grant, one needs to fill out some forms. The cegep and university staff who help the students to fill out the forms and to meet the requirements to get the most out of the system will now have to learn how the two systems work, to become familiar with the two different forms, because the requirements will not all be the same. This total and absolute duplication.
Obviously, we have to deal with a government that is turning a deaf ear. It did it in committee, tit gagged us and decided it would do the same thing at report stage. One thing is clear, in the end, the people in Quebec will realize by themselves that the federal government is turning a deaf ear to all Quebec stakeholders.
I urge the members from the province of Quebec, whether they are from Brome—Missisquoi, from Anjou—Rivières-des-Prairies, from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, from Bourassa, from Beauce or from Saint-Maurice, to reconsider their position. How can they be silent in the House, not say a word, not rise in their place to say that Quebeckers are right about this, that they must be given a chance to continue running their system, which is a good one?
And to top it all, last week, three of Quebec's major management associations, the Conseil du patronat, the Chambre de commerce du Québec, and the Association des manufacturiers et des exportateurs du Québec came to testify before the committee. These are not exactly people who are identified with the sovereignist movement in Quebec.
The representatives of these three associations came to tell the government to postpone consideration of the bill until negotiations had been completed. If an agreement is reached, it will be incorporated into the bill. If no agreement is reached, the government will assume its responsibilities, as will the opposition, but there will not be a pretence of democracy such as that being forced on us today.
That is why the Bloc Quebecois has introduced motions to delete from this bill any references to the foundation. Quebec will never agree to the federal government poking its nose into one of the systems we have developed, the best in the world. We will never stand for it. The government will make sure it passes by invoking closure at every stage, because otherwise this bill will never get through.