Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join in the debate. I was not planning to do so until I heard my colleague's remarks about productivity and the discussion about the brain drain during the questions and comments.
It brought to mind that part of the 1998 budget which dealt with investing in young and older Canadians to make them more productive and more effective citizens. I am referring to the various measures under the Canadian opportunities strategy, a co-ordinated group of measures specifically focused on creating opportunities for Canadians. I want to mention one or two aspects of that co-ordinated strategy.
The first one is the establishment of the Canadian millennium scholarship foundation which is now beginning to provide scholarships to Canadians across the country. The focus of the scholarships is on qualified students who have problems dealing with the steadily increasing tuition fees found in universities in virtually every province in Canada.
The problem of accessibility to university and college has become a serious national problem. It was very appropriate at that time, as it still is, for the Government of Canada to look at the causes of the decrease in accessibility as provinces and universities increase their tuition fees, a serious problem for many students, and to try to deal with it directly through the millennium scholarships.
It is true that a couple of provinces very sensibly kept their tuition fees down. Even so, students will benefit directly from that aspect of the 1998 budget which deals with the productivity of Canada and of all Canadians and with the brain drain mentioned by my colleague in the Reform Party.
The second area of this co-ordinated set of measures to create opportunity by expanding access to knowledge and the skills needed for better jobs that were built into that budget is substantially increased support for advanced research and graduate students.
The federal government supports research in Canada, particularly through the grants councils, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Medical Research Council. In 1998 there was a substantial increase in the funding of those councils.
At one level it would appear to be funds which are going into creative research projects in the social sciences, in engineering, in the natural sciences, and in the environmental sciences and so on across the country. However the other aspect is that those grants provide income directly to graduate students at various levels of their careers.
The increase in funding to the grants councils can almost be thought of as a job creation program, a very rapid and effective job creation program for highly educated young people who are seeking to become more educated. In effect they use those moneys to support themselves and to continue their education.
I would say again to my colleagues that in the 1998 budget there was a focus on research and on improving research to make Canada more productive. However through the grants councils the focus was on providing funds for graduate students who are the future of all kinds of science research in Canada.
Dealing with the same problem, the access to university and college which I mentioned with respect to the millennium scholarships and the question of graduate students receiving funds to support themselves through school, there were measures in the budget to help students manage debt loads.
It is popularly known now that our students because of increases in tuition are faced with much greater student loans to pay off than was the case previously. In the budget, dealing with the productivity again, tax relief was provided for interest on student loans. The Canada student loan program was improved to help students deal with the debt loads which they are unfortunately facing when they graduate.
I would point out to my colleagues that in the same package of material each item is directly tailored to dealing with improving research, improving the quality of our students, our future teachers and researchers, and helping to encourage students to stay in school, which we know is the way to go for jobs and for productivity nowadays.
It should be remembered that the government provided in the budget for tax free RRSP withdrawals for lifelong learning. That is important. We pay lip service to it now that we have to learn and relearn throughout a career. Before it was possible to go to school, to do an apprenticeship and be set for a career. Now that is no longer the case. People not only have to go to school when they are young. They have to go to school when they are less young.
Since the budget it is now possible for Canadians to upgrade their skills throughout their working lives because they can make tax free withdrawals from their registered retirement savings plans, specifically when those withdrawals are for lifelong learning.
In the same budget there was an extension of the education tax credits and the child care expense deduction for part time students. All those measures were aimed at productivity and ultimately at the brain drain which my colleagues opposite were discussing.
In the budget as a part of a very focused package there was the Canada education savings grant. In our educational system we often think there are no grants—