Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is a very good question and it gives me an opportunity to say a bit more about the concerns we have with post-secondary education.
It is fair to raise the question that if there is an increase in the Canada health and social transfer, how could we provide an assurance that the money would actually be used for education. I know that is the case in my own province of British Columbia. Our government has put a freeze on tuition fees and has made sure that accessibility to post-secondary education will not be eroded.
I would suggest that if the member is concerned about where the dollars are going for health care, social programs or post-secondary education, he should be supporting the initiative which the federal New Democrats put forward both at the HRDC committee and in the House to say that the federal government should bring in a new national standard based on accessibility to post-secondary education.
We believe very much that there must be federal dollars. The measures that the member outlined do not even come close to making up for the billions of dollars that have been stripped away and gutted from our colleges and universities.
Whatever increase there is, the government should be implementing a standard based on accessibility precisely to ensure that students across the country, whether they are in Ontario, New Brunswick or British Columbia, have access based on affordability to post-secondary education. Unfortunately that does not exist.
I remind the member that it was his government that brought in the CHST. It was his government that cut the strings and said to the provinces, “Do whatever the hell you want”. That is why we are in a mess now.
Perhaps I could throw the question back and ask the member to support the initiatives from our party to make sure that there is accessibility based on a national standard.