Mr. Speaker, in the 1998 budget the $2.5 billion Canada millennium scholarship fund was introduced. The 1999 budget built on this by investing in the development of new knowledge and by focusing on job creation in new sectors. The 2000 budget provided a $2.5 billion increase in the CHST to help the provinces and territories fund post-secondary education and health care, the highest priorities of Canadians. This is the fourth consecutive federal enhancement to the CHST.
The 2000 budget also includes a tax exemption for income from scholarships, fellowships and bursaries, giving students additional financial assistance to pursue their studies.
Such measures demonstrate in concrete terms the federal government's commitment to post-secondary education.
One statistic alone proves the Government of Canada's commitment, and that is the fact that Canada spends a larger percentage of its GDP on post-secondary education than any of the other G-7 nations.
The Government of Canada recognizes that skills and training acquired through post-secondary education are vital to the development of Canada's human resources development capacity, and hence to national economic growth.
I might point out that other kinds of training to prepare people for the labour market have been devolved to the provinces under labour market development agreements, and the agreement with the province of Saskatchewan transfers $37 million to that province every year to be distributed and allocated as that government sees fit.