Mr. Speaker, I will spell it out for the hon. member. It is called innovation. How do we innovate? I am talking about new innovative ways the government should look at in terms of enabling this particular fund to be used wisely. I am tying my comments to those of my colleague for St. Albert.
I know the hon. member has a strong desire to make sure that this fund will to be used wisely, not improperly. What we are doing is saving the government's backside. We are providing it a way to make sure that this money is spent wisely, with temperance, and usefully. At the end of the day the money is not ours, it is that of the Canadian taxpayer.
If we are going to have innovation and spend the money wisely, it must be spent by those who will be innovating. If we look into a crystal ball, we will have a enormous lack of individuals who have the ability to do the innovation. There is a crisis and it will only worsen because of lack of professors and teachers in our research institutions. Not only is there the brain drain but there is not enough money in the system right now to provide for these people. Many of them are moving to other parts of the world.
How do we rectify the problem? The following can be done. Let us get back to basics. Let us make sure our children are taught properly and that they are taught the basics of arithmetic, reading, writing and other skills, such as computer skills. We need national standards. They are important if we are to measure our functioning and ability against those in other parts of the world. We need to ensure that we invest in education so that professors can engage in the research.
We have a serious crisis in our education system today. We need to address this by working with the provincial ministers of education. If we do not have the teachers for our youth, they will not be able to utilize this fund. They will not be able to interact or be at the centre of excellence. They will not be the producers of the cutting edge research, which is required if Canada is to be on the leading edge.
The cost of education has gone up so much. For example in the field of medicine, I could not go to medical school today because the tuition fees are about $14,000 a year. The professional faculties are becoming the purview of the rich.
In my alma mater, the University of Toronto, the average family income is over $65,000 for those who are in medicine. How can someone who makes $35,000 a year send their child to medical school? They cannot do it. As time passes our professional faculties and the students who attend will merely be children of the rich and privileged. That is not what we want in Canada. We want to make sure that everyone, regardless of socio-economic status, has an equal ability and opportunity to engage in his or her chosen profession based on the merit of that individual. That is not happening.
This is a clarion call. It is a call for the government to wake up and listen, to work with its provincial counterparts to make sure that we have an education system that is affordable to all students. We have produced the income contingent loan replacement plan which would have been very useful in enabling that to happen.
In closing, we have to innovate in the House, We have to give MPs the ability and freedom to innovate. We have to revamp this bill and fund so that it is accountable to members of the public from coast to coast.