Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend from Acadie—Bathurst for his question. It is not a surprising question coming from the NDP that has an allergy toward balancing books and toward I think balanced spending.
He suggested that the government was repeating itself. He should know that good things bear repeating. A good thing is to approach the country, not as a business, as my Alliance friends across the way might suggest, but as a cooperative effort to build our nation and to provide a good place for our children and our grandchildren.
A balanced approach means investing in our communities through programs like ACOA in Atlantic Canada, FEDNOR in northern Ontario and western diversification in western Canada to make sure our communities have access to those financial resources to build on their ideas and to invest in our social programs. We have seen a major investment going into the last election. In September 2000, the government in cooperation with the provinces invested $23 billion in skills and innovation.
Our young people, quite contrary to the member's point of view, have tremendous access to education. Yes, there are some requirements that families and students contribute toward that, and any amount of debt is unfortunate, but I graduated from university with a debt and I was happy to pay it off.
Every family should have the opportunity to make sure their children have access to education. We do not manage education, the provinces do, but we are doing our part in cooperation with the provinces and others to make sure our kids have the best chance to continue to be the leaders in science and technology, medicine and social services, and leaders in the world in many other ways.
I hope I can speak to the member behind the curtain some day and help him understand that we are doing a great job.