Mr. Speaker, on behalf of our party I wish to say a few words in support of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau foundation fellowship that was established today.
The foundation comes out of the budget with an allocation of $125 million over the next number of years. The idea is a superb one. The foundation would be comparable to Rhodes scholarships over the years and would retain a lot of bright people in the country. It would have people from other parts of the world come to Canada to study as well.
The foundation would have 80% of the students from Canada and 20% would come from other parts of the world. We applaud that. This is a great honour for the former prime minister. The pursuit of excellence is an excellent idea. This country needs to invest a lot more into knowledge, research and ideas.
Knowledge is power and ideas are power. Innovation, and the whole area of research and development, is extremely important. I also think it is a much more appropriate thing to do in memory of Pierre Elliott Trudeau than the naming of a mountain would have been about a year ago when that was suggested by the government across the way.
I knew Pierre Elliott Trudeau very well. I spent 16 years in the House of Commons with him from 1968 to 1984. I remember him as prime minister for almost all of that time. For a short while he sat as leader of the opposition when my friend from Calgary was the prime minister back in 1979 to 1980. When I think of Pierre Elliott Trudeau I think of a person who had a lot of courage, a person of ideas and perhaps more than anything else a person of great determination who had a vision and would fight for that vision. We would often disagree with him but we had to admire his courage and determination to succeed with the vision that he fought for.
I think of the Official Languages Act, which I supported; multiculturalism; and his fight for the patriation of the Canadian constitution with a charter of rights enshrined in the constitution. That was a very divisive issue that divided all parties in the House of Commons. We had differing ideas but it was his sheer determination that eventually got us a constitution with a patriated charter of rights. Even at that time he had to compromise on issues in the charter of rights and the amending formula. It showed he had some flexibility as well when he pursued his vision.
This is an appropriate way to remember Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He was a person who exonerated youth and exuberance. He was a great Canadian who loved this country, but he was also a great internationalist. This scholarship would also be available for people in different parts of the world.
My only regret is that this is a little late in coming. We should have had a foundation like this many years ago. When we look at the drop in our standard of living compared to the United States and many other parts of the world a large part of that is due to the fact that we have not been as strong in innovation, research and development and education, nor as productive as many of the other countries in the world. Over the past few years for example we have seen all of the cutbacks in funding of post secondary education. It is something like $5 billion since 1993.
When I look back when Pierre Trudeau enrolled as a first year law student many years ago the tuition fee was probably $200 or $300. It is worth about $3,000 today. Today there is a university in Canada that charges $12,000 for a first year law student. I understand it is considering doubling the tuition fee from $12,000 to $24,000 in the very near future. We are limiting the accessibility to education.
Even though it is late in coming this is an excellent idea.
I am very pleased to support the creation of this foundation in memory of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada.
I can say to the family, to Sacha who was here earlier today, that they can be proud of the contribution their father made and that a foundation in his name would carry that memory forward in terms of looking for new ideas, excellence in research, and positive things to not just improve our country but to improve the world.
Often in parliament we have great political differences. We debate a great number of issues. However today we have parliament coming together to honour a great Canadian for a great contribution and we do that by establishing a foundation that would be there as a worthwhile cause for generations to come.