Mr. Speaker, somehow I am often the speaker to wrap up the debate on a Friday and I might be again today. I eagerly stand to speak to the motion because of my longstanding interest in education.
I always enjoyed being a student. Teachers told me when I was a very young person, even before I went to high school, that it is important to learn something new every day even after finishing school. It is probably true that with very few exceptions I have learned something new every day of my life. I hope that continues. I learned a few good things today but I will not bother getting into that as that would be what is called a side bar.
I have a great interest in education. As is known by most members now since I mention it frequently in my various speeches, I taught at the post-secondary level for 27 years and I shared with many students the frustrations they had in their education.
Some students came to the institute with an inadequate academic background. Unfortunately, some of them were the victims of an inadequate school system and for some there were other reasons. They did not have the necessary prerequisites and therefore for academic reasons, they could not survive at the technical institute level in the programs I was teaching.
There were other students who had reached the limit of what they could learn. I would tell them there was nothing wrong with that. I personally will never be an Olympic runner. I have a physical limitation which would prevent me from doing that. I told them we all do not have the same mental abilities. A false assumption which is sometimes spread around in educational circles is that all students can be successful. That just is not true. There are some who reach their limit of education earlier than others. That is a reality of life. I do not think it is pejorative statement at all. It is just a true statement.
One situation frustrated me the most. On numerous occasions there were students with more than an adequate ability to learn and who had the prerequisites. They could have received an education and done better in their lives with an education than without but they were forced to leave for economic reasons. It always bothered me when students came to me and said they were dropping out and it was their last day. When I asked them why, the students would say they just could not make ends meet, that they had to work and they could not study and hold down a job at the same time because they just could not do them both.
That always bothered me. I often wished I were a multimillionaire so I could help tide those students over to keep them in school. In some cases they had exhausted their student loan capacity and other methods of financing and were simply forced to leave. I believe a large part of Canada's population is below average on the socioeconomic scale. We have a huge untapped reservoir of talent and ability in young people who will not receive an education because of a lack of financing. That is a very serious flaw in the system.
I commend the member for Fundy--Royal for this initiative because it is well motivated. He wants to do something to solve the problem. However I have some reservations with the motion. One very large one is it promotes a culture of debt. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what you or the other members think but we have an incredible culture of debt. Every Canadian bears a part of the national debt.
If members want to visit my office, I have a picture of my grandson when he was about one hour old. My wife put it together for me. It shows my little grandson Noah who was one hour old. He was still pretty pink. The coloured caption reads “I owe how much of the national debt?” It is on the shelf in my office. He has a $20,000 debt and he is one hour old. Then he has provincial debt.
Fortunately we live in Alberta. We at least have some hope in the near future that the provincial debt will be eliminated. We sincerely hope it will happen. The provincial government is committed to reducing the debt, unlike the federal government which will reduce the debt only if there is nothing else it can think of to do with the money.
Besides that, the students go to school and what we do is provide them with a student loans system. When they graduate from school they will have another $20,000 to $35,000 debt in student loans to pay off. By the time a young person in Canada graduates from university, collectively that person's share of the federal and provincial debt and his or her student loan could amount to a debt of $50,000 to $70,000. That is wrong.
The member has a plan that would enable the students upon graduation to get rid of at least the student loan portion of their debt more quickly. However I think what we ought to do is to push very hard for adequately funded post-secondary education right across the country so that student loans are much less necessary.
There should also be lower tuition. There should be lower costs for books. It is atrocious that the government charges GST on student books. Some of those textbooks cost $100 and the GST must be added to every book they buy.
The Chair knows I am on a roll but no one can argue with the clock in this place, so with that and it being Friday, I wish everyone a good weekend.