Mr. Speaker, that is a very serious problem for students. As I said a few moments ago, students come to my office on a daily basis. They are so frustrated with the current system. They have a $50,000 debt and are trying to get a job, build a home, obtain a car or look after a mortgage. Their plans to get married have to be put on hold because they cannot afford to have children and to raise them, especially when they have that kind of debt load and debt problem to deal with.
Massive cuts to these federal transfers for post-secondary education resulted in provincial student grants becoming provincial student loans. The old provincial student grant system was a whole lot easier to manage than the provincial student loans that we have today, but maybe we have to take a whole new approach to the way education is financed at the post-secondary level.
Ireland took some progressive steps a number of years ago and introduced, essentially, a free education system. Maybe it is time we had a royal commission to look at the way we finance post-secondary education. It is a very important area. The future and well-being of the country depends solely upon the educational system that we have and how people are able to take advantage of it and avail themselves of it.
Maybe it is time we had a truly progressive think tank who sat down and had a look at post-secondary education, using the models that Ireland used a number of years ago to finance its educational system.
I do not have an answer that I can provide for the hon. member in a nutshell, but it is of sufficient importance to warrant some kind of new approach to the whole system of financing education in Canada.