Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the comments by the member for York--Simcoe. I congratulate him on his first debate in the House. He certainly has recognized the importance of post-secondary education, but I found the comments distressing from two points of view.
First, there was very little acknowledgement of the depth and severity of the tuition crisis and debt load crisis suffered by today's students. Second, once again he seemed to propose that tax cuts are always the solution to every problem. The comment was made that the amounts are modest but after all, we have to be concerned about whether we can afford it. I would ask the member to respond to two things in that connection.
First , we have just received confirmation that the government's surplus this year is not the $1.9 billion previously predicted but rather it is $9.1 billion. That is quite a big mistake. Is there not a significant sum of money there that could be available to deal with today's student debt crisis and the very severe barriers?
Second, I want to ask the member to respond to the research finding that the tax cuts to the top 10% of Canadians brought in by the government over the last decade would actually have been sufficient to pay for 25 years of tuition free post-secondary education in Canada.
Could I have the member's comments on those two factual pieces of information?