Mr. Speaker, the hon. member identifies a very serious issue in our society today, and that is the question of access to educational opportunities wherever ones lives in our country. We are finding the same phenomenon that often occurs in the area of health care, where in fact people who live in rural, remote, or northern communities have neither the access in those communities to post-secondary education institutions nor the resources to pay for the rapidly rising costs to enter an educational facility. It is becoming about the most serious and fastest growing concern in this country today.
We used to say that health care was the number one issue. It is still a big concern but we are seeing some movement. I believe that education and access to educational opportunities are reaching a crisis situation.
That is part of the fiscal imbalance. The member may not agree with me on this point, but I would suggest to him that fiscal imbalance is also about what we do with our fiscal dividend. We have heard from the Liberals the promise of splitting the dividend. Years ago they said it should be split on a fifty-fifty basis. They claim they have done that, but it seems they have put 90% of that dividend into tax cuts and reductions, and 10% into programs like education.
We would like to see this fiscal imbalance addressed and ensure that we can actually, at this glorious moment in this seventh year of a surplus, put some money into the very foundation of lifelong learning.