Mr. Speaker, I have made a note of my colleague's questions.
His first question was about why these two departments are being split. We should know that the previous department of HRDC was by far the largest department in the federal government. In the very early 1990s, in fact before I was elected, that department was created. I might be exaggerating if I said six, but somewhere between four and six old federal departments were put together in one. In some cases those old departments continued to work well and in some cases they cooperated, but in other cases that was just not the case.
Really what we had was a very large department. Its budget, as I recall, was $60 billion, which is a great deal of money even in this place. That was one dimension. It was one department answerable to one standing committee and responsible for $60 billion.
Much more significant was the point I tried to make in my speech. It was this question of cultures. In that department were public servants who were very keen on their individual mandates. There were people involved with employment insurance, for example, and people involved with the Canada pension plan, all in the same department, but if people moved between parts of the department, the culture was very different. The culture in EI was very different from that of the Canada pension plan.
An interesting example, which I also mentioned in passing but which is dealt with very carefully in the new legislation, is that there were four or five different privacy regimes. My colleague will understand this. This is the question of protecting information provided to the department by Canadians. The department needs information. One can well imagine that Canada pensions cannot simply be given out; personal information has to be gathered in order to be sure the money is going to be well spent.
There were four or five different regimes, each of them good, each of them secure as far as the privacy commissioner was concerned, but the fact was that they were different within the same department. I think that is just one example of the need to take this large department and divide it carefully, so that, for example, Canada pensions are now with Social Development Canada and EI is with HRSD, the legislation which we are considering.
I would also add, though, that they are not completely divided. For efficiency's sake, for example, the human resources management of the two departments is going to be conducted jointly. Another example is with respect to services to Canadians. Canadians going into HRSD offices in ridings, for example, will not see a difference at the public counter. They will go to the window and they will be dealt with sometimes by social development staff and sometimes by HRSD staff, but that side of it will not be divided.
“Why Parliament?”, my colleague asked. First of all, I know he believes that Parliament is very important and so do I. I think it is often necessary for the governor in council, that is, the cabinet, to do things and often to do them quickly. They are done well and they are done legally. That has certainly been the case here. There is very rapid movement.
In the end I would say to my colleague that the House should seize itself of what is going on. We can do this when we debate this legislation. We are now at second reading.
The other thing is that we are, and again I would use the example of privacy, changing regimes which are enacted. There is legislation dealing with these different privacy issues. In order to change these four or five different privacy regimes, we need to come back to the House of Commons.
I appreciate his point about having a federal champion for the community colleges. There are roughly 1,000 community college campuses, which are very important for education and lifelong learning of all sorts across the country. They are very important for apprenticeships, for aboriginal people and so on. We do need a champion.
I made the point as an example that the federal government has started funding research in colleges. The granting councils are very conservative institutions, and that is not a word that I use lightly. They are only coming around to the idea that in particular cases community colleges should be funded for research. The Canada Foundation for Innovation, which was established by the government and provides money for research infrastructure, has consistently provided money to the colleges, as I think my colleague knows, and does so very explicitly.
When I asked the question of the granting councils that my colleague has asked of me, they said they do give money to the colleges but the qualifications of the people who apply are not high enough. That is a very chicken and egg argument. They say if the proposal is good they will receive it.
I do believe that the case of the northern colleges, the territorial colleges, should be special. As my colleague said, in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon there are no universities except the University of the Arctic, which is an international organization. All the granting councils and all federal departments should treat those three colleges in a very special way.