Mr. Speaker, the point my NDP colleague made about the disconnect from reality concerns me.
I am as critical as anybody of the system of higher education that we have in Canada but we must never forget that we have the highest percentage of post-secondary graduates in the world. With all our problems, some things are being done right and, by the way, increasingly right.
He talked about cutbacks. I have been here longer than he has and it certainly was a very stressful time when we took out of the system, not any money that was there, but $42 billion per year of borrowing. The government of day and governments of the previous 30 years had been spending roughly a quarter more than the money they had for years and years. It is easy to say that we made all these cuts but they were being paid for by borrowing $42 billion. One can imagine if we had to borrow $42 billion this year.
Earlier today I heard one of his colleagues talking about spending the so-called surpluses. We have a national debt accumulated in those years of about $500 billion and we have a surplus of 5%. If we were to put all that so-called surplus on to the debt it would take us 50 years to pay it off if we had that much every single year to pay it off. I think the member should be careful about what he is saying and who is disconnected from reality.
I truly do share the concerns of my colleague for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and, I suspect, in most areas, but I what I liked about my colleague's speech was his focus on what we now call lifelong learning. He mentioned lifelong learning and skills development but they are the same thing.
In lifelong learning we are talking about quality early childhood development, quality elementary and high school, quality college or the trades, quality university and, by the way, we are talking about childhood literacy and senior literacy and all of the things that are involved. Our purpose in debating today is to make the federal government more effective in dealing with those things.
I know my colleague is from the Halifax-Dartmouth area, which is an extraordinary centre of college and university life. The area has a range of colleges and universities which one would rarely see in such a small area. I know he has a particular interest in colleges. I wonder if he could comment on some of the developments he has seen and is watching in the Halifax-Dartmouth area with respect to the colleges and universities.