House of Commons Hansard #38 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was students.
Joe Comuzzi Liberalfor the Minister of International Trade
moved that Bill C-5, an act to provide financial assistance for post-secondary education savings, be read the third time and passed.
Peter Adams LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development
Mr. Speaker, I especially welcome the opportunity to join in the debate on third reading of Bill C-5. I have participated in discussion on the bill both in this place and in committee. I am concerned that many of the comments I hear are not about Bill C-5 at all.
Bill C-5 has three key objectives. It complements the many other ways the government is working to ensure that students who need help with the costs of post-secondary education are able to get it. It will assist and encourage families to save for their children's education by making it easier for them to build the assets they will need in later years. It follows through on a commitment in the Speech from the Throne to increase access to post-secondary education, especially for low income families.
I will expand on this last point a bit, helping lower income families save for post-secondary education. One of the key features of the bill is that it brings a new focus to ensuring that low and middle income families can participate initiatives like the registered education savings plan, the RESP program, and the Canada education savings grant program. These are proving to be very popular with many higher income Canadian families.
Last March the Minister of Finance said in his budget speech that he was concerned that too many Canadians, especially those in low and middle income brackets, see post-secondary education as unattainable, not because of the academic challenge but because the costs are too high. That is why the budget for 2004 provided a needs based grant up to $3,000 for students from low income families to go toward their first year of university.
Bill C-5 includes specific ways the government can move to make it easier for low and middle income Canadians to save for their children's educational needs. For example, the bill introduces the Canada learning bond, which is an innovative way the government can provide families with an upfront cash contribution of $500 to kick-start their education savings plan and to build on it with annual instalments.
Up to and including the age of 15, children born after 2003 into low income families who receive the $500 bond will continue to qualify each year for a $100 Canada learning bond instalment, if the family is entitled to the national child benefit. Over a 16 year period, families could receive a total Canada learning bond of $2,000 per child. If parents never open an RESP, the child will not be penalized. Children will never lose their entitlement for the bond because, at the age of majority, they can then open their own RESP and claim their entitlement up to the age of 21 years.
The Canada learning bond serves as a kick-start to savings. After opening an RESP to deposit the bond, the bill supplies an incentive to save even more by increasing the Canada education savings grant match rates to low and middle income families, increasing them up to 40%. In other words, the bond will provide an important incentive for low income families to set up an RESP, and the enhanced education savings grant match rates will help those savings grow over the years.
If the bill is passed, we estimate that 120,000 newborn Canadian children will benefit from the Canada learning bond this year alone and another 4.5 million could benefit from the enhanced Canada education savings grant.
I do not want to see any of these children left behind. That is why I support this bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. His party has put forward the point of view that it will solve the problem of high tuition fees and, generally, access to post-secondary education with virtually every idea but what is really needed, which is out and out grants to enable more people to get into post-secondary education.
I heard the head of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations say that it viewed the scheme under Bill C-5 as comparable to giving students a $500 grant and a Mercedes-Benz, then making them make the rest of the payments on a car they could afford. In other words, it does not address the basic issue of access to post-secondary education in its purest form.
The hon. member is very knowledgeable of these things. I know he comes from a background of the post-secondary education system. However, he has danced all around the main fundamental issue of access for students and crippling and spiralling out of control tuition costs, which means fewer and fewer people from low income families can afford to go to school.
Does the hon. member honestly believe that Bill C-5 answers the pertinent questions about access to post-secondary education?
Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON
Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague knows that tuition fees are in the jurisdiction of the provinces. Therefore, the federal government cannot do anything about controlling those fees.
However, this government has improved the Canada student loan beyond recognition, billions of dollars have gone to students, admittedly in loan form. It set up the millennium scholarship program. A million students, mainly low income students, will receive millennium scholarships. It has set up other scholarship programs. In the last budget it established the $3,000 first year tuition payment for low income students. It established the $3,000 per year, of the current undergraduate year, for disabled students.
I would suggest that the government, given that it cannot control tuition fees, has done more than any other federal government ever has to support students. As a result, we have the highest participation in post-secondary education in the world.
The member is right. There are still many problems. Bill C-5 is a different tactic. We know that despite the fact that enrolment has gone up in the post-secondary institutions and despite these scholarship, grant and loan programs which we have established, participation in the low income groups is not there. There are a variety of reasons for that. This is a different point.
I believe the bond and the money that it will provide to young persons when they reach the age of majority is very useful. They will be able to use that for apprenticeships or any sort of post-graduate education. It is in some ways not a huge sum of money.
The important thing is that from birth, a family will know that it is helping to put aside some money for that child's post-secondary education. It will make these families think throughout the child's growth that post-secondary education is possibility. Our target is to encourage these families to look at post-secondary education. Many of them, if they did, would already discover that their children could afford to go to higher education. At the present time they simply do not.
Therefore, I would say to may colleague, and I know his interest in these matters, that the purpose of the bill is different than scholarship programs, loan programs and the like.
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member. He mentioned in his comments that there was not enough participation by lower income students. Yet the whole purpose of this is where families can put disposable income. If they do not have disposable income, then they have nothing to contribute.
If the target group is those of low income, how on earth can we argue that this is helpful to those families when they do not have the discretionary funds within the family budget to put into this wonderful new program of the federal government?
Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON
Mr. Speaker, there are at least two components to this program. The first is the initial contribution of $500 at birth for the child is a grant. The family has no need to have disposable income. If it opens an RESP account, it will have $500 in it.
My colleague is right. Some of these families are not used to opening accounts of any sort. As a result, each family will receive $25 to assist them in setting up and opening an account, which will last the child's lifetime. Once that is done, each year $100 will go into that account from the Government of Canada.
Now it is true, where families do not have disposable income, they cannot take advantage of the second aspect of the program. If the family puts in, for example. $100 at any time in the first 15 years of a child's life, it will receive $40 from the Government of Canada and the accumulated interest from it. He is right. Some families will be unable to do that. However, at the very base, they will have in this account, at no cost, $2,000 when the child reaches the age of 15.
His colleague mentioned tuition. We keep thinking of college and university and tuition fees. Those moneys could be used for any form of lifelong learning. In fact, if the children concerned, say at the age of 18, had just the $2,000 and rolled it into an RESP, they would have another 20 years with the accumulated proceeds of the $2,000 to decide what to do. They might decide to take a computer course or to move from one trade to another and take some training.
I understand the point that it is only $2,000 plus the accumulated interest. However, I would say it is something, and throughout that child's life, the family would have been thinking about post-secondary education.
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's response, except I really do not think it answered the question. If I heard correctly, and please do correct me if I am wrong, he said that there are two components. He has acknowledged that the one component may not benefit the families, which I spoke of earlier in my question. He said that the other one would however, and I think it amounted to $2,000 plus the potential for accumulated interest, assuming if one put it into the stock market and made the right call. That is a whole different issue.
However, if the argument of the hon. member is that the second component makes this worthwhile for the target group who cannot afford to put discretionary money into a fund for the future of the children's education, then really all that second component is, having acknowledged the first one does not do the trick, is a $2,000 grant. Why not give the families $2,000 and tell them to invest it and do the best they can in the stock market. However, let us not pretend that somehow this program will accomplish the objective, which I have to believe is to ensure that everybody has access to post-secondary education. In this case we are talking about those who have modest means of income.
I am not satisfied that the question was answered.
Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON
Mr. Speaker, the evidence shows a significant percentage of the lowest income employed families in the country already save specifically for their children's education. That group is already there. Without any assistance at all, already they are putting aside money in whatever vehicles they find appropriate for their children's education.
All the evidence shows that in those families, unlike the other low income families, the participation in post-secondary education is very high. One of our motivations in this is the demonstration of the link between families thinking early of their children's post-secondary education and those families which do not.
I do not disparage the grant aspect of this and the accumulated interest on the grant aspect of it. However, I believe this significant percentage of low income people already saving will be increased considerably.
Another point I would make is that we are talking a 15 year period. Very often families of low income when a child is born, go to a higher income level by the time the child is 15. In the last few years they will have disposable income to put into these accounts.
The member mentioned the $2,000. There is a provision for the provinces to participate. They can run their own programs under this legislation. The province of Alberta will do so as of next year, and children there will have at least double this amount of money.
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Mr. Speaker, education is very much the gateway to achieving one's hopes and dreams and achieving a better life. In Canada, education has played a very important role in this.
It has been said that there is no greater drive in mankind, in all people, than the desire to improve our condition in life as it relates to our standard of living. There is no better route and no better way to do that than through higher education. When we look at our society and look at the difference that education makes, we see that it makes a profound difference. Indeed, it is what makes a civilized society.
Whether it comes down to the simple bread and butter issues for a family, the evidence demonstrates that the higher one's education, the higher one's income and the greater one's ability to live a better life and provide better for one's family. For most Canadians, that is their most important priority: day to day, what kind of living can I give to myself, to my family and to my children? What kind of future can we provide for them? Can we have a good standard of living? Can we be secure and safe?
Education plays a tremendous role in this. It has been demonstrated in studies again and again that higher income jobs and higher prosperity are strongly related to the education of individuals and society at large.
Education makes a tremendous difference in our society in terms of the richness of the lives we live and the culture we share. Whether it is the arts, the literature or all kinds of day to day and community entertainments, education plays a tremendous role in contributing to that richness in our lives. Indeed, it is an important part of living the good life, of contributing to one's community, of enjoying all that life has to offer here in Canada. Education plays an important role in all of this.
It was Plato who said, “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life”. That is one of the reasons why we support the Canada learning bond and why we think it is so important.
This bill contains what we think is the best combination of Conservative values. On the one hand, there is help for those genuinely in need. The Canada learning bond is not money that is given to everyone. It is a form of assistance that is targeted to those who are genuinely in need. That is what we believe the role of the government, the role of the state, is: to look out for those in our society who are less able, to give them that hand up to be able to aspire to do better, to achieve more, to protect them from whatever vicissitudes of life may have made things difficult for them in the past, and to help those who are genuinely in need. The bill does that by targeting the Canada learning bond to those individuals.
Yet at the same time it also reflects that other important Conservative value, that of responsibility and self-reliance, of rewarding people for their own work and their own efforts. The entire principle of RESPs and Canada learning bonds reflects the notion of matching grants, of rewarding people when they make their own efforts to save for their children's education and future. That expectation of self-reliance, that rewarding of people's own contribution and effort, is also indeed a tremendous Conservative value.
As well, it reflects another Conservative value, the reflection that we do believe people should be given the opportunity to aspire to better, to achieve higher education, and to make their lives and the lives of their families better.
The Canada learning bond will also help to stimulate among people that aspiration to a better life and to improve themselves. It will also, by virtue of encouraging more families to establish registered education savings plans, encourage in the children of those families the expectation that indeed they are expected by their parents, their families, their loved ones, to achieve a higher education, to go to university or to go to college, to advance themselves, in many cases beyond the state in life and the education level of their own parents and grandparents. We know that this expectation is an important factor in the decisions of children as they grow up as to whether or not they will pursue an education.
When I was about four years old my mother took me down to the University of Toronto and said that one day I would have to go there. It made an impression on me at age four. I looked at those august walls around me and said to myself that there was an expectation, that I had better do something and I had better get there. I think that expectation is an important part in every child's decision on where they will go with their education.
I am also pleased that at committee our side had an opportunity through me to propose a number of amendments that I think improved the bill significantly. The first one is what I call the “grandparent amendment”. It was an amendment to make it easier and cut the red tape and barriers for grandparents wanting to make contributions to children's RESPs, which would trigger matching grants. No longer will grandparents have to set up their own separate RESP plans. They can simply contribute to another person's plan. In my view that amendment is a significant improvement to the way this system will work and I am pleased that it was accepted by all parties.
Another amendment that I thought was even more profound was that of permitting the use of Canada learning bond RESPs for part time study. Part time study is an increasingly important part of how people pursue their education. I have said it before in the House. I know many who have done this themselves, in large part and particularly because some do not have the means to commit themselves full time to study. There can be financial reasons or family reasons. They have to focus on other things.
At the same time that we are putting forward a bill to encourage folks in those challenged conditions to aspire to university, the opportunity to make it available for part time study was only logical and consistent. I believe it will make a great difference in the lives of many. I am very pleased that once again it ultimately was supported by all parties. I think it is a significant improvement to this bill. I am very proud of having had a hand in it.
There is no doubt that there is a need for a bill like this. Some of our friends in the New Democratic Party suggest that the real issue is that money just should be transferred willy-nilly to education in an indiscriminate fashion through lower tuition, free tuition or otherwise. We do not agree with that perspective. We believe that people should be expected to make some effort to save for their own education. We believe in support for those who need it, but there should also be an effort to save.
The suggestion was made that it is not that people are not aware of RESPs, it is that they do not have the means. In fact, even those of modest means are willing and happy to save, but there is a real problem in that many are not aware of RESPs. Research shows that of those with incomes greater than $80,000 a year, over 60% of the population knows about RESPs and how they work, yet if incomes are under $30,000 that figure falls by half to just over 30%.
This tells us that perhaps one of the reasons many of those lower income families are not taking advantage of the potential to save and trigger matching grants is that they simply are not aware of the opportunity. The Canada learning bond, by providing that initial seed money and matching grants, which basically is free money from the outset, whether families choose to contribute or not, will help to trigger that awareness of RESPs. I am confident that it will result in greater savings over time. That indeed will be a very productive outcome.
Post-secondary education is crucial to the challenges this country faces and we have to encourage and stimulate it. Unfortunately, Canada has serious problems, which the government is not addressing and which need to be addressed. Post-secondary education is part of that. The greatest of all is the increasing productivity and prosperity gap we see between Canada and our most direct competitors, our neighbours the United States, and other countries in the G-7 and the OECD. The fact is that Canada is falling behind.
That is harming the standard of living of all Canadians. It is harming our entire economy. This is a matter of increasing concern. We have not seen, in the 11 years that this government has been in power, significant efforts to address in any way the productivity gap and improve our economy and our standard of living. This bill is perhaps one step, with a Canada learning bond and RESPs, to address in a small way part of that productivity gap, because post-secondary education makes up for a significant part of it.
We can see in this productivity gap that our educational standing is part of the reason for it. We have fewer M.A. and Ph.D. graduates than the United States. We simply are not producing the number of graduates per capita that we should at this important, superior, critical research level.
I have to disagree with my friend the parliamentary secretary who said we have the highest percentage of people involved in post-secondary education. In fact, right now former premier Bob Rae is undertaking a study. If we look at his work, we can see him demonstrating quite clearly that our participation is far from the highest. We are falling behind many of our OECD competitors in terms of participation of youth enrolled in higher education. We were at 39.3% of youths aged 20 to 24, yet France is at 53%, Denmark at 55%, Finland at 56%, and on it goes. The fact is that Canada is sliding. Our productivity is sliding and this government has not taken that seriously. We have to see that happen.
The other aspect and the other problem we have to address, which is addressed to some degree, is the poverty in Canada and the condition of those in need. In one way, that is best addressed by the opportunity for higher education. That is the way in which people are able to elevate themselves out of poverty to advance themselves. No one will rise out of poverty because the government gives them the money to do it. They will rise out of poverty by their own means and by their desire to advance. The role of the government is to help them, to provide that helping hand, the hand up for them to be able to advance themselves. That is very much what the Canada learning bond does. I am hopeful that to some extent it will help to address this problem in society.
For many years I have had the pleasure of teaching in addition to my other job of practising law. I was teaching. I was in the classroom at the University of Toronto. I can tell members that one of the reasons I do it or have done it for so many years is the great joy and satisfaction in seeing that light come on, in seeing the students learning and seeing their advancement.
However, there is something greater than that. That is the greater satisfaction of then seeing those same individuals five or six years later down the road making their way in life, making use of that education and advancing themselves. For me personally, that outcome, that result of the post-secondary education they have attained, that advancement in life, is something in which I take great pride. I know their families do and I know they do. I know that it makes a great difference to this country and to all their lives.
In conclusion, we are very pleased to support the bill. It was something that the Conservative Party advocated in the last election. It was in our policy platform. We are pleased that the government has moved on it. We are pleased that we had the opportunity to make amendments to significantly improve it. We are confident that with the Canada learning bond in place many more Canadians will have the opportunity to achieve higher education and build better lives and futures for their families.
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I listened intently and I appreciate the comments of the member, in particular his closing remarks when he talked, I believe quite forthrightly and from the heart, about his experience in the classroom and what that meant to him and running into the students later. I believe that. I have no doubt that it must be a very fulfilling feeling for anyone in the teaching profession. It sounds like he is playing it straight here today and I appreciate that.
But I have to say that the difficulty we have with the bill in front of us now is that we have to get there first; we have to get the students in front of the hon. member so he can do his magic. That is what this is about. It is about what vehicles society will use to ensure that students can get in front of the hon. member and benefit from his learning and his experience.
The member also said some words about just throwing money at education “willy-nilly”; for the Conservative Party, investing in education now has become throwing money “willy-nilly”. Further, the member said, and I know hon. members do not want to talk about this too much, that low income people, if they just knew about the program, would be willing and happy to make the investment. That is all it is: if they just knew. If they just knew, they would be willing and happy to make the investment. These are the low income people, the ones we are concerned about who do not have the discretionary income. The member says all they have to do is know about this.
Here is the difficulty we have with that. If the members who support this would just say that this is to benefit those who already have some discretionary income, who understand how the system works, who perhaps have parents who are university graduates or at least understand how the system works and therefore can plug right into it and “is that not a benefit?”, if they were making that argument they would get a bit of a different response from us, because at least it would be totally upfront. If it were matched with willy-nilly investments to ensure that those who do not have discretionary income could also find themselves in front of the hon. member, then maybe we would have something.
They do not want to argue that today so they try to make an argument that somehow this is going to benefit low income people. We will not let them off the dime on this issue because this is what students are telling us and this is what parents are telling us. I would like the hon. member to explain in detail, not in willy-nilly words, how this is going to benefit low income people even if they become fully aware of this wonderful program but do not have a dime because they spend every dollar they have putting food on the table for their children.
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Mr. Speaker, I know my friend was a provincial member and I believe he served with Bob Rae. I will answer him by reading from one of Bob Rae's papers from a current study in which he indicated quite clearly that “Canada is spending willy-nilly on post-secondary education”. The problem is not with the amount we are spending but with how we are spending it.
We are spending more as a percentage of public spending on higher education. Canada, at 4.6%, is spending more than Australia, Ireland, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S. In fact, we are spending close to double the mean in the OECD as a proportion of our public spending on education. Therefore the problem is not the amount because we certainly are spending more than enough. The problem obviously is that it is not being as well spent.
One of the things we see with the Canada learning bond is that it is targeted spending that is done intelligently and leverages. I know leveraging is a principle familiar to many who do business in the private sector, and that it may be foreign to those in the NDP, but leveraging seeks to maximize the return for the investment made. The Canada learning bond would do exactly that. It may be an investment that perhaps is modest in the view of my friend but I believe it is an investment that is significant.
Others will also make an effort to invest. Everybody is contributing. Individuals themselves are contributing toward their own education. In that sense, a greater return is achieved rather than if the government were simply providing the money. The total amount in the pot to finance a child's education at the end of the exercise is far in excess of the money that the government has contributed. Other matching grants do get triggered along the way.
Overall, the Canada learning bond is a positive way of targeting investment that achieves greater returns. It targets investment in a way that has secondary effects of increasing ambition, aspiration and the desire to achieve higher education.
This is a very positive initiative and it should be viewed that way on all sides of the House. The problem is not, as Bob Rae has indicated, that we are not spending enough. We are spending more than all those other jurisdictions as a percentage of our public spending on higher education. I am only relying on what the member's old colleague, Bob Rae, said. The problem is how we spend it and whether we are getting the right returns for it.
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I believe that former Premier Rae has not yet concluded his review and has not made his recommendations. It will be quite interesting to see exactly what comes out of that.
The member said that enough money was already being spent but that we were just not spending it wisely. Government, as well as private enterprise, can always spend money more wisely. There is always room for improvement. The hon. member and his colleagues in the Conservative caucus will never get the statement by me that there is more than enough money going forward, that the total money is adequate but that it is just how we spend it.
I went through the Mike Harris years in Ontario. That is exactly what Mike Harris said about environmental protection, education, the health care system and social services in Ontario. In every one of those areas he said that there was no revenue problem in terms of money going into them, but that there was a problem with where it was being spent. By the time he left government, every one of those areas were in tatters. We are doing the best we can in Ontario to try to rebuild all the damage that was done.
The hon. member can go ahead and make those claims but, after having lived through a Conservative government that devastated and decimated all the public services that mattered, that argument will not wash over here.
Peter Van Loan Conservative York—Simcoe, ON
Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member has forgotten the state of affairs in which his government, when he was a part of it with Bob Rae, left Ontario, with a significant debt running at $1 million or more than it could take it. The NDP so bankrupted the province that there was no longer any means to finance education or health. It was that government that provoked the crisis. I am not going to listen to the crocodile tears from that side.
It was his successors who then managed to restore a balanced budget and invest more in education and health care. They had the single biggest building project on post-secondary campuses across Ontario in terms of accommodating incoming students in new buildings that we had seen since the Bill Davis era when he was the minister of education. We also saw the greatest growth in the health care system ever in the history of the province.
The Conservatives in Ontario have absolutely nothing to apologize for what it provided in Ontario. More important, it provided growth and prosperity, increasing incomes and the standard of living for Ontario families, which, of course, led to more people seeking higher education and improving their own lives. At the end of the day that is what it is all about.
It is not about the institutions. It is not about the government. It is not about the lobby groups. It is about the people and the families and their efforts to make better lives for themselves. Education is an important part of it, but so is that fundamental standard of living.
There is no point having a higher education, a higher income and a higher standard of living if then the government takes it all away, which is what my friend would like it to do.
If an individual is taxed to death, there is no incentive, and it is that incentive that is so important. It is that incentive that is part of the Canada learning bond. It is that incentive to build a better life and a better future. It is a question of hope, which is what the Conservative Party has always been, the party of hope, the party that is looking to build better lives for people's families. That is why we are happy to see this Canada learning bond put in place.
Alain Boire Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the social principle of Bill C-5, because creating an education savings bond program will help lower-income families generate savings so their children can have access to post-secondary education, which the Canada education savings grant did not do.
The Bloc Québécois is also in favour of enhancing the Canada education savings grant, a tax measure that benefits lower- and middle-income families.
Bill C-5 also helps lower-income families take advantage of the benefits of registered education savings plans and Canada education savings grants, which already benefit wealthier families.
However, this bill contains several flaws. The learning bonds will not help Quebec and the provinces provide quality education, because they do not provide any concrete measures to do so. They make students pay for part of their post-secondary education but do not improve the quality of that education.
The Canada education savings grant and the education savings bond program are not the best ways to fund and promote post-secondary education. An increase in direct federal transfer payments to Quebec and the provinces remains the best and cheapest solution.
Forty million dollars has been allocated to administer the program during the first three years. The administrative costs seem excessive. It is costing more than $13 million per year to distribute $80 million.
As a result of the fiscal imbalance that it created, the federal government must now provide financial assistance so students can access post-secondary education, since transfer payments to the provinces for education have been slashed.
Neither the education savings bond program nor the enhancement of the Canada education savings grant are helping Quebec to provide quality education. The bill must be accompanied by an increase in the CHST, since now is when students in Quebec need financial assistance and a quality education, not just 18 years from now.
Correcting the fiscal imbalance and reinstating equitable transfers between provinces would permit the Government of Quebec, which is the best placed to understand the reality in Quebec, to support Quebec's students appropriately. Quebec already has a loans and scholarships program, which it could greatly improve if it had the funds provided for under the Canada Education Savings Act.
The budget of this program includes funding for the creation of a management system to administer the registration of children born after 2003. As well, there needs to be an advertising budget for encouraging families to take advantage of the new measures in this bill, in order to avoid a repetition of the situation with the guaranteed income supplement, with those eligible not having any idea that they were.
We are quite used to the federal propensity to underestimate costs. One need look no further than the firearms registry for an example.
The government has no idea what the annual costs of administering the measures announced in Bill C-5 will be. These will, according to it, be determined after an analysis of the first three years of the program's operation.
The Government of Quebec could have distributed this money to students in greatest need at no additional cost, if the Canadian health and social services transfer had been increased. We could then save the annual administration costs of the program, which total $13 million, and improve equalization payments to the provinces.
We also again deplore the federal disengagement from education. Since the early nineties, federal transfers for post-secondary education have dropped drastically, and this bill will not, of course, compensate for the 40% that has been lost
We have long been aware of the federal government's decision to give priority to debt repayment, excessive spending and its own bureaucracy, rather than to health, education and social services. That is how the fiscal imbalance was created. The federal contribution to total expenditures in education and social programs is now less than 12%.
Instead of creating a learning bond program, would it not be wiser for the government to give the provinces the means to fund their own educational system and to use part of the recently announced federal surplus of $9.1 billion to invest in youth?
Remedying fiscal imbalance would be an absolutely simple solution to the post-secondary education funding shortfall, and would result in a substantial increase in post-secondary funding.
The Quebec education system is suffering from insufficient resources because of the cuts to the transfer payments. Both financial resources and teaching resources are lacking, despite the valiant efforts made by the Government of Quebec with what little it has.
The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Canadian Federation of Students have also denounced the federal government's refusal to increase post-secondary education transfer payments by $4 billion to compensate for the cuts during the 1990s.
This money would have given Quebec more room to manoeuvre in order to reinvest in universities and reduce tuition fees. Over the past 40 years, Quebec has had the lowest rate of post-secondary enrolment in North America. In 1960, only 63% of students who entered primary school completed their seventh year, barely 13% of francophones completed 11 years of schooling and only 3% went on to university.
Quebec made a decision to increase access and the results have been spectacular. Enrolment in Quebec has almost reached the level of the rest of Canada in certain fields and has even surpassed it in others. This emphasis on accessibility is supported by three elements.
First, Quebec enjoys a level of public financing for education higher than that of the rest of Canada. Second, the tuition fees are lower. Unlike in Quebec, 75% of university under-funding in the rest of Canada is covered by tuition fees. In Quebec, average university tuition fees are $1,625 annually. In English Canada, they are three times higher, at $4,825 a year. Finally, Quebec has a more generous financial assistance program. Quebec is the only part of Canada with a program of loans and bursaries.
When they complete their studies, Quebec students face an average of $13,000 in debt, whereas students in other provinces are faced with a debt of $25,000. Once again, Quebec provides a model for Canada with its free education system.
In conclusion, when Ottawa wants to interfere in provincial jurisdictions, it is to standardize rules across Canada. But in a number of fields, Quebec stands out as an example, with specific programs better tailored to meet the needs of its population.
Given the current context, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-5, while reminding the government that if it were to accept its own responsibilities at last, and stop spending money on a vast range of programs that are expensive to administer, it could return to the provinces the money that rightfully belongs to them and that has been denied to them by the fiscal imbalance. In Quebec, we would be able to ensure once and for all the accessibility and quality of the higher education system.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, our research into this bill tells us that virtually no one across the country thinks this bill is a good idea or thinks this methodology is wise. Almost every stakeholder that came before the committee objected strenuously and said that the government was going in the wrong direction in the introduction of this bill for some of the reasons cited by my colleague from Hamilton.
There was a representation made to the committee in the province of Quebec. I have one reference from one of the witnesses to the committee on Bill C-5. His name was Mr. Pier-André Bouchard St-Amant, the President of the Quebec Federation of University Students. He represents 140,000 university students in the province of Quebec. He clearly stated:
We feel that this program provides assistance to people who don't necessarily need it. When you can already save $2,000 for post-secondary studies, it's not particularly useful for the government to supplement that with $400 in a registered savings plan. Therefore, the FEUQ believes that assistance should focus on those people who do not necessarily have the means to save for postsecondary education.
In other words, if people already have the ability to put money away from their income, that is not the group that should be targeted. Our focus should concentrate on those who are unable and there should not be any complicated scheme associated with it. It should simply be an access issue. The province of Quebec has done very well to keep tuitions down. I compliment the province of Quebec for the priority it has put on post-secondary education. Even though the federal government has cut and hacked, and slashed transfers for education to the provinces, Quebec prioritized education and I admire that.
I would like him to comment on the remarks from the president of the Quebec Federation of University Students. I would also like him to comment on the remarks from Professor André Lareau from Laval University. He criticized Bill C-5 by saying:
However, one of the objectives of the tax system is to distribute wealth fairly. How can we justify a government financial assistance program that targets the well-off members of society? To summarize, richer families are the big winners in the income splitting that results from the education savings plan, and they benefit from these amounts, because their children are less likely to have to work.
We have two credible authorities from the province of Quebec who are very critical of Bill C-5. I ask the member if he has taken those remarks into consideration as the Bloc Quebecois supports this bill.
Alain Boire Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Speaker, we did hear representatives of the Quebec Federation of University Students at committee. As the hon. member indicated, the federation certainly takes a position for which we have great respect. However, I do not think they did the same research as us. Of course, the federation would like to resolve the problem for all of Quebec.
At present, Bill C-5 is designed to provide financial assistance to less well-off families, which means to individuals who cannot afford to go to university. That is why the bill provides for students in financial difficulty to receive $3,000 toward starting a university education.
There is no doubt that this bill will help families who are cash strapped. It cannot hurt. It is better than a pat on the back. What the QFUS states specifically in its report is that it wants the program in Quebec to be improved so that the problem is resolved once and for all. That particular problem cannot be resolved through Bill C-5.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, the government is stating, by introducing Bill C-5, that it is a key priority to have more people access post-secondary education. I sit on the aboriginal affairs committee and we have heard our Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development say that one of his number one priorities is to get more aboriginal students into post-secondary education, so as to give them the administrative capacity to lead their people out of poverty.
As of January 1 this year any tuition money or living costs given by a first nation to an aboriginal student to go to university will in fact be taxed. This is a first. This is new. The government will begin taxing these benefits and the predictable result will be that the student will have less money to pay for income costs associated with being at university and the first nation will be able to send fewer aboriginal students to university.
Would the member, in his background and knowledge on post-secondary education, share the view that it is completely contrary to getting more aboriginal students into university by taxing their tuition and living costs paid by the community which sent them?
Alain Boire Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member said, as of January 1, tuition fees for aboriginal students will be taxed. I cannot comment on this point, because I was not aware of that.
I can say, however, that the Bloc Québécois proposed an amendment to Bill C-5 at committee. The purpose of this amendment is to help part-time students in financial difficulty, who have to work to put themselves through university, make ends meet. This aspect was not covered in Bill C-5. This way, less well-off students could take advantage of the provisions of Bill C-5.
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I would only ask my colleague from a public policy point of view, viewing living costs for first nation students as income, would he not agree that this will have a detrimental effect on the number of students that will be able to access post-secondary education from first nations communities? Would he share my view that this is a shot across the bow on aboriginal and treaty rights, in that education is viewed as a treaty right and has always been viewed by the courts as meaning all education?
However, the government is looking at post-secondary education as taxable income. It is stating the case that it views K to grade 12 as an aboriginal and treaty right, but post-secondary education is viewed as simply the policy of the Government of Canada and subject to arbitrary and unilateral change. Would the hon. member agree that the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, by taxing post-secondary education grants to aboriginal students, is in fact eroding the interpretation of aboriginal and treaty rights?
Alain Boire Bloc Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC
Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member opposite was saying about aboriginal policies and the negative impact tuition fees have on aboriginals, I think this is a specific case. Having to pay taxes on living-out costs puts aboriginal students in the same situation as all other Canadian and Quebec students. If there was a policy, or a treaty with the aboriginals, then it is up to the government to fix the problem that it created. I cannot answer this question.
Bill C-5 will help aboriginal Canadians, just like other Canadians and Quebeckers to meet their needs and to put money aside for their education.
Susan Kadis Liberal Thornhill, ON
Mr. Speaker, children are the most vulnerable part of our society, and children with disabilities warrant our utmost support.
Today it gives me great pleasure to bring news of a wonderful educational centre which I recently had the opportunity of visiting. The Zareinu Educational Centre has been a driving force within my riding of Thornhill and has been in operation for over 15 years. The centre is a small 66 children facility that caters to children suffering from mild or severe disabilities.
Although small, the centre is renowned for its remarkable work. Teachers, therapists, social workers and special aides work with children who would otherwise not have such opportunities.
I was told of a young child who entered the educational centre not being able to speak. However, after a few short months of hard work, the child was able to greet his parents with those wonderful words, mom and dad.
Centres like Zareinu provide one of the most essential services in my community. In the words of the director, “Zareinu makes miracles happen, they provide hope for the future”.
The importance of the work of Zareinu cannot be overstated.
Gord Brown Conservative Leeds—Grenville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a 10 year old resident of my riding of Leeds—Grenville who is here today visiting Ottawa. He has raised close to $16,000 to provide comfort to hospitalized children and seniors.
At age eight, Cody Clark learned that a young friend had a hole in her heart and he raised money to help buy her a new heart. Soon after, he started Cody's individual care kits of toys, books and games for children in the emergency ward of the hospital. This year he also started a grandma and grandpa kit for seniors entering hospital care.
He has been recognized as a Junior Citizen and a Citizen of the Year.
Cody is a shining example of Canadian youth and, on behalf on everyone who has benefited from his efforts to date and those who will benefit in the future, I wish to congratulate him and his volunteer efforts.
Roy Cullen Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to talk about International Day of Disabled Persons. The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 1982 proclaiming December 3 every year as International Day of Disabled Persons.
The motto of this year's observance is “Nothing About Us--Without Us”, an appropriate embodiment of the crucial principle of full participation of the disabled in society.
In Canada, I know the Deputy Prime Minister is attending a celebration today in Edmonton at the open house of the Alberta Committee of Citizens with Disabilities. This is an organization that provides services to citizens with disabilities throughout the province of Alberta.
In my riding, organizations, such as the Rexdale Community Health Centre, Canes and the Albion Neighbourhood Services, strive every day to do the same.
I would ask all members to join with me in observing the 2004 International Day of Disabled Persons.
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Mr. Speaker, I have always been a firm believer in the importance of blood donation. Not only is it of indisputable value medically, but it is also a symbol of human solidarity. Giving blood is neither dangerous or painful. It is a quick process and, for the recipient, can mean the difference between life and death, health and illness. In Canada, no money changes hands, which makes it all the more meaningful symbolically and medically.
That is why I was so pleased to be made the honourary patron of the Caisse Desjardins annual blood donor clinic in Thérèse-de-Blainville. I invite everyone in my riding to take part in this eighth annual clinic, which is made possible by the Caisse Desjardins, of course, along with the Bois-des-Filion-Lorraine chamber of commerce and the town of Bois-des-Filion.
I look forward to seeing everyone from Marc-Aurèle Fortin riding on December 6 at the Chalet des citoyens starting at 11 a.m. I will be there to meet and encourage those giving blood because blood is the gift of life.
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Mr. Speaker, this year, the theme chosen by the United Nations for the International Day of Disabled Persons is “Nothing About Us Without Us”.
This principle of participation and integration reflects the will of persons with disabilities to actively participate in the planning of the strategies and policies that impact on their lives.
The key word for the government's social policies is “integration”. The Government of Canada is committed to improving the labour market for persons with disabilities, through the following initiatives: federal-provincial agreements on the labour market that target disabled people, the opportunities fund and employment benefits, and the support measures.
“Partnership” is another word that I want to mention. The progress that we have made in this area is largely due to the commitment made by the provinces, territories and numerous organizations and individuals working tirelessly to uphold the principle of equal opportunity.
I invite hon. members and all Canadians to take a moment to reflect on what else they could do to bring us closer to full integration.