Mr. Speaker, it is a difficult question that the member for Burnaby—New Westminster raises, because I am flummoxed by this. I am flabbergasted. One tremendously bright, energetic young student who has been doing a lot of work on these issues described the budget as being “appallingly bold in its silence” on education funding. What a good example, I thought, because there are silences and then there are silences, but this is appallingly bold silence.
How flagrant can this government be? This may not be very parliamentary language, but the government is thumbing its nose at students and their families. I do not know what to say about that in answer to the question, particularly given the Prime Minister's commitment to reinvest $8.9 billion.
I am sure he did not have any thoughts of doing that tomorrow, and we would be saying we cannot afford to do that tomorrow, but this Prime Minister, when he was finance minister and had made up his mind, when he really meant what he said about something, knew exactly what to do to get on with implementing it. We set targets, set timetables, develop a plan and actually implement the plan come hell or high water.
So when he makes a commitment to reinvest $8 billion that he has hacked and slashed out of post-secondary education over the last decade, to the detriment of this nation's future in addition to the detriment of our students who are weighed down by debt, we would think he would actually make a plan and say “here is what we intend to do” and then get on with it.
Why was this government absolutely silent? I will tell members what I think. I think the government believes that students are so overburdened trying to get an education, working at part time jobs for crummy pay, paying off debts and dealing with all of this that they cannot actually be politically active, that they will not do anything to fight back.
I do not believe that for one moment. The student leaders of every one of the major student umbrella organizations and national organizations and Quebec's student leaders came before the human resources committee to deal with the one paltry, pathetic bill that this government introduced, which will not give one iota of financial assistance to students today or tomorrow. In fact, it will not have any effect whatsoever for 18 years. Those student leaders were there to say not only is this inadequate and not only is this paltry, it is fundamentally flawed and it is a fraud because it actually does not do what it says it is going to do, that is, help the most financially disadvantaged.
They also indicated what they believe they represent through their organizations, through CFS, CASA and FEUQ. They absolutely were here to say that they were going to fight for a better deal. That is what this bill does in a very narrow way. It fights against a discriminatory measure and, let us make no mistake, the New Democratic Party is absolutely committed to working in solidarity with those students to fight for a deal that will work not just for them and their families but for all Canadians.