Mr. Speaker, I was a bit shocked to hear my colleague proudly say that he would vote against the budget bill.
I understand that in some sort of an ideal world we would be able to do everything for everybody every year, but that simply is not the case. If ever there were a budget that did its best to reach out to people, this budget is it. Some of the media have said that this is the greenest budget there has ever been, yet he will vote against the environment.
The child care measure alone is a first step. It is a huge amount of money. We are moving forward and that is the sort of thing a federal government should be doing.
The member also mentioned seniors. I know seniors deserve more, but improvements have been included in the budget for the seniors' secretariat and seniors programs like New Horizons, et cetera.
The Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador accord are also in the budget. The member will be voting against that.
The budget also includes a new deal for cities and small communities like mine, Asphodel-Norwood and the village of Lakefield. They will benefit from the gas tax rate.
The northern strategy, which my neighbour from Yukon mentioned earlier, is also included in the budget.
The NDP will be voting against all these things.
I would like to ask my colleague some questions with respect to his remarks about post-secondary education. We know this is a provincial jurisdiction. The province with the lowest tuition in the country, all to its credit, is the province of Quebec. In recent years the province of Quebec has moved to not only having the lowest university tuition in Canada, but to providing two free years of college. That is an extraordinary thing. That is something which is within the provincial mandate.
My colleague mentioned high tuition costs in the rest of the country, and they are truly shocking. However, this is not a result of the actions of the federal government. This federal government, and I say this unequivocally, has put more into post-secondary education than any federal government since Confederation. If the federal contributions to higher education were to be added up, we would find them approaching the sum of all provincial contributions.
I am really pleased with the budget. We are starting to move away from the emphasis on the student loan program toward grants. The student loan program is very good, but it does have its limitations. Grants are available in every year of undergraduate studies for disabled students. Grants are available for first year studies for low income students. The millennium scholarships were grants. This surely is a step forward.
The Canada learning bond is deliberately meant for low income children and for families to build up equity in the education of their children. They receive $500 at birth and $100 every year until the child is 15 years old. All the accumulated interest on that money is put into an RESP account. If the family were to put in, for example, $100, the federal government would match that by $40. This also is a grant.
Does my colleague have any suggestions for controlling what the provinces do with the money that the federal government transfers to them for post-secondary education instead of them just taking the money and raising tuition?