Mr. Speaker, let me talk for a moment about the textbook tax credit that we saw in the budget earlier this year. This tax credit would provide students basically about $80 toward their textbooks. I do not know if my hon. colleague has children in university. She is probably much too young to have children in university yet, and I can hear my colleagues agreeing with me, but she undoubtedly eventually will have students in post-secondary education. Many of us here have been students, of course, and we know that it is pretty rare for students' books not to cost a lot more than $80 a year. Eighty dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to the real needs that students have. I do not think that credit responds.
Moreover, my bill is trying to deal with particularly those students who come from low income families and those students who have disabilities. I think we should focus on aiding them with this bill. There should be other measures like a dedicated education transfer, which was promised but not delivered by the government. There should be an overhaul of the Canada student loan program. We are not seeing any of that happening. We are talking about consultation, but we are not seeing results. It looks like the government is not even talking to the students.
My hon. colleague mentioned infrastructure. We saw a drop in the bucket in that regard in the budget this year, but it is a long way from what is needed and it is a long way from what we in our party proposed in the election campaign. We proposed a $1 billion fund. In fact, we need more than that.
There are universities in this country that have absolutely enormous maintenance deficits, because for many years they have been putting off maintenance in order to look after other things, to pay for the groceries, basically. I understand that. It is quite understandable that they have to look after the education of their students first. At times it has meant that they have put off repairs to and the maintenance of important buildings and other systems. It is absolutely critical, of course, that they have more funding for that.
Those are other measures that I think the government should take, but the bill today is talking about one measure, and that is the Canada access grants. I did not hear from my hon. colleague that she supports this bill or the idea of the Canada access grants. I hope all colleagues recognize the value of supporting these kinds of students, the students from low income families and those with disabilities, to help them get into university and pay for the cost of their education.