Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to this bill. I think all members in the House certainly concur that we must make access easier to post-secondary education and skills training for our young people and that government has an important role to play.
Recently, an OECD study of countries stated that one of the most effective things that governments could do to facilitate this access was to concentrate first of all on families of low income revenues. This would begin to help address a very serious skill shortage in many countries including Canada.
Recently, in British Columbia a survey done throughout the province has shown that for the first time the private sector has indicated that skill shortage takes precedence over tax cuts by government as an action that needs to be taken. This is something that we should all consider in these questions.
However, I have concerns and questions about the bill. Some of them were raised earlier by members opposite about the effectiveness of the bill. There were also some technical questions and the cost that it would represent.
As I said, we must facilitate access for students in underrepresented groups, students with disabilities, aboriginal students, students of low income families and from rural areas. We know that they are not accessing post-secondary education and training as easily as others.
We also know that the RESP has been effective in attracting families who earn over $80,000. However, as for the other underrepresented groups a recent study has said that the RESPs, including the Canada education savings grants, while providing enhanced incentives to lower income families to increase their contributions to RESPs, they do not appear to solve the more fundamental problem of insufficient family income which prevents some families from contributing to RESPs and taking advantage of the CESG program.
Approximately six in ten future saver and non-saver parents in the 2002 survey gave no disposable income or insufficient money as a reason for not yet or never saving.
Therefore, this is a very serious problem in considering this particular bill. It seems like a little bit of tinkering rather than the major overhaul of the learner assistance program that we would need to consider.
The Conservatives, in their recent budget as a solution to the problem of increasing student debt, have offered to raise the ceiling that students can borrow. That is their solution. I believe they even offered $80 for a book.
The Liberals, while they were in government, cut transfers to education and that sent tuition fees spiralling upward and with that student debt.
The Liberal post-secondary education critic yesterday called on the government to invest in students and not tinker with the tax system. I am wondering if this bill is a little bit of tinkering. The bill by the member from the same caucus seems to do just that instead of ensuring genuine investment in lower tuition fees, lower debt, and needs-based grants for students.
Liberals talked about investing in students when they were in opposition and that was great to hear. Yesterday I heard the post-secondary education critic claim credit for a $1.5 billion investment in lower tuitions from Bill C-48 which I think we are all clear was the NDP money that was conceded after negotiations with the Liberal government. This was basically money that the Liberals were forced to put into post-secondary education after years of cutbacks.
In considering this bill, I looked at what the various stakeholders were saying about the existing system of loans and various types of assistance for students.
La Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec said that the federal government must completely review its national registered education savings plan and Canada education savings grant which amounted to $125 million and almost $500 million respectively. It felt that instead of eliminating financial barriers, the system has become so complex and convoluted that it is very difficult for students to access it.
Similarly, the Canadian Federation of Students said:
We therefore recommend that the federal government transfer the money now spent on the RESP program and other tax credits to the low-income grant. We estimate this transfer alone, a revenue-neutral transfer, would reduce student debt by 41%.
These are just some of the comments from stakeholders who are themselves paying for tuition. They are advising us on solutions that they feel would begin to address the problems they are facing.
The NDP has never opposed the RESP. We think it is part of a solution, but as students associations and federations have indicated, the system requires a major overhaul, not just tinkering. We feel there is a need for a comprehensive learner assistance program that would create a clearer, simple path for students, one that would be more flexible and more transparent.
In the last election we clearly indicated to everybody that we believed there was a need for the re-establishment of a single transparent transfer to provinces to re-establish adequate levels of funding for post-secondary education and training. The previous Liberal government failed to do that. We are still waiting to see how the present government will respond to this situation.
We are still considering many of the concerns that I have raised about this bill. We will see how it evolves through the House.