Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this debate. I thank the hon. member for Halifax West for his good judgment in bringing it forward at this time.
I see that the hon. member for Halifax West is discussing the contents of the debate with the parliamentary secretary for human resources and skills development even as we speak, so I extend congratulations for that level of cooperation, but I have to bring to the attention of the members on the other side the fact that the Conservative Party, when running for office, had committed to something pretty spectacular for students, that being a dedicated transfer. The students interpreted that it could be as much as $4 billion a year. That did not happen.
I have always been of the view that it would have to be a dedicated transfer to the provinces. Perhaps that will be the reason why the government will not end up doing that, but it speaks to the need to provide money to deal with the very specific question of access. I know that the Conservatives speak of the fact that they used the money available to them at year end, as a result of legislation last year, to do infrastructure investment. That is a good thing, but it certainly falls well short of what would have happened had they actually acted on the fall update, as was available to them.
The reality is that students in Canada need significant tuition relief. What was proposed in the last election by our party was that we would make available $6,000 in tuition relief for each student. By comparison, what they got was in fact $80 for book relief. My son at Acadia University in Nova Scotia advises me that this would in fact allow students to purchase half a book--if they could buy half a book.
Also, in the programs that should have come forward but did not and are necessary, according to the proposal by the member for Halifax West, is a proposal having to with programs for first nations, Métis and Inuit Canadians. The reality is that $1.8 billion was booked in the Kelowna accord to deal with education and that has been abandoned by the government. Anything else the Conservatives may say falls well short of what that would have been able to accomplish, not only in the context of resources but also in terms of the consensus that it arrived from.
Also, the programs for Canadians with disabilities would have been a wonderful opportunity to make a significant investment to allow for Canadians with disabilities to enter the labour market at a time of labour market shortages. It is the 25th anniversary of the International Year of Disabled Persons and I would have liked to see something in the budget on that. I welcome it being brought to our attention by the member for Halifax West.
Mr. Speaker, I am advised that I have forgotten to tell you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Labrador.
In terms of access to post-secondary education, the government simply has failed, either to meet the commitments that it made or to honour the commitments that we made. Either way, students would have been a lot better off.
Having said that, I note that skills and skills development also have been mentioned. Again, let us talk about the Kelowna accord offering educational opportunities, both in post-secondary education and in elementary school programs, in which we had collaborated with the provinces to deliver education in the provinces to build a system that would have the kinds of results that were targeted over 10 years. All of that went for naught as the government has refused, so far, to honour that accord.
I bring to the attention of members the fact that in the fall we will be debating a motion that I am bringing forward to allow for families of children with autism to receive support from the government so that they can also contribute to their maximum ability in the labour force.
The next item I would like to speak to has to do with R and D. My hon. colleague from Beauséjour mentioned that in my province of New Brunswick, the province is shrinking in regard to the position in terms of educational achievement relative to the national average, and the space is growing larger.
The reality is that the investment in Atlantic Canada in R and D by the federal government, while it has grown in the last 15 years from a little less than 3% to 5%, still falls short of what would be a simple per capita calculation. If knowledge is the basis of the economy of the future and our part of the country is receiving less investment than others, then we cannot expect to close the gap in terms of prosperity between our region and the rest of the country.
The reality is that on research, as was mentioned by the member for Halifax West in one of the earlier speeches from the government side, during the past 15 years Canada has in fact moved itself into the position of being the country with the most federally funded research in the world per capita. We do not compare with the rest of the world in terms of private sector investment, nor do we compare with the rest of the world in terms of other state investment, but at the federal level we in fact lead the world. This has meant that we have increased funding for the granting councils, for SSHRC and NSERC. The Medical Research Council became CIHR. We have done a lot of innovative things with regard to research.
In the research chairs program, we introduced the idea of a 6% set-aside for universities where the research share in the nation was less than 1%. It meant 120 research chairs for universities that otherwise would not have been able to acquire the same number of chairs necessary to move the region forward. That was not just for Atlantic Canada. That would have been for small universities across the country.
We also introduced the indirect costs program. I think the member for Halifax West identified the indirect costs program specifically. It is so helpful to small universities. If a small university has one or two or three scientists, the cost associated with supporting their work is almost the same as if the university has 25 scientists. The reality is that there has to be a way for the federal government to support those small universities to do the kind of research that is so important for the future well-being and prosperity of the country.
So for all those reasons, I want to commend the hon. member for Halifax West. I think this is one of the crucial issues facing the country in terms of equity, in terms of opportunity that would be available so that no student in the country who would otherwise be able to attend post-secondary education of any type, vocational, academic or otherwise, would be denied for lack of funds.
I think that is critically important, not just on the equity argument but also because it is in the long term best interests of the economy of Canada to have an educated workforce. Either way we look at it, the reality is that the member for Halifax West has brought to the House's attention a glaring omission. The reality is that it should have been there and it was not.