Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for taking part in the debate on my motion. I enjoyed listening to his comments.
When we talk about post-secondary education, which of course is a fundamental element of any innovation or economic productivity agenda for this country, we must recognize that we are looking at a situation where the last government was putting $2.75 billion into access to education and financial assistance for students.
What is the new government offering in its budget in return after that? It cancelled all that. It is offering an $80 tax credit for text books. It is laudable that it is not going to tax scholarships, but of course an awful lot of students do not have scholarships. An awful lot of low income and moderate income students do not have scholarships. That $80 is not going to go very far and is not going to help them pay their tuition in September when it is time to pay and start university.
When I asked the minister this same question earlier and about the importance of post-secondary education, as usual she turns to skills training. It is important but it is an entirely different topic. The question on one hand is what is the government doing for real about access to education and why is it not really doing anything?
The other thing of course is that in relation to skills training, what has the government done? It has cancelled the labour market partnership agreements that the last government signed with Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Each of those provincial governments signed agreements that have been cancelled. It is a bit like Kyoto and particularly Kelowna.
This morning in the human resources committee, a Conservative MP said that the answer to unemployment in Atlantic Canada is to move unemployed people to Alberta. I did not get an answer to this earlier from the minister, but is that the government's policy on unemployment in Atlantic Canada?