Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, I asked the government to restore the billions of dollars that the Liberals cut from post-secondary education during the 90s. I still have not received a satisfactory answer.
Students and families continue to deal with absurd tuition fees, even for average-income Canadians. Graduates have a hard time starting their careers while burdened with crushing student loan debt.
We know that current financial aid and tax credit programs for students are nothing more than a motley assortment of measures that do nothing to improve access to or enrolment in post-secondary studies. Too many Canadians are left behind.
Professors are faced with huge class sizes and a shortage of resources and materials. In colleges and universities, administrators are having difficulty balancing tight budgets as they face a pressing need for new professors, infrastructure renewal and so on.
The provinces and territories are still under tremendous pressure. Some have frozen tuition fees, often at the expense of class sizes and quality. Other have allowed tuition fees to skyrocket.
This government must stop confusing tax credits with a well-thought-out social policy.
It is time the government put some real effort into achieving a universally accessible, high quality public system of post-secondary education and skills training in Canada. The federal government has a key policy role to play to increase access to post-secondary education for all Canadians and that starts with a substantial, long term reinvestment in core funding through a dedicated transfer to provinces and territories. Even the premiers can agree on that, if nothing else.
Social justice aside, surely a Conservative government can see the economic case here if Canadians are to compete globally. In the global economy they need access to quality education. We also know that post-secondary education enrolment has remained static since 1995. Is it any wonder, when tuition costs have reached unreasonably high levels in those provinces?
I met a young married couple this summer, each with $35,000 of student debt at 30 years old. They asked me how they could even begin to think of starting a family. I had no answer. Would a reasonable person think this is a manageable debt level at that age?
I do not want to hear that the 2006 budget of the Conservatives helped all students. It helped those students who already had a scholarship and tossed a free textbook at the rest. We can help all students by funding truly accessible, quality post-secondary education with lower tuition, more teachers and better resources across the board.
Yes or no, will the government help to make this happen now?