Debates of April 21st, 2026

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I did not have a chance to respond directly after the Liberals spoke on this. I am quite struck by the fact that the Liberals have yet to articulate a position or provide an explanation for their own policy.

We are debating this today because we had a unanimous recommendation from a committee to overturn a policy that was part of the government's budget. That policy was to discriminate against students who are studying at certain kinds of institutions, and in particular to say that if they are at a university, they get the full grant, but if they are at a vocational institution, getting labour market-relevant skills, they do not get any grant. That seems discriminatory, and it seems like a policy aimed at steering or directing students away from those vitally necessary vocational skills, with this mentality that everyone should go to university, without understanding the value of these vocational programs as well.

I wonder if the member can reflect on how rare it is to have a unanimous report of a committee asking for this reversal and on why the government still has not explained its position.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's remarks. Obviously, this is not the government's first discriminatory policy, yet we are told that this is an open, inclusive, and equitable government. Consider this statistic: approximately 80% of research funding in Canada goes to about 10% of researchers. Does that not seem lopsided? We have policies in place that favour a certain group of people, who are often part of the elite circles very close to the government, and that suits them just fine. The current structure and model of the university system is set up in such a way that when it comes to scholarships, it is always the same people who end up with everything. Furthermore, once they have received a scholarship, they are more likely to receive others in the future. That is how the system is currently built.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to stay on the topic of graduate scholarships offered by the federal funding agencies. My colleague reminded us that there are not enough of them to meet the needs of the student population and that they have not been adjusted for inflation in 20 years. What is more, the Quebec Student Union requested that the duration of scholarships be extended from 12 to 24 months for master's programs and from 36 to 48 months for doctoral programs. I am not aware of the latest developments on the government's side, so I would like to know if the government has agreed to this, because, as we know, completing a master's degree takes at least two years and a doctoral degree takes at least four. Has the government listened to the demands of the student associations?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government finally took action in budget 2024. Student grants were adjusted for inflation and increased. It was clear that Canada was no longer competitive and that we were losing our best and brightest to the United States or to other countries. However, it is also becoming apparent that students are taking longer to complete their studies. Students who are already living on very limited means are being forced to extend the duration of their studies, or they have to get a job, prolonging their studies even more. Unfortunately, the government is not extending the duration of the support provided through federal student grants, as many organizations are calling for.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to provide a bit of historical background.

In the 1990s, Ottawa chose to cut transfers to the provinces to balance its books, specifically in the area of higher education. That is why there are now federal grants. When G7 leaders were complaining about protests against austerity outside their Parliament buildings, former prime minister Jean Chrétien told them that he did not have that problem. Basically, he cut transfers to the provinces, the provinces then cut their services, particularly in education, and the protests were held outside the provincial legislatures.

That situation was never corrected. Chrétien's cuts were followed by cuts made by Harper, then Trudeau and now the current government. For example, Ottawa will soon be covering barely 18% of health care costs when it originally committed to covering half. We are dealing with the same level of cutbacks when it comes to social services and higher education. The Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed this inequity between the levels of government. He looks at the revenue and expenditures and has pointed out that Ottawa has more room to manoeuver when it comes to public finances.

Why is that? It is because, when the 1995 referendum happened, Ottawa got spooked. After realizing that it was essentially absent from Quebeckers' lives, the federal government began a major government restructuring that would benefit the federal government at Quebec's expense. At the time, Paul Martin was the finance minister, and the president of the Treasury Board was Marcel Massé, who was also a former clerk of the Privy Council. He used his expertise on the machinery of government to make some major changes that would make it so that Quebec would be stretched to the limit, while Ottawa would have plenty of financial leeway. He thought Quebeckers would begin to see the federal government as their government, the one they could turn to to meet their needs and to help them get things done. That way, they would go from being Quebeckers to being Canadians.

Marcel Massé made no secret of what he was doing. In speaking about Lucien Bouchard, Quebec's premier at the time, he said, “When Bouchard has to make cuts, those of us in Ottawa will be able to demonstrate that we have the means to preserve the future of social programs.” He succeeded in part. Deep cuts to health and social services transfers—a 40% reduction in transfers over three year—forced the Quebec government to make cuts of its own. Everyone remembers nurses retiring en masse and the difficulties in the education system. We have never fully recovered from that.

Meanwhile, Ottawa began running large surpluses, surpluses so indecent in a time of austerity that they had to be covered up. This is how the idea arose to create a series of foundations. By pouring large sums into these foundations, the government emptied the federal coffers, shrank its surplus on paper and was able to then continue refusing to increase transfers that would have kept services afloat for the people Quebec is responsible for. However, to ensure that the money paid to the foundations was taken out of the books, the government could not have direct control over it.

This led to the scathing report that former auditor general Sheila Fraser published in 2005, with a chapter 4 entitled “Accountability of Foundations”. She found that the government had transferred $9 billion to 15 foundations between 1998 and 2002. Those $9 billion would amount to around $17 billion today. She found that the government had no control over $7 billion of the $9 billion. These foundations included the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, but also foundations in other areas, such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Genome Canada, and so on.

The idea was to weaken Quebec, to deprive it of its means, and then to intervene through foundations, notably through the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. While we are discussing federal waste in Ottawa, Quebec is struggling to fulfill its responsibilities, which include virtually all public services, including education and higher education. I am again referring to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who repeats the following every year in every fiscal sustainability report: The cost of Quebec's and the provinces' responsibilites is rising faster than their revenues, and Ottawa is collecting more money than it needs to fulfill its own responsibilities.

The consequences of this fiscal imbalance are manifold. The Quebec government is stretched to the limit. Once it has paid for the most essential services, it has no more room to manoeuver, while the federal government has no such constraints. It has so much money left over that it can afford to meddle in affairs that are none of its business, and it feels no need to manage its programs efficiently. That is the problem, and that is why having Ottawa issue grants is a problem.

The waste in the current federal system is a natural result of the fiscal imbalance. For example, comparisons show that it costs Ottawa two and a half times more to process an EI claim than it costs Quebec to process a social assistance claim. It costs the federal government four times more to issue a passport than it costs the Quebec government to issue a driver's licence. Before the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue veterans' hospital was transferred to Quebec, each procedure performed there cost two and a half times more than a similar procedure performed in a Quebec-run long-term care facility. That is the waste caused by fiscal imbalance. Since Ottawa has lots of resources, it it not as concerned about managing them well.

In 2014, the Government of Quebec released an expert panel's report on federal intervention in the health and social services sector from 2002 to 2013. The Government of Quebec identified 37 federal programs that interfered in health care. It found that, while health transfers were not very generous in terms of dollar amounts, the interference was very significant and very costly to manage, and the public did not get its money's worth. In fact, the expert panel calculated that the amount it cost the Government of Quebec to deal with this interference exceeded the amount of the transfers, leading the panel to conclude that it would be more cost-effective to just turn down the money. That is the problem with the fiscal imbalance and interference, as we are seeing with higher education.

There is $1 billion being spent here and $10 billion being spent there, with no oversight and no obligation to produce results, when Ottawa does not even provide any direct services to the public, except to first nations and veterans, and we all know how that is working out. Take, for example, the fact that the quality of services to the public is declining despite the recent significant increase in the number of public servants. During the 10 years that Trudeau was in office, an additional 109,000 public servants were hired. Imagine if Quebec and the provinces had hired an additional 100,000 nurses. Our health care system would be in much better shape, as would our education system, if it had been given those kinds of resources.

Over the past few decades, Quebec has chosen a different path from the other provinces despite Ottawa's budget cuts. While the other provinces cut social services and leveraged tuition fees, Quebec chose to create new social programs to reduce poverty and inequality. My source is an excellent book published by the University of Toronto Press in 2017, Combating Poverty: Quebec's Pursuit of a Distinctive Welfare State. The authors discuss the neoliberal trajectory of Ottawa and the other provinces, which are becoming more like the United States in terms of inequality and poverty. In contrast, things in Quebec are more like what one finds in Scandinavian countries, which are the best according to these criteria. In particular, Quebec has a unique approach to families, especially single-parent families, with a game-changing family policy that covers parental leave, child care and more. In addition, tuition fees are much lower. A few years ago, economist Joseph Stiglitz applauded this kind of policy in a speech at the Observatoire québécois des inégalités. He noted that public policy plays an essential role in combatting poverty and praised the Quebec model.

This demonstrates our ability to take charge of our own affairs. The issue we are discussing here has resulted from the cuts made in the 1990s, which limited the ability of Quebec and the provinces to take action in education, particularly with regard to student grants. Because Ottawa had surpluses, it was able to intrude, but without a comprehensive framework for accountability. This intrusion was possible because of the fiscal imbalance.

In my view, the bottom line is that it would be much better for us to manage our own finances.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the remarks made by my colleague, whom I hold in high regard, come as no surprise to me. We are back to the issue of federal transfers to the provinces. Apparently, all of this was some sort of plot to weaken Quebec. Of course, we do not agree with that perspective, but we will discuss that another time.

If that were the case, how is it that, as my colleague mentioned at the end of his speech, Quebec ranks near the top among OECD countries when it comes to social policies, support for families, support for young people and support for students? How can those two perspectives be reconciled?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would tell the parliamentary secretary that he is in a better position than I am to answer his own question, and he knows it, considering that he was once Quebec's finance minister.

At a time when the federal government is imposing austerity to reach its zero deficit, he opted for the easy solution. I want to point out that Mr. Massé, who was a member of Jean Chrétien's government, spoke publicly of the plan that I mentioned. The Liberal government itself said it was doing that. At a time when Ottawa was cutting transfers and imposing austerity, the other provinces also had to go down the path of austerity. In Quebec, with a half-state and half the means, we managed to accomplish miracles. I commend former premier Pauline Marois for her hard work.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of the House to an article from a few months back in NewmarketToday, entitled “Traditional Chinese medicine students raise alarm over federal budget cuts to grants”. This highlights the particular impacts on Chinese medicine. Various leaders in the Chinese medicine community have spoken out about how this Liberal policy really attacks the Chinese community and attacks others who benefit from traditional Chinese medicine. There are many people not of Chinese origin who benefit from this medicine as well.

In this article, the member for Markham—Unionville speaks very strongly against the government's policy. In fact, the article highlights a town hall event that the member for Markham—Unionville, I and others did together. He uses the language of “systemic discrimination”. This now member of the government says this is “systemic discrimination”. I wonder if the member who just spoke would agree with that.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that there is no federal department of education since education, including post-secondary education, is the constitutional responsibility of Quebec and the provinces. Whether Ottawa chooses to give out fewer scholarships or stop recognizing a particular program, this amounts to outright interference. Given that we pay too much in federal taxes, Ottawa's role has historically been to transfer those funds to the provinces so they can manage a good education system, since they have the expertise and can choose what to fund.

I am by no means an expert on higher education and am not qualified to say which programs should be recognized, funded, and so on, but that expertise does exist, and it lies with the provinces. What I am asking, once again, is that the federal government take care of its own constitutional responsibilities, which it is currently failing to do, and that it provide adequate funding to meet the provinces' needs.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. I believe he shone a light on something that was already well known, something that the Séguin report demonstrated in the early 2000s, namely the adverse effects of the federal system, with its encroachment on Quebec's areas of jurisdiction, particularly with regard to fiscal imbalance.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Science and Research, I can see this in concrete terms. Universities now have the opportunity to draw funding from two levels of government: the Quebec government and the federal government, which has established scholarships and created the Canada Foundation for Innovation to support infrastructure, particularly in higher education and research institutions.

I would like my colleague to explain to me what the outcome of all this is. The revenue raising capacity that the federal government has maintained over recent years is now bringing certain provinces, including Quebec, to their knees, and this presents us with very difficult choices that mean we have to accept certain conditions reluctantly.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is far from optimal. The decisions being made are never optimal when there are overlaps and duplications. It is a reminder that we would be much better off if we managed 100% of the programs ourselves, using our own data. We would be much better off in terms of research, social services and education.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will split my time with the member for Cloverdale—Langley City.

Canada is in the middle of a jobs crisis, and the Liberal government's answer is to make skills training harder to afford here at home. That is exactly what the costly Liberal budget 2025 does when it moves to restrict the Canada student grant for full-time students to students attending public educational institutions and not-for-profit private institutions.

Let us be clear what this really means. A student from a modest-income family can choose a public institution and keep access to a non-repayable federal grant. Another student, equally hard-working, equally deserving and equally serious about building a career, can choose a regulated career college, because that is where the practical program they need is offered, and that student gets punished. It is the same country, the same taxes and the same need, but different treatment. All the while, the Liberal government chooses to fund millions of dollars in scholarships for international students while cutting back on domestic talent here at home. That is not fairness. That is prejudice by institution type while ignoring free market forces.

The timing could not be worse. StatsCan reported that in February 2026, unemployment rose to 6.7%. There were 1.5 million unemployed Canadians, and 23% of them had been searching for work for more than half a year, well above the prepandemic average of 17%. For youth aged 15 to 24, unemployment rose to 14%, and the private sector lost 73,000 jobs in February alone.

Those are not abstract numbers. Those numbers means stalled lives, delayed plans, parents worried about their children and young Canadians wondering whether they will ever get a fair start. Canadians are not working, because Liberal policies are not working.

One year into the Liberal Prime Minister's term in office, we continue to see job chaos, especially for young people desperate to get a start in life. Conservatives put forward a serious plan to unleash the economy, fix immigration, fix job training and build homes where the jobs are. The Liberals obstructed and turned down these ideas, and now instead of widening the path to employment, they are narrowing it.

At the precise moment when Canada needs more practical, job-ready training, the Liberal government is telling thousands of students that their chosen path is somehow less worthy of support. Why is the Liberal government cutting student grants for Canadians pursuing practical, employment-focused careers? Why should a student lose access to support simply because their program is delivered through a career college instead of a public institution defined by the Liberal government? How does this improve affordability for Canadians? How does this help a country facing skilled labour shortage in certain sectors?

The Liberal government says, on the one hand, that it is investing in post-secondary education to keep it accessible, but what we have seen is an announcement that will give millions of dollars in scholarships to international students. On the other hand, the government is preparing to exclude a whole class of domestic Canadian students here at home from the very affordability measures it boasts about. This is the Liberal pattern: broad announcements and picking winners and losers in an industry, and hard-working Canadians end up paying the price.

Nowhere is this more short-sighted than in the field of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, which has been under attack time and time again by the Liberal government over the past decade. Acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine are not fringe occupations. They are real professions serving real patients in real communities every single day. Canadians of all backgrounds, including indigenous communities, seek out these services for pain management, rehabilitation support, stress reduction, wellness care and complementary treatment. These practitioners often work alongside broader health and wellness networks and serve patients who are looking for additional options to manage chronic conditions and improve quality of life.

Training in the field of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine is hands-on by nature. It depends on supervised practice, clinical skill building, safety protocols, diagnosis, patient interaction, ethics, technique and repetition. Even public programs in acupuncture emphasize direct clinical training, patient treatment, professional competencies, informed consent and safe needling practices. That tells us something important: that this is not casual learning. It is serious health training with real demand. However, in practice, many students here at home pursuing acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine have historically relied on specialized institutions outside the traditional university model. These are often exactly the kinds of settings that this Liberal policy seeks to undermine.

I want to talk about who actually gets hurt when the Liberals pick and choose winners in educational institutions and cut support to training in traditional Chinese medicine. Students here at home get hurt first. The son or daughter of a Canadian family who wants to build a stable career in a respected health profession gets hurt. The mid-career worker seeking retraining into a field of growing demand gets hurt. The modest-income student who cannot simply absorb thousands of dollars in additional costs gets hurt. The student who wants a practical, culturally rooted and patient-facing profession gets hurt.

Jobs are also affected. If fewer students can afford to enrol, fewer students will graduate. If fewer students graduate, fewer clinics can hire. If fewer clinics can hire, fewer Canadians can access care. That means this Liberal policy does not only affect individual students here at home, but the broader Canadian workforce and the public that depends on the services it provides. That is especially reckless in a weak labour market.

Canada should be expanding fast, skills-based pathways into employment, not closing them off. Career colleges have long played a role in training people quickly for specific occupations. In a country with 1.5 million unemployed and elevated long-term unemployment, why would any serious government make targeted training less accessible?

There is also a cultural dimension here that the Liberal government seems blind to. Traditional Chinese medicine is part of a rich heritage carried across generations and across continents. For many Canadians of all backgrounds and communities, including those of Chinese heritage and other communities familiar with these practices, this is not only a profession, but part of a living tradition of knowledge, healing, discipline and care. A government that talks endlessly about inclusivity should not create barriers that in practice make it harder for students to enter professions rooted in cultural traditions valued by many communities in Canada. In effect, this Liberal policy undermines culturally significant professions and cuts off opportunities for students entering fields connected to long-standing traditions of care here at home.

In the meantime, the Liberal government spends millions of dollars of taxpayer money on scholarships for foreign students, while the Liberal Prime Minister asks everyday Canadians to make more sacrifices.

Let us talk about health care access. Canadians know that our health care system is under strain. Wait times are too long and six million Canadians are without a family doctor. Many people are searching for legitimate and professional services that can help them manage pain, mobility, stress, recovery and chronic conditions. Expanding the supply of qualified acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners can improve access to complementary care and give more Canadians additional avenues of support.

The Liberals are choosing to make training our domestic workforce for Canadians harder, while funding scholarships for international students to study here in Canada. That is the absurdity of the Liberal government. When Canada needs more options, it creates fewer options for domestic talent here at home. When Canada needs more skilled practitioners, it sets up new barriers for Canadians while giving millions to foreign nationals. When students need more affordability, it takes away supports and send taxpayer money overseas.

This Liberal policy is bad for students because it raises the cost of career-focused education. It undermines enrolment in specialized programs that often sit outside conventional public university streams. It is bad for the economy because it weakens labour force development. It is bad for health care access because it risks reducing the supply of trained practitioners.

Conservatives believe something simple: Skills training should align with the needs of the economy, not the ideology of the Liberal government. If a program is legitimate, credentialed, employment-focused and serving real Canadian needs, students should not be punished because the government does not like where that training is delivered.

I ask the Liberal government again: Will it reverse this decision, stop treating one group of students as second class, admit that regulated career college students deserve equal respect and recognize that fields such as acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine actually matter to patients, communities, employers and Canada's workforce?

The Liberals need to review this policy, consult effective sectors honestly and reverse course before more damage is done because this is bigger than one budget line. It is about whether we value practical education for Canadians, respect students who choose hands-on careers, address labour shortages seriously, and preserve space in Canada for professions deeply rooted in culture and the communities connected to them here at home. It is about whether access to opportunity in this country depends on merit and hard work or a Liberal bureaucrat approving of an institution.

Conservatives know where we stand. We stand with Canadian students who want to work and study in institutions that provide job-ready training, communities that want their traditions respected and patients who want better access to care. We stand for restoring fairness for every Canadian who believes that if they are willing to study, train, work and contribute to our country, then their government should get out of the way and let them thrive, not shut them out.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, those were interesting comments. Obviously, I do not agree with a vast majority of them, but I have a question in regard to the member's focus on acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. I have always been fascinated by that.

Ultimately, as I am sure the member is aware, the province plays a more significant role in that whole area than the national government.

Has the member had any discussions with the provincial government in his jurisdiction? Has he encouraged the provincial government and our post-secondary institutions to pursue and get our professional organizations to recognize what he wants to blame the federal government for?

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken with members in my community and in my riding since the Liberals announced this cut. I have talked to schools. I have talked to patients. I have talked to teachers. I have talked to practitioners of all communities and backgrounds. They have told me that these cuts hurt because they will reduce enrolment. They will reduce the number of graduates who would be trained for in-demand skills and who would be job ready. There are jobs ready to go, but sometimes it is the difference between getting a bit of support and not getting support that could be the deciding factor for a number of students who are choosing to pursue these careers.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in February we saw the loss of 46,000 jobs in Canada among youth. Canada has the lowest workforce participation for youth since 1998. Now we see the government stepping in and cutting funding for youth to access programs at vocational colleges and career colleges. At the same time, the government seems to be implying that it is all about the Parliamentary Budget Officer's vote, which is going to be delayed by a whole two hours today.

Why does my colleague think that, despite all of these horrific tragedies happening with respect to the youth job market, the Liberals are trying to deflect with respect to a vote being delayed three hours instead of focusing on youth?

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for identifying the problem.

What we have seen in the February jobs report is that unemployment is at 6.7%. There are 1.5 million unemployed Canadians, 23% of whom have been searching for work for half a year or more. For youth aged 15 to 24, unemployment is at 14%.

Instead of choosing to invest in students here at home, in Canadian students, in our domestic workforce, the Liberal government has decided to give money to foreign students to study here in Canada. The Liberals have their priorities completely upside down and that is not right.

[Carlos Leitão, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, again I disagree with most of what the colleague has mentioned about the labour market. We could talk about that another time.

I am surprised, or perhaps intrigued is a better word, by his insistence on Chinese acupuncture and traditional medicine.

Has the member checked with or talked to the provincial governments? This is under their jurisdiction. It is not a federal jurisdiction.

[Vincent Ho, Conservative, Richmond Hill South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is another example of the Liberals oversimplifying a problem and pointing the finger at a different level of government because, for not just the profession, but the entire industry, from imports and exports to Health Canada, there is a whole list of federal jurisdictions.

What we are talking about today in this concurrence motion is the federal grant money that is now being denied by the Liberal government. Yes, I have spoken with constituents, practitioners, teachers, students, folks in the industry, folks in the community and patients who are going to be affected by this. They have told me that it is the Liberal government that has attacked this industry time and again over the last decade. This is just another example of that.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today's concurrence motion is about more than just student grants. It is about whether this country still respects the kind of work that actually keeps the country running.

Buried in budget 2025 is a decision that says if a young Canadian chooses a public institution, such as UBC, McGill or U of T, they can receive a federal student grant, but if they choose one of many provincially regulated career colleges where they train to become welders, electricians, health care aides, mechanics or practical nurses, they will be cut off. It is the same taxpayer, same ambition and same hard work, but different treatment. That reveals something bigger than a budget line. It reveals a bias that says some education is respectable and some is not, and somehow the path that leads to a tool belt is worth less than a path that leads to a desk. That thinking could not be more dangerous right now.

Canada has lost 95,000 jobs this year. Youth have lost over 50,000 jobs. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the G7, yet the government has chosen to make skills training harder to afford. Think of how upside down that is. We say we need more homes, but we make it harder to train the people who build them. We say we need more workers in health care, but we make it harder for students to train for practical care professions. We talk about growth, but we put roadblocks in front of the very people who know how to make, fix, build, repair and create.

Behind it all is a deeper cultural problem. We have spent too many years pretending that the only education that matters comes wrapped in prestige, as though a polished degree is inherently more valuable than a practical skill, or as though an Oxford education is the gold standard and everything else is a consolation prize. Well, with respect, the Prime Minister would be very wrong about that, because we cannot build a country with consultants alone. Somebody has to wire the house. Somebody has to pour the concrete. Somebody has to repair the truck. Somebody has to keep the systems working.

Skilled work is not second-class work. It is part of the foundation of civilized life. If we start treating the people who do that work as somehow less worthy of support, we are not just making a mistake in policy, but we are teaching a whole generation to undervalue the very work we desperately need to rebuild this country.

One of the strangest contradictions in Canada right now is that we have an entire country talking about housing shortages, an infrastructure deficit, labour shortages in the trades and a generation of young people looking for a foothold in the economy. Somehow, the government can still manage to make it harder for those same young people to train for the very jobs we claim we desperately need them to fill. There is something almost comical about that, if it were not so serious.

We complain that homes are too expensive, but seem oddly reluctant to talk about the carpenters, electricians, pipefitters and heavy equipment operators without whom no home has ever been built. We talk about building the country as though a policy announcement will get it done, when, in fact, countries are built the way they have always been built, which is by skilled people who know how to turn raw material into something useful.

Here is why this policy becomes so baffling. At the very moment when we need more skilled workers, more apprentices, more young Canadians learning practical, employable, in-demand skills, the government proposes to pull grants away from students attending career colleges that are doing exactly that training. It is like standing in front of a labour shortage, staring directly at it and deciding the sensible response is to make it harder for the next generation to learn these skills. Do we really want to sabotage the system? Canadians trying to hire skilled people right now need policies that will produce more skilled people, not fewer.

There is another myth we have been telling for far too long, which is the notion that the surest path to prosperity is always the most expensive education, the longest credential and the most polished title on a business card. We have repeated that so often, it has taken on the status of common sense, even though the evidence is piling up against it. Out in the real world, there are countless skilled tradespeople making excellent incomes, raising families, buying homes, building businesses and doing it often with less debt, less delay and, frankly, more certainty than many young people who have been sold the promise that a degree alone is the ticket to security.

There is something off about the way we have celebrated one kind of work while undervaluing another. Many of the people we are talking about, such as welders, electricians, millwrights, mechanics and heavy-duty technicians, are not merely getting by. Many are earning incomes that would surprise the very people who tend to look down on the trades. Why should that surprise anyone? Skill has value. Competence has value. Being able to do something difficult, useful and necessary has always had value. It always will.

Somewhere along the way, we got something backward. We made kids borrow heavily to push them toward jobs that, by the time they have their degree, may or may not exist, while neglecting millions of jobs that exist, pay well and are sitting open because too few people have been encouraged to pursue the skills required to do them. That is not just a mismatch, but a cultural failure, and now this policy threatens to compound that mistake, because when the government says students pursuing vocational paths should no longer receive the same grant support as others, it is doing more than changing an eligibility rule. It is reinforcing the old prejudice that some forms of learning lead to real opportunity while others do not, yet anyone who has looked at the pay stub of a successful tradesperson or has tried to hire one lately knows how ridiculous that is.

In many parts of the country, a skilled trade is not merely a path to a good living. It may be one of the best paths available. At a time when young Canadians are struggling to see a future they can afford, it takes a special kind of blindness to put obstacles in front of one of the clearest paths to financial independence that we have.

Perhaps the biggest thing we have gotten wrong is that people still talk about the trades as though they lead to only a job, when very often, they lead to something much bigger. This is because a skilled trade is not simply a paycheque. It can be the first rung on a ladder that leads to ownership, independence and entrepreneurship. A young person starts as an apprentice, learns a craft, gains experience, builds a reputation, takes on contracts, buys a truck and hires a helper and then a crew. Before long, what began as learning a skill has become a small business. If that sounds ordinary, it is only because people have been building this country that way for so long that we have forgotten how remarkable it really is.

We should not take it for granted, because there is something profoundly hopeful on that path. It is one of the few paths where a person can begin with almost nothing but a willingness to work and over time build something of their own. They do not inherit it, but build it. Many of the people doing what the culture calls dirty jobs are, in fact, examples of what self-reliance can produce. Many are entrepreneurs, many are employing others and many are creating opportunities, not just for themselves, but for the next young person looking for a start.

This is not some footnote in the economy. This is the economy, yet in a strange twist, we celebrate the idea of small business while undermining the institutions helping people acquire the very skills that lead to starting one. This makes no sense, because the electrician who starts a company, the welder who opens a fabrication shop, the contractor who builds a crew and the mechanic who opens a service centre are the people taking risks, creating jobs, paying taxes, training others and strengthening communities.

This is how wealth is created in the real world, which is why this policy strikes me as so short-sighted. Discouraging students from attending career colleges does not just affect individual students, but the future businesses they might have built, the apprentices they might have trained, the workers they may have hired and the opportunities they might have created for others. It narrows not just a training pathway, but an ownership pathway. In a country worried about stagnant growth, weak productivity and too few young people believing they can get ahead, it seems to me that the last thing the government should do is make it harder for young people to enter one of the clearest roads to becoming their own boss.

If we want to make work cool again and if we want to rebuild respect for hard work, skill and enterprise in this country, we should start by passing this motion and stop punishing the very students preparing to do the work at hand.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the member does not recognize that there are significant investments in our colleges. I think about Red River College Polytechnic, Manitoba's elite college. It trains literally thousands of individuals in a wide spectrum of skills. It leads our province. There is also the collaborative innovation garage, which is supported in part by the federal government. We had the post-secondary institutions strategic investment fund, which also went to Red River College. We had innovation in green manufacturing, supporting things like our aerospace industry, which provides many jobs for Manitobans. The government understands the importance of colleges and education.

My question to the member is, why does she believe the Conservative Party has not used an opposition day so that we can have a fulsome debate on the issue?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would talk about the fact that instead of giving support, the government has actually put a barrier between the two types of training. Budget 2025 changed the eligibility for the Canada student grant so that students at many regulated career colleges no longer qualified. It is not because their school is unaccredited or because their program is substandard, but simply because of the type of institution they are attending. A student training to become a practical nurse or an electrician at a provincially regulated college now receives less federal support than a student at a public taxpayer institution. They have the same ambitions, along with the same hard work, but they get different treatment.

The government has created two classes of Canadian students, and this motion asks it to fix that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague brought up a lot of great points.

The Liberal government, in a program running until next year, is giving $4 million to Cornell University in the United States. It is a private university that charges $95,000 Canadian per year for tuition.

Why does my colleague think the Liberal government is funding private universities in the U.S. while, at the same time, depriving Canadians of funding to attend career colleges in Canada?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think that shows, very clearly, the bias against the lower-middle-class student. This policy hurts those students who can least afford it.

Career colleges disproportionately serve lower-middle-income Canadians who need a faster, more direct path to employment. These are not students with a safety net. Many of them choose a career college specifically because it is the practical, affordable option that leads directly to a job.

Removing grant access does not make that choice disappear. It just makes it harder to afford. It tells young Canadians from a working family that the path they chose to a good career is worth less government support than someone else's path. That is wrong, and this committee agrees.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am looking for a clear answer from the member.

Can she explain to the House why the Conservative Party has never, ever brought forward an opposition day motion to deal with supporting the young people of Canada to the degree in which this particular report deals with that issue?

They will possibly make light of the issue, but they have never focused attention on it before. Why is today the only day in the last 10 years that they have actually decided to do so? Many would speculate that it is because they do not want to have a vote on the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we should not need an opposition motion day to defend students against Liberal cuts.