Alexa McDonough

[Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Sault Ste. Marie brings forward a very important point. It is one we need to remind ourselves about from time to time. It is not just some kind of waffle.

We have made different choices in a deliberate way about what kind of society we want to create. It is not an accident that we have chosen to be a bilingual, multicultural nation that celebrates the diversity and differences while also working to build a strong Canadian family that is absolutely inclusive.

Potentially that means we can be more sensitive and vigilant about the protection of human rights and civil liberties, but we ought not to ever take it for granted. We ought not to make the mistake of thinking that because this is who we say we want to be, that this in fact is who we are. At any point in time we can turn our backs on the important protection of human rights, civil liberties and so on.

Having lived in Texas for a year, post-graduate school was perhaps for me the most Canadianizing experience I could ever have. It made me appreciative of the fact that we made different choices about kind of society we wanted to create and produced different consequences in the process.

Not to be beat up on Tom Ridge today, particularly, but when we see in the name of public security some of the things that are happening in the U.S. today in terms of trampling human rights and civil liberties, suspending the rule of law and so on, then one has to be very vigilant that we do not go down the same path. When one sees the argument that he made publicly yesterday, without apology, that public security demanded and dictated that we go to total economic integration, is drawing a very long bow. It is using the argument of public security to massively influence public policy choices that we have a right as a sovereign nation to make and that we have a responsibility to make to ourselves and future generations to ensure that we continue on that path of compassion and sensitivity and a vigilant safeguarding of human rights and civil liberties, which is the only path to true public security.

[Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there was a question in there, but I am happy to respond to a couple of things the minister raised.

Yes, it is true, we have oversight agencies dealing with CSIS and the RCMP. However, it is clear that those agencies have utterly failed in some instances. That is in part what the Maher Arar inquiry is about. If we have protections to deal with the excesses and abuses of actions by the RCMP or by CSIS, how could we end up seeing this unbelievable tragedy unfold? I do not choose to, nor should I in any way second guess the outcome of the public inquiry. However, it is clear that the protections were not there or we would not have witnessed a situation where a Canadian citizen ended up being spirited off the continent, because he happened to be passing through New York, on the basis of information that appears to have been supplied by the Canadian government without appropriate checks and balances.

It is also true that the RCMP oversight commissioner has publicly said that the oversight body does not have sufficient powers to even get the information it needs, let alone to come to conclusions that can have any impact in changing the situation with respect to abuses of power.

We have to recognize that we have a job to do to strengthen the oversight capacity and the kind of actions that can be taken in the face of abuses of power that have occurred. I hope this is something at which the government is looking.

[Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, October 15th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to rise and make some brief comments about Bill C-6, now before the House. The bill is described as introducing “an act to establish the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and to amend or repeal certain acts”.

On the surface this might appear to be nothing but a pretty straightforward housekeeping bill and in fact one that is overdue, because it basically establishes the legislative authority for what the government has already been doing, generally not a very good practice and not one that is in the proper order of things. Nevertheless, one could say it is positive that we are now dealing with this bit of housekeeping.

I think it is important that we not fall into thinking that this is merely a housekeeping bill. I do not want to exaggerate my concerns. I do not want to go so far as to say that the bill is in fact a wolf in sheep's clothing, but I do want to raise some concerns about the possibility that the bill could create a good many problems. It may solve some problems and there are some reasons for being optimistic about that. But depending on the implementation, on the checks and balances, and on whether the government is prepared to begin paying more attention to the critical importance of human rights and civil liberties in our society and the due process of law, either Bill C-6 will be a positive thing or it will not.

I think that in a way we have to look at this legislation from two points of view. One is around the aspect of emergency preparedness and public safety, which I want to say a little bit about. The other is about the extent to which “public security” matters are really at the heart of what the government intends this bill to be about. It is perhaps difficult in some cases to make a separation between the two.

One of the reasons that I wanted to take the opportunity to speak directly to the public safety and emergency preparedness aspect of the bill is that I want to speak directly from the experience of my riding of Halifax over the last year, when the question of emergency preparedness suddenly became very critical, not just on one occasion but two.

The first, of course, was hurricane Juan, which occurred in mid-September last year. We were subjected to a very serious disaster that called for a Herculean effort from all citizens, all agencies and all levels of government in dealing with its incredible aftermath.

It is not true, as sometimes is suggested, that it was a good thing there was no loss of life given how terrible the massive destruction was, because in fact there was loss of life. An emergency worker ambulance driver was killed in the line of duty by a tree that fell crashed through the roof of his ambulance. There were also some deaths that were indirectly caused although that is a bit more difficult to measure. I am talking about people who were in a state of frail health. A close personal friend of mine, a medical doctor, had been struggling with cancer and was fatally impacted by the fact that, in her very fragile medical state, when severe damage was done to the hospital she was in, service was interrupted and she had to be relocated to another hospital. In the process, she lost her valiant and heroic struggle against cancer.

In general, taking note of these very tragic results of hurricane Juan, the mobilization of the community was truly exemplary. I am not saying that it was perfect. There were tremendous frustrations. The biggest criticism to be made, and I still feel this way, is that communications with the public about what was happening were not perhaps what they might have been. However, the state of preparedness to deal with this emergency and national disaster was really a model of why we have efforts to coordinate government activity.

I was interested to hear the comments of the member from the Bloc last night referring to lessons that were learned from the massive flooding in the Saguenay region. I am not sure if my sequence is correct, but this was followed I think by the ice storm which also created great damage. There probably were lessons learned about improving the communications and coordination that I am sure would have been shared from one province to another, and among the different levels of government.

By and large we saw a very impressive mobilization. There were heroes and incredible stories of voluntary effort that were phenomenal. There were municipal workers who went flat out around the clock without regard to the fact that they were working far beyond the hours that they were duty bound to work.

Then we have the Canadian armed forces. For me it was an extremely valuable education in precisely how the armed forces mobilize in a situation like that. I appreciated the opportunity extended to me by the minister responsible for emergency measures, the then minister of defence, when I was invited to accompany him to do a tour of the disaster areas, both by helicopter and on the ground. I could see the operational side. Mobilizing the armed forces was very impressive, not only those that were on-site in Halifax or throughout Nova Scotia, but bringing in additional personnel from other provinces.

Earlier in the year I introduced a bill which I think was an appropriate one. In fact, it would fall within the mandate of this bill now before the House to provide for the awarding of medals for the Herculean effort put forward by armed forces personnel. It would provide for the awarding of similar medals in the future under similar circumstances.

A question that might arise is, why would we do that for our armed forces personnel, but not suggest the same for municipal workers? There is a small difference that is significant and needs to be taken into account. The municipal workers, who would have been mobilized, worked long hours and were very important participants in restoring security and safety to people's lives. They would have received overtime pay for those extra work hours. There was recognition through appropriate remuneration.

In the instance of the armed forces, I do not know that the public fully takes account that no such thing happens. They are called upon to respond to duty, in some cases do it around the clock continuously without the possibility of any additional financial remuneration. They of course do that at a significant loss of time and ability to play a role in their family life. It is a small way in which we as Canadians can recognize those situations where they go far beyond the call of anything anyone could consider to be reasonable duty.

The provisions in the bill regarding the improvements to coordination and communication are completely supportable and laudable. Cutting down on the possibilities that this kind of coordinated effort may in any way be impeded by the lack of appropriate structures is overdue. I have no reservation about supporting these provisions.

I want to briefly express some concerns about what we have here in terms of both the provisions of the bill and the government's intentions. Of course one cannot measure that and I seek some assurances from the parliamentary secretary who has introduced this bill.

I want to start by citing a prophetic statement. I am not sure who made it, but it is seared forever in my mind. I says that any nation that sacrifices human rights for security will end up with neither. We have had sufficient numbers of alarming situations in this country post 9/11 where there has not been nearly sufficient attention to that very serious threat.

We heard the prophetic words of Afro-American Congresswoman Barbara Lee from California in the aftermath of 9/11, when Bush rushed to create the us and them situation, rushed to declare that every human being was either on Bush's team or on Osama bin Laden's team, and severely polarized the situation which was already extremely dangerous, precarious, and challenging for all nations to respond to.

Those words of Barbara Lee, that in the attempt to defeat terrorism we should not become the enemy we deplore were prophetic at the time. It was very sound advice. She was giving that advice clearly to the Bush administration, but I regret that the Canadian government did not sufficiently heed those warnings. They did not just come from Congresswoman Barbara Lee, although the courage she showed to stand alone and articulate that position was very inspirational for those of us who had a much easier task of trying to create an awareness and a sensitivity on behalf of our own governments.

Being concerned about ensuring public security, we have seen far too many incidents in which there have been imbalances created where human rights and civil liberties have been sidestepped, sideswiped, and in some cases outright trampled upon, in the name of public security. That can take us to an extremely dangerous place as a nation. Unfortunately, we know in considerable agonizing detail that it has brought immense hardship and is continuing to impose incredible hardship on the lives of individual people, and families in some instances, in this country.

It is not some kind of random hardship. It is not random in who is affected. It is very clear that there has been racial profiling. Individuals have been singled out and in many cases mishandled, mistreated and have had their basic human rights and civil liberties trampled upon. When that happens, it is not just damage to the individual, it is damage to the very fibre and fabric of a democratic society that is supposedly rooted in rule of law.

The list is long and shocking. I know there are some who will say that I am exaggerating. Well we cannot exaggerate when we know of instances where there has essentially been a suspension of the presumption of innocence in people facing accusations and harsh treatment. It is not an exaggerated concern to say that people are incarcerated with no charges laid, with no legal process of being brought to trial, and actually in some instances imprisoned for a considerable period of time. That is not acceptable.

We have people, as a result of our appropriate genuine concern about security, who are not benefiting from those very fundamental protections that should exist in a civilized democratic society around due process, transparency, and accountability. In addition, knowing what it is one is being accused of and having the legal counsel and legal process to be in a position to face one's accusers and defend oneself. These are all very serious concerns.

Those cases have a human face. The best known example is what happened to Maher Arar. It is shocking that it occurred because of what appears to have been the passing of information. One could say that the sharing of information is critically important and certainly in this bill there are explicit provisions for removing barriers to the sharing of information. However, the sharing of information can either be a constructive thing and be exactly what is needed to deal with public safety and security or it can be lethal and very damaging if it is not done within the context of the rule of law and appropriate protections for people.

As my House leader, the member for Vancouver East, articulated so well yesterday, we are in support of the principle of the bill. It is hard to imagine why one would not be in support of the principle of the bill, but we are extremely vigilant about what this legislation is really going to be about. We are going to be seeking a great deal of reassurance and more detail in that regard in committee.

I want to end by raising a question and I do not know the answer to this question. I opened one of my newspapers this morning, it might have been reported in many papers, but this was the National Post , and I read an article reporting on Tom Ridge's visit to Ottawa yesterday. The title of the article was “Security will reshape relations”. It was attributed to Mr. Ridge and the subtitle was “Greater integration”. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge was stating in Ottawa yesterday that the drive to safeguard North America from global terrorism would reshape Canada-U.S. relations and lead to greater economic integration.

It was not, frankly, until I read that article this morning that it became crystal clear to me that the government's decision to introduce this legislation yesterday may indeed have been directly related to the visit of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. I do not make any accusations about that, but I ask the government to address the concern that is widely shared, that in fact we may be going down the very same road that is shocking the world in terms of the response of the U.S. administration to the issues of public security and post 9/11 responses.

It seems to me that it is too much of a coincidence that the U.S. homeland security secretary was here yesterday on the day that this bill was introduced, which of course was the government's decision and presumably done for a reason. I think it underscores the point that we want to make.

We want to be assured absolutely that the legislation will not put us on a further track to ape, or emulate or follow the truly reprehensible suspension of civil liberties and due process of protection against the abuse of power in the name of security which sacrifices human rights in pursuit of that security. We want to be assured this not just by words from the parliamentary secretary, who is piloting this through Parliament, but in terms of the actual provisions and protections that are built into the bill.

[Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, October 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I for one am very pleased that my colleague from Vancouver East has raised her concerns about what may or may not be a worry with respect to this particular legislation.

It is absolutely incumbent upon every single one of us to heed the warnings about how, in the absence of due process, the absence of transparency and accountability, the suspension of the presumption of innocence, all of these things, we need to be extremely concerned about where we are headed.

I am sure the member from Vancouver East is aware that prophetic words were spoken by an Afro-American congresswoman in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when she said that in the attempt to defeat terrorism, let us not become the evil we deplore. That is why I think we need to proceed with extreme caution.

One cannot oppose the principle of better cooperation among the agencies, particularly in the instance where public safety is threatened or where public security is at risk. However the issue is what are the checks and balances and what kind of accountability is there.

In the absence of it being clear exactly what some of these processes will be, it is necessary to have more information about what the intent is, and not just the intent. We also need to know how the important due process of law that needs to apply is going to be maintained and in fact strengthened, given the concerns we have about the suspension or the weakening of due process in far too many cases of late. I would ask the member for Vancouver East for her comments.

[Canada Education Savings Act, October 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity it provides me, and this certainly was not the intent of the member for Vancouver East. I have big shoes to fill in terms of following her period of significant work on post-secondary education issues.

Reference was made to the need for a post-secondary education bill. Again, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly about this. The member from the government bench who stood up a few moments ago misrepresented, I am sure not intentionally, the position that I had set out. I have not said that the bill should specifically deal with the issue of capping tuitions. I have said that it needs to be a bill that sets out certain fundamental principles and then sets out the governance structure that will ensure that the policies and the resources necessary are forthcoming to fulfill those principles of accessibility and universality. The bill could model the Canada Health Act but improve upon it to ensure that there is some life in it.

It was regrettable that the minister did not address the question I raised with him. When we see the Conservatives rubbing their hands with enthusiasm and praise for the bill, it makes us concerned about what elements of the bill are so acceptable to them and yet falls so short of what is needed.

When we hear the advocacy that further tax cuts is the route to go, let us just recall two things. First, the tax cuts to the top 10% of Canadians, which were introduced by this Liberal government during its mandate, the resources involved in that are sufficient to provide 25 years of tuition-free education to a generation of Canadians.

Second, for anyone who asks how we possibly could afford tuition-free education, more than a dozen OECD countries provide tuition-free education. Why? Not because they are wealthier than us but because they place a genuine premium and priority on post-secondary education.

[Canada Education Savings Act, October 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am a bit disappointed by the member's distortion of what I said or perhaps what he thinks he heard me say.

First , I heard the Bloc member also express concern about the complete inadequacy of dealing with the other aspects of education funding. Yes, if this bill were amended to remove what are genuine barriers to a great many people, in other words, if the allocation were sufficient and were part of a comprehensive approach that dealt with tuition, debt and inadequate levels of funding, one could make a case for how this might fit into the total scheme of things.

I want to go to the second point the member made. I very much applaud and congratulate him for having gone after the post-secondary education that he was denied in his youth. However, for us to pretend that the bill would do what was needed when it depends upon families who simply do not have the money to set aside and if they did so, it would make an adequate dent in the kind of costs that would be faced in the future is just simply perverse.

The member surely knows that the Canadian Federation of Students has provided tremendous leadership around the issue of access. Upon the introduction of the savings program, it immediately pulled together representatives of a whole range of anti-poverty groups, immigrant groups and low income groups to ask them: how it would work for them; would it work for them and what would be the impact? The Canadian Association of University Teachers participated with those groups in that exercise, led by student leaders. They said unanimously that the bill was flawed, perverse, misguided and that it would not solve the real problems that existed.

[Canada Education Savings Act, October 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise to address Bill C-5, the Canadian education savings account, I am mindful of the fact that this is the first time that I have actually stood in the House to participate in a debate since I was elected to serve exclusively as the member of Parliament for Halifax.

I no longer carry the responsibilities of federal leadership and now have the privilege of sitting behind my leader, the member for Toronto--Danforth, who was successful in being elected to represent his constituency in the House.

It is indeed a pleasure to pledge in a very public way my commitment to work as conscientiously and diligently as I possible can to serve in that manner as a full time member of Parliament. It is an added privilege to find myself seatmate to a former leader of the New Democratic Party under whom I first ran for politics in the federal election of 1979, unsuccessfully I might say, never imaging that some day we would in fact be sitting in the House backing a subsequent leader. It is indeed a privilege to take up my new role in this august body.

I am also very pleased that in addition to my new responsibilities assigned to me by my leader as critic for foreign affairs, I now have the added responsibility of being the post-secondary education critic.

I am extremely pleased with that challenge for a couple of reasons. For a number of years before I entered politics, I had the opportunity to be both a professor at Dalhousie University and also for several years I served as a field instructor for graduate students in the school of social work in employment settings with the City of Halifax's social planner and with the Province of Nova Scotia in the social development division. For me, it is something very close to home.

However, perhaps more important than that is the fact that my riding, the constituency of Halifax, is host to more post-secondary education students per capita and more post-secondary education institutions per capita than any other riding in the country. That is perhaps an accident of history.

It is partly a geographic thing, that they happen to be concentrated in the riding of Halifax, but it is also true that for many years it has been said that because of the excellence of post-secondary education students in Nova Scotia, that one of our best contributions to Canada in fact is the educational experiences gained in our province by students from across the country.

Unfortunately, all too often translating into the deportation of those students to other parts of Canada because they do not have the opportunity to remain in their native province. We continue to need to address that very serious problem.

I am pleased, because of how exceedingly important post-secondary education issues are to my constituents, to have the opportunity to rise in this place as the post-secondary education critic.

Having said that, as I turn my attention to Bill C-5, it is regrettable in the extreme that the bill can probably be described as an attempt by the government to divert attention from the fact that it continues to fail students and their families in regard to the adequate level of post-secondary education funding desperately needed, both at the level of individual student aid and at the level of educational funding for post-secondary education institutions.

Our universities and colleges are forced into the situation of driving tuition fees up even higher than they are now creating an immense access barrier to far too many students in the country today. That is the real crisis that we face in the country. That is the real challenge that the government has sidestepped again and again.

It sidestepped addressing that issue in the spring 2004 budget. It absolutely sidestepped dealing with it in the throne speech. During the election campaign that intervened between the spring 2004 budget and our return to Parliament we saw how little the government had to offer. We heard all kinds of promises from the Prime Minister about finally addressing the crisis of student aid and skyrocketing tuition in this country; however, they were very fleeting commitments.

Nothing in Bill C-5 even begins to make a dent in this serious problem. Bill C-5 is grossly inadequate in our view for a couple of fundamental reasons.

The maximum contributions that will be forthcoming for the Canada education savings grant amount to a paltry $7,200. That needs to be put into perspective. The government needs to recognize the fact that in some Canadian universities, even at the undergraduate level, tuition is now $6,000. Tuition is a great deal higher than that in a good many graduate programs and professional schools.

It is not an unduly pessimistic prediction to make that it is possible that the entire contribution from the government toward the education of a student 19 years from now could amount to less than the tuition fee for half a year of post-secondary education, in other words, for one term. The reality is that there is nothing in this legislation that will begin to deal with the really serious crisis that exists.

There is a fundamental flaw in the government's thinking regarding the real problem. I want to acknowledge that the government has accurately identified that for low income families any possibility of gaining access to post-secondary education under the current circumstances is virtually nonexistent. That is an accurate diagnosis, but the remedy provided is both grotesquely inadequate and flawed. It seems to be based on the premise that there is a real problem about the motivation of low income families to save money and invest money in education.

It is not a motivational problem for families living in grinding poverty in Canada not to save dollars. The problem is they do not have the money to do it. It simply does not meet the minister's own stated objective of levelling the playing field for all students who want to gain access to post-secondary education to say that this program will now make a significant difference. It will do no such thing.

We will have an opportunity in committee to deal with the bill on a clause by clause basis and we will do so. Let me use one or two examples.

First, I do not know how anybody could refuse to acknowledge the fact that families in the lowest income categories, which is what the minister said the objective is, are not going to be able to find money for post-secondary education from their scarce incomes. They do not have sufficient money now to pay for their groceries and keep decent shelter over their head. It defies the reality of the grinding financial poverty in which a great many of those families are living.

Second, when we see what a bureaucratic and administrative nightmare is going to be involved in setting up this program, at least as I interpret it, then one must really wonder about the decision to spend the limited resources the government is prepared to make available to feed a bureaucratic monstrosity.

I want to express appreciation, and I do so genuinely, for a briefing that I obtained earlier today on the legislation. However, as the opportunity to ask some questions was made available and as the discussion unfolded, it seemed to me more evident that for such a very paltry sum of money being made available to low income families, if and only if they could actually access it by finding money out of their scarce incomes to participate in these programs, it is simply unwarranted to set up what is going to be such a bureaucratic nightmare.

It also denies eligibility to a number of categories of young people that surely is unwarranted. For example, if we go to page 7, clause 7, it makes it quite clear that the Canada learning bond may be paid in respect of a beneficiary under a registered education savings plan only if the beneficiary is resident in Canada.

What that means is that the aspiration expressed by the minister, when he spoke to this on first reading, that immigrant families should benefit from the program will not be fulfilled. Immigrant families who might arrive here with children ages 7, 9 and 11 would have failed to qualify year after year for the very small sums that are going to be made available to other families. They are going to be even more disadvantaged.

In such a mobile workforce within a globalized economy with more and more workers being required to go outside of the country by their employers, one must also recognize that they too will presumably not be resident in Canada and not be eligible for the years in which they did not live in Canada. That is just one of the flaws that we are concerned about.

At the end of the day the real concern is what an enormous shortfall there is in the response of the government to deal with the real crisis that is happening. Perhaps the minister needs to have the kind of reality check that would be available to him by sitting down with leaders of the student governments across the country--I did this in my own province with the leaders from across the province from every post-secondary education institution--and be reminded of what it is that they face today with the crippling debt load.

Nothing in the bill is going to change that situation for students for the next 18 years, let alone do anything for those who are already crippled by debt and are having to drop out of university because the resources simply are not there for them.

It is lamentable that the government has not responded at an appropriate level to deal with the serious access problems. We need a post-secondary education act in the country that sets out certain principles. We need stable, solid, adequate funding that is appropriate and will deliver on what the government says that it wants to see happen, and that is that every young person who is able to avail themselves of a post-secondary education institution has the opportunity to do so.

We absolutely need to recognize that we have to freeze tuition fees and it is going to take some funding to do that. We must improve the student aid programs as well as the student debt relief programs, instead of constricting what is available to students by changing the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to put them at an even greater disadvantage when they are in major financial difficulty through no fault of their own.

There are a number of remedies that are desperately needed. It seems to me that in this paltry and narrow response, which will not have any impact for any students for a minimum of 18 or 19 years, the government has simply not responded to this very serious crisis.

We absolutely need to replace the flawed millennium scholarship fund with a needs-based system of grants. It is clear that it is the view of students in the country, as expressed through all their national advocacy organizations. It is clear that it is the position of all the faculty who have stood behind them in this demand. It is clear that it is the view of the university administrators that the number one crisis that has to be addressed is that of crippling student debt and the access problems being created for students who do not have deep pockets or whose families do not have deep pockets. Yet we have absolutely nothing on any of this in the Speech from the Throne, and the legislation does not even begin to address that problem.

During the election I had the opportunity to participate in a student-sponsored debate in my province, and I very much appreciated the opportunity to do it. A student who was involved in the whole discussion made a very telling but simple point that what was a student crisis now has become a family crisis.

As a result of the failure of the government to provide increased funding and as a result of the government's the massive cuts to post-secondary education over the last number of years, a lot of young people are being driven out of their communities and provinces because of student debt. It becomes a deportation or out-migration program for students from northern and rural communities in less prosperous parts of the country. They go where they can get the fattest, fastest salary and income to pay off their crippling debt load. That becomes a crisis in many cases for families who are either left behind or have to relocate.

We have a lot of grandparents who are barely able to make ends meet. They now are having to dig deep into their pockets to help put their grandchildren through university or to help them with their debt load. We have a lot of working families who are sacrificing big time to make it possible for their young people to go to university.

This is what is so sad about the rhetoric around recognizing, and the minister said it, that the Canadian dream cannot be fulfilled in today's world without a post-secondary education. Yet we are not prepared to make it available to young people. What we have is an erosion of the quality of that education. Students have to work at poorly paid jobs simultaneously when they go to school. Universities have to rely more and more heavily on private funds or on corporate sources of funding, which skews curriculum choices. In some cases literally faculty contribution to the educational effort is being measured, not in terms of their excellence in teaching or the quality of the research, but in terms of how many corporate or research dollars they can draw down to help deal with the university's inadequate funding base. These are all distortions that are being created. The minister is quite right that the Canadian dream for future generations cannot be fulfilled without an adequate post-secondary education these days, both because we live in a globalized economy and because it is important in economic competition terms.

This is my final point. Surely the greatest, most compelling and urgent reason for our young people to have the opportunity to get advanced education is the magnitude and complexity of the challenges we face in the world, such as dealing with environmental degradation that could destroy the planet, or with disease and hunger, which is unnecessary in today's world because we cannot find the solution, or with the horror of the possibility that we will destroy this planet with increasing weapons of mass destruction and nuclear threats.

These are the real reasons and the major challenges that our young people face in the future. We are failing them in equipping them with the post-secondary education they need to meet those challenges.

[Canada Education Savings Act, October 14th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the comments by the member for York--Simcoe. I congratulate him on his first debate in the House. He certainly has recognized the importance of post-secondary education, but I found the comments distressing from two points of view.

First, there was very little acknowledgement of the depth and severity of the tuition crisis and debt load crisis suffered by today's students. Second, once again he seemed to propose that tax cuts are always the solution to every problem. The comment was made that the amounts are modest but after all, we have to be concerned about whether we can afford it. I would ask the member to respond to two things in that connection.

First , we have just received confirmation that the government's surplus this year is not the $1.9 billion previously predicted but rather it is $9.1 billion. That is quite a big mistake. Is there not a significant sum of money there that could be available to deal with today's student debt crisis and the very severe barriers?

Second, I want to ask the member to respond to the research finding that the tax cuts to the top 10% of Canadians brought in by the government over the last decade would actually have been sufficient to pay for 25 years of tuition free post-secondary education in Canada.

Could I have the member's comments on those two factual pieces of information?

[Canada Education Savings Act, October 14th, 2004]

I am still from Halifax, Mr. Speaker, and very proud to be so.

I want to take the minister at his word when he says that the objective of the bill is to help the very families that are most disadvantaged. I also want to take him at his word when he says that the real measure of success is whether it levels the playing field for all young people in this country who need and want to access post-secondary education opportunities.

However, I have to say that the way the debate is going already is very discouraging, because there are legitimate problems with the legislation that has been presented. It would take nothing short of a flight of fantasy to believe that the stated objectives could actually be achieved with the paltry, pathetic measures that are contained here in this bill.

I want to ask the minister a question in a very direct way. I hope he will not accuse me of playing politics, as he has the other two members who have raised legitimate concerns. If the objective is to level the playing field for every young person in this country wanting to access post-secondary education, would he not agree that there are discriminatory measures built into the legislation? For example, there is the requirement that unless a child is a resident of Canada throughout the whole 18 years that these provisions would kick in, then they are not eligible for the kind of finances that will--

[Chris Saunders, October 7th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, all Canadians today are shocked and saddened by the death of Lieutenant Chris Saunders, an officer on board HMCS Chicoutimi .

On behalf of my caucus I extend deepest sympathy for this tragic loss to Lieutenant Saunders' wife Gwen, their two young sons and to his family, friends and colleagues.

As the member of Parliament for Halifax, I know the resilience of military families and how supportive they are of one another in the face of adversity. Lieutenant Saunders died serving Canada. For that, his community and his country express deep gratitude and extend our heartfelt sympathy.

We extend to Lieutenant Saunders' injured colleagues best wishes for a swift recovery and our prayers for all HMCS Chicoutimi crew to return home as speedily and safely as humanly possible.