Peter Adams

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we all greatly respect the member.

He quoted a number of countries at the beginning of his remarks and then said there was a very high cost of university and college education here in Canada, but he knows that in this country tuition fees and, by the way, the non-tuition fees that our colleague opposite was talking about are the responsibility of the provinces. In the other countries they are not, so the other countries can control what they give to students and what the students have to pay. In this country we cannot do that.

I do not know if the member realizes that for universities in Canada at the moment roughly $11 billion a year comes from the federal government and roughly $8 billion a year comes from the provincial governments. I make the point that we put in a great deal of federal moneys, including grants to students, but we cannot control the costs at the other end.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

In a minority government.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the evidence shows a significant percentage of the lowest income employed families in the country already save specifically for their children's education. That group is already there. Without any assistance at all, already they are putting aside money in whatever vehicles they find appropriate for their children's education.

All the evidence shows that in those families, unlike the other low income families, the participation in post-secondary education is very high. One of our motivations in this is the demonstration of the link between families thinking early of their children's post-secondary education and those families which do not.

I do not disparage the grant aspect of this and the accumulated interest on the grant aspect of it. However, I believe this significant percentage of low income people already saving will be increased considerably.

Another point I would make is that we are talking a 15 year period. Very often families of low income when a child is born, go to a higher income level by the time the child is 15. In the last few years they will have disposable income to put into these accounts.

The member mentioned the $2,000. There is a provision for the provinces to participate. They can run their own programs under this legislation. The province of Alberta will do so as of next year, and children there will have at least double this amount of money.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, there are at least two components to this program. The first is the initial contribution of $500 at birth for the child is a grant. The family has no need to have disposable income. If it opens an RESP account, it will have $500 in it.

My colleague is right. Some of these families are not used to opening accounts of any sort. As a result, each family will receive $25 to assist them in setting up and opening an account, which will last the child's lifetime. Once that is done, each year $100 will go into that account from the Government of Canada.

Now it is true, where families do not have disposable income, they cannot take advantage of the second aspect of the program. If the family puts in, for example. $100 at any time in the first 15 years of a child's life, it will receive $40 from the Government of Canada and the accumulated interest from it. He is right. Some families will be unable to do that. However, at the very base, they will have in this account, at no cost, $2,000 when the child reaches the age of 15.

His colleague mentioned tuition. We keep thinking of college and university and tuition fees. Those moneys could be used for any form of lifelong learning. In fact, if the children concerned, say at the age of 18, had just the $2,000 and rolled it into an RESP, they would have another 20 years with the accumulated proceeds of the $2,000 to decide what to do. They might decide to take a computer course or to move from one trade to another and take some training.

I understand the point that it is only $2,000 plus the accumulated interest. However, I would say it is something, and throughout that child's life, the family would have been thinking about post-secondary education.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague knows that tuition fees are in the jurisdiction of the provinces. Therefore, the federal government cannot do anything about controlling those fees.

However, this government has improved the Canada student loan beyond recognition, billions of dollars have gone to students, admittedly in loan form. It set up the millennium scholarship program. A million students, mainly low income students, will receive millennium scholarships. It has set up other scholarship programs. In the last budget it established the $3,000 first year tuition payment for low income students. It established the $3,000 per year, of the current undergraduate year, for disabled students.

I would suggest that the government, given that it cannot control tuition fees, has done more than any other federal government ever has to support students. As a result, we have the highest participation in post-secondary education in the world.

The member is right. There are still many problems. Bill C-5 is a different tactic. We know that despite the fact that enrolment has gone up in the post-secondary institutions and despite these scholarship, grant and loan programs which we have established, participation in the low income groups is not there. There are a variety of reasons for that. This is a different point.

I believe the bond and the money that it will provide to young persons when they reach the age of majority is very useful. They will be able to use that for apprenticeships or any sort of post-graduate education. It is in some ways not a huge sum of money.

The important thing is that from birth, a family will know that it is helping to put aside some money for that child's post-secondary education. It will make these families think throughout the child's growth that post-secondary education is possibility. Our target is to encourage these families to look at post-secondary education. Many of them, if they did, would already discover that their children could afford to go to higher education. At the present time they simply do not.

Therefore, I would say to may colleague, and I know his interest in these matters, that the purpose of the bill is different than scholarship programs, loan programs and the like.

[Canada Education Savings Act, December 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I especially welcome the opportunity to join in the debate on third reading of Bill C-5. I have participated in discussion on the bill both in this place and in committee. I am concerned that many of the comments I hear are not about Bill C-5 at all.

Bill C-5 has three key objectives. It complements the many other ways the government is working to ensure that students who need help with the costs of post-secondary education are able to get it. It will assist and encourage families to save for their children's education by making it easier for them to build the assets they will need in later years. It follows through on a commitment in the Speech from the Throne to increase access to post-secondary education, especially for low income families.

I will expand on this last point a bit, helping lower income families save for post-secondary education. One of the key features of the bill is that it brings a new focus to ensuring that low and middle income families can participate initiatives like the registered education savings plan, the RESP program, and the Canada education savings grant program. These are proving to be very popular with many higher income Canadian families.

Last March the Minister of Finance said in his budget speech that he was concerned that too many Canadians, especially those in low and middle income brackets, see post-secondary education as unattainable, not because of the academic challenge but because the costs are too high. That is why the budget for 2004 provided a needs based grant up to $3,000 for students from low income families to go toward their first year of university.

Bill C-5 includes specific ways the government can move to make it easier for low and middle income Canadians to save for their children's educational needs. For example, the bill introduces the Canada learning bond, which is an innovative way the government can provide families with an upfront cash contribution of $500 to kick-start their education savings plan and to build on it with annual instalments.

Up to and including the age of 15, children born after 2003 into low income families who receive the $500 bond will continue to qualify each year for a $100 Canada learning bond instalment, if the family is entitled to the national child benefit. Over a 16 year period, families could receive a total Canada learning bond of $2,000 per child. If parents never open an RESP, the child will not be penalized. Children will never lose their entitlement for the bond because, at the age of majority, they can then open their own RESP and claim their entitlement up to the age of 21 years.

The Canada learning bond serves as a kick-start to savings. After opening an RESP to deposit the bond, the bill supplies an incentive to save even more by increasing the Canada education savings grant match rates to low and middle income families, increasing them up to 40%. In other words, the bond will provide an important incentive for low income families to set up an RESP, and the enhanced education savings grant match rates will help those savings grow over the years.

If the bill is passed, we estimate that 120,000 newborn Canadian children will benefit from the Canada learning bond this year alone and another 4.5 million could benefit from the enhanced Canada education savings grant.

I do not want to see any of these children left behind. That is why I support this bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to do the same.

[Supply, December 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest and some sympathy to what my colleague had to say. However I wish the Bloc members would not keep referring to the fact that the Minister of Agriculture is here. It is the duty of the Minister of Agriculture, in an opposition day debate on agriculture, to be here. The irresponsible one is the opposition leader who, after leading off the debate, then walked out.

Our minister in recent times has been in Quebec, as he has been in every region of the country, and has met with the farmers. However, today, for the sake of the farmers, he should be here to hear what all the parties have to say. I have a question for my colleague.

I want to say that the member's pride in Quebec agriculture is justified. In many ways it is a great example to the rest of the country. Every region has its strengths but to give an example compared with my farmers in Ontario, under the Conservative government, for every federal dollar that came into Ontario, the previous Conservative government only added 49¢. I congratulate my colleague on the fact that for every federal dollar, and a lot of federal dollars went in, the Quebec government gave $2.22. I congratulate the member on that and on the way the different commodity groups are organized.

Billions of federal dollars have now been flowed for this crisis. How many billions does he want? What does he think the price of milk should be raised to, because I support raising it in order to deal with the cull cow crisis?

[Supply, December 2nd, 2004]

Madam Speaker, there has been consultation between the parties, and I would like to move the following 48 hour notice motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Orders or Special Order, for the Supply period ending December 10, forty-eight hours' written notice shall be given of motions to concur in main estimates, supplementary estimates (A), to restore or reinstate any item in the estimates and to oppose any items in the main and supplementary estimates.

[Supply, December 2nd, 2004]

Madam Speaker, from the beginning the minister has been concerned with the day to day crises with regard to this issue. I wonder if he would think a bit about the sustainability of the industry when these things are behind us, such as the abattoir capacity for all ruminants, including sheep and bison, in my area of Peterborough or about the matter of traceability. I know the federal government supports research into DNA traceability.

Does the member have any thoughts about the future of the industry and the things we should plan for when the tragedy is behind us?

[International Year of Physics, November 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the UN designated 2005 as the International Year of Physics in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's papers on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and the size of molecules and the theory of relativity that led to the famous equation E=mc

2

The Canadian Association of Physics will celebrate the year through a lecture tour on the theme “Einstein's legacy”, a string quartet composed in honour of the year and a Herzberg lecture entitled “Was Einstein Right?”. These and other activities can be found on http://www.cap.ca/wyp2005.html.

Canada has a fine record in physics. For example, physics research has helped us deal with challenges related to the development of a sustainable society, including environmental conservation, clean energy sources, public health and security in this 21st century.

I congratulate the Association of Physicists on its fine work and wish its members well during this special year.