Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supports the social principle of Bill C-5, because creating an education savings bond program will help lower-income families generate savings so their children can have access to post-secondary education, which the Canada education savings grant did not do.
The Bloc Québécois is also in favour of enhancing the Canada education savings grant, a tax measure that benefits lower- and middle-income families.
Bill C-5 also helps lower-income families take advantage of the benefits of registered education savings plans and Canada education savings grants, which already benefit wealthier families.
However, this bill contains several flaws. The learning bonds will not help Quebec and the provinces provide quality education, because they do not provide any concrete measures to do so. They make students pay for part of their post-secondary education but do not improve the quality of that education.
The Canada education savings grant and the education savings bond program are not the best ways to fund and promote post-secondary education. An increase in direct federal transfer payments to Quebec and the provinces remains the best and cheapest solution.
Forty million dollars has been allocated to administer the program during the first three years. The administrative costs seem excessive. It is costing more than $13 million per year to distribute $80 million.
As a result of the fiscal imbalance that it created, the federal government must now provide financial assistance so students can access post-secondary education, since transfer payments to the provinces for education have been slashed.
Neither the education savings bond program nor the enhancement of the Canada education savings grant are helping Quebec to provide quality education. The bill must be accompanied by an increase in the CHST, since now is when students in Quebec need financial assistance and a quality education, not just 18 years from now.
Correcting the fiscal imbalance and reinstating equitable transfers between provinces would permit the Government of Quebec, which is the best placed to understand the reality in Quebec, to support Quebec's students appropriately. Quebec already has a loans and scholarships program, which it could greatly improve if it had the funds provided for under the Canada Education Savings Act.
The budget of this program includes funding for the creation of a management system to administer the registration of children born after 2003. As well, there needs to be an advertising budget for encouraging families to take advantage of the new measures in this bill, in order to avoid a repetition of the situation with the guaranteed income supplement, with those eligible not having any idea that they were.
We are quite used to the federal propensity to underestimate costs. One need look no further than the firearms registry for an example.
The government has no idea what the annual costs of administering the measures announced in Bill C-5 will be. These will, according to it, be determined after an analysis of the first three years of the program's operation.
The Government of Quebec could have distributed this money to students in greatest need at no additional cost, if the Canadian health and social services transfer had been increased. We could then save the annual administration costs of the program, which total $13 million, and improve equalization payments to the provinces.
We also again deplore the federal disengagement from education. Since the early nineties, federal transfers for post-secondary education have dropped drastically, and this bill will not, of course, compensate for the 40% that has been lost
We have long been aware of the federal government's decision to give priority to debt repayment, excessive spending and its own bureaucracy, rather than to health, education and social services. That is how the fiscal imbalance was created. The federal contribution to total expenditures in education and social programs is now less than 12%.
Instead of creating a learning bond program, would it not be wiser for the government to give the provinces the means to fund their own educational system and to use part of the recently announced federal surplus of $9.1 billion to invest in youth?
Remedying fiscal imbalance would be an absolutely simple solution to the post-secondary education funding shortfall, and would result in a substantial increase in post-secondary funding.
The Quebec education system is suffering from insufficient resources because of the cuts to the transfer payments. Both financial resources and teaching resources are lacking, despite the valiant efforts made by the Government of Quebec with what little it has.
The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Canadian Federation of Students have also denounced the federal government's refusal to increase post-secondary education transfer payments by $4 billion to compensate for the cuts during the 1990s.
This money would have given Quebec more room to manoeuvre in order to reinvest in universities and reduce tuition fees. Over the past 40 years, Quebec has had the lowest rate of post-secondary enrolment in North America. In 1960, only 63% of students who entered primary school completed their seventh year, barely 13% of francophones completed 11 years of schooling and only 3% went on to university.
Quebec made a decision to increase access and the results have been spectacular. Enrolment in Quebec has almost reached the level of the rest of Canada in certain fields and has even surpassed it in others. This emphasis on accessibility is supported by three elements.
First, Quebec enjoys a level of public financing for education higher than that of the rest of Canada. Second, the tuition fees are lower. Unlike in Quebec, 75% of university under-funding in the rest of Canada is covered by tuition fees. In Quebec, average university tuition fees are $1,625 annually. In English Canada, they are three times higher, at $4,825 a year. Finally, Quebec has a more generous financial assistance program. Quebec is the only part of Canada with a program of loans and bursaries.
When they complete their studies, Quebec students face an average of $13,000 in debt, whereas students in other provinces are faced with a debt of $25,000. Once again, Quebec provides a model for Canada with its free education system.
In conclusion, when Ottawa wants to interfere in provincial jurisdictions, it is to standardize rules across Canada. But in a number of fields, Quebec stands out as an example, with specific programs better tailored to meet the needs of its population.
Given the current context, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-5, while reminding the government that if it were to accept its own responsibilities at last, and stop spending money on a vast range of programs that are expensive to administer, it could return to the provinces the money that rightfully belongs to them and that has been denied to them by the fiscal imbalance. In Quebec, we would be able to ensure once and for all the accessibility and quality of the higher education system.
