Madam Speaker, the resolution reads:
That this House censure any action by the federal government in the area of education, such as the introduction of the millennium fund scholarship program or national testing.
Our caucus will be voting against it. In the beginning I must say that I agree almost completely with the member for Vancouver East who just spoke. She sort of put the problem with students in perspective. We will be voting against the motion for three or four reasons. However, in reality there is only one reason and that is students.
There is a crisis in student education, student debt loads, student access to employment and educated students who are leaving the country. Any parent or any student realizes that students in this modern age require the best education that is humanly possible to achieve and receive.
That is simply not happening in Canada any more. Somewhere down the road there will be significant problems with our economy, with our society and with our social structure because we have not allowed as many people to become educated to their limit as should have happened in this industrial age, this information age and beyond.
There are supposedly 50,000 high tech jobs that we cannot fill. The Government of Canada actually changes the immigration laws to allow people to come into our country to fill those jobs. At the same time 1.5 million Canadians are unemployed. Of those 1.5 million Canadians, over 400,000 are young people below the age of 25. That is a very significant problem and a real shame. On the one hand we have people who are unemployed and on the other hand we have jobs that go unfilled by Canadian people.
We also have the problem of education. That is where the correlation comes in. Why do we have jobs unfilled and people unemployed? It is because we do not have the high level of education these people absolutely require. There is a direct correclation between employment and education. This is why we have, especially with our youth, an unemployment rate of 18% and over every single day, every single month in every single year in Canada.
Since the government took office we have had an unemployment rate for youth in excess of 18% on average. If we break down the averages and take a look at what the unemployment rate is for the uneducated, we will probably see that for those with less than high school the unemployment rate is in excess of 40% every day, every month in every year.
Education is obviously the means to an end to make the country strong, to allow us to export and to allow us to conduct research and development. We cannot do that with an uneducated populace.
The problem is so huge that it requires all participants to be involved and to co-operate. When I say all participants, I mean first and foremost the students themselves who must realize the value of an education and what they can contribute to themselves, their families and the country if they are educated.
Parents of all students must be involved and must realize that the best thing they can do for their children is to encourage them in all ways possible to get the best education.
It is also a case where our universities, vocational, trade and technical schools and private schools have to make education as accessible as possible, which means keeping tuition fees under control and providing good research opportunities. It also means provincial governments have to be involved in a very aggressive and meaningful way to make sure that our students are educated to the very best of their individual abilities.
We are voting against the resolution. The Government of Canada has to be involved in showing leadership by supplying funding to make sure that Canada and Canadian citizens, especially those in the weaker financial provinces like Newfoundland, have equal opportunity with every other province of Canada. It should be a joint partnership of students, parents, institutions, provinces and the federal government to try to solve this terrible sickness that has overtaken our education system.
The real reason we are voting against the motion is that we do not think any government or any political party should deny access to funding for students simply because of jurisdictional disputes. The problem is too grave. I sincerely doubt if any parent in Newfoundland, British Columbia or Quebec would turn down lower tuition rates or a scholarship for one of their children if it makes education more accessible and more financially available.
The student situation, as I say, is by far the most pertinent. However funding of post-secondary education has always been a joint venture between the Government of Canada and the provinces. This is not something new.
Nobody in the House would deny that education is and always has been a provincial responsibility. The direction of education within the provinces, the setting of policies and the choosing of curricula are all provincial responsibilities with which we fully agree. We have no intention of encouraging the Government of Canada to interfere in any way with the rights of the provinces to deliver the education system that the people and the government of a province put in place.
I am from the province of Newfoundland and represent St. John's West. I do not see it as a federalist plot to destroy the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador if a cheque comes to a student attending one of our schools that is flying a Canadian flag. We see it as a case where the federal government has a responsibility and if it has the financial wherewithal we will happily take its contributions if it allows more of our students to be educated.
I have a couple of other reasons. We have problems with the millennium fund, but I acknowledge the finance minister's budget at least began to address the problem.
We do not think the millennium fund was the way to do it but I will give credit to the finance minister for identifying in the budget that there is a huge problem in post-secondary education in the country, and at least by recognizing it hopefully he will address it.
I will also give great credit to the student groups of this country who have put significant pressure on all levels of government and all politicians to try to somehow address this very serious problem of the cost of education.
We agree there are serious problems with the millennium fund. The $2.5 billion will not be refused by any of the students in Canada but the real problem of advanced education is the fact that there is tremendous debtload today. We have 1.5 million students in this country and many of them have never worked a day in their lives except for part time work. This means 1.5 million young Canadians owe $7 billion. They will spend most of the next 20 years or 25 years trying to repay it.
We think that is the sickness of the Canadian post-secondary education system. It is the reason why we think the federal government should be involved. Somehow we have to make education both accessible and affordable.
The federal government must take responsibility because it has caused this crisis in education by unilaterally cutting back to the provinces on transfers to education and social programs. The cutbacks amount to 37% or well over $6 billion to education and health care in the last five years. It is a shame because it has simply transferred the tax burden from the federal government which has balanced its books to the provinces which cannot balance theirs. The provinces pass it on to universities, and universities and schools pass it on to students, and students in many cases pass it on to their parents.
There is a very serious problem with our post-secondary situation and the only way to deal with it is to put more money into the system.
We are also against any unilateral action by the federal government. I want to make that absolutely clear to my colleagues from the province of Quebec.
Unilateral action by the federal government is what got us into so much trouble with both health and education. We are not saying, even in the area of national testing, that there should be unilateral action. Our party has recommended it because we see it as a tremendous need for the country to know where our students stack up, whether they are from Newfoundland, Quebec or B.C., and where Canadian students stack up against those from Sweden, the U.S. and other countries with which we compete.
We are against unilateral action but we are very strongly in favour of co-operation among all the agencies, including the federal government which has leadership and the financial wherewithal to try to resolve the problem of the post-secondary education system in Canada. For those reasons we will be voting against the motion.
