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HRPD Committee Report

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Committee Report

BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS DISSENTING OPINION
on
the Report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development on assistance for post-secondary students

It is disturbing to find that the Report completely ignores the root cause of students’ financial problems: the deep cuts in the social transfers that used to be put toward post-secondary education. The Report is also full of federalist contradictions: on the one hand, it recommends improvements to the Canada Student Loan Program; on the other, the Committee seems to have seen the writing of the Report as an opportunity to propose a whole series of measures that could only mean political interference and/or unnecessary duplication in an area of purely provincial jurisdiction.

A little history

The Canada Student Loan Program was set up in 1964. That same year, Quebec took advantage of its right to opt out with full compensation, and set up its own system of loans and bursaries, which has greatly expanded since. In May 1991, both Liberals and Péquistes in Quebec’s National Assembly joined in support of a motion condemning the federal government’s unacceptable desire, as expressed in its Speech from the Throne, to become more involved in education. The motion went on to insist that the Quebec government should take all necessary steps to put a stop to this encroachment.

Again in 1991, Quebec’s then Minister of Higher Education and Science, Lucienne Robillard, reiterated the position of Quebec’s Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Gil Rémillard: the Quebec government has exclusive jurisdiction over education. Le Devoir of August 22, 1991, reported that Ms Robillard was denouncing federal encroachment after Ottawa had frozen transfer payments for Quebec’s institutions of higher learning for several years. The more things change, the more they stay the same . . .

More recently, in response to the announcement of the Millennium Scholarships, even the Liberal Party’s spokesman in Quebec, Henri-François Gautrin, demanded that the moneys ear-marked for this program be repatriated to Quebec and used for our own loans and bursaries. And lastly, the testimony of the only two Quebec organizations that appeared before the Committee, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec, representing a total of 225,000 students, made clear from the start their deep disquiet at having to discuss with the Committee an exclusively provincial matter.

The Bloc Québécois’s objections

First, let us recall that the Bloc Québécois objects strongly to any attempt, whether explicit or not, to impose national standards in education. That is why the Bloc rejects Recommendation 1.

The Report contains the following recommendations on a system of grants and scholarships:

The Government of Canada should put in place a system of grants that would support post-secondary students in their first and second year of education at recognized institutions. These grants should be awarded according to a formula that takes into account both the need and the academic merit of eligible candidates.

The Government of Canada should design the Millennium Scholarship Endowment Fund to complement existing federal and provincial loans, grants and scholarship programs.

While the government has at least acknowledged that students are in a difficult financial situation, the solutions it is proposing do not take into account the real cause of the problem, which is the massive cuts it has made in social transfers. Moreover, in Quebec’s case the proposals are pointless, duplicating measures already put in place by the Quebec government. It is essential that the share of this funding -- and of any funding designed to enhance the CSLP -- that would go to Quebec be paid to the Quebec government, unconditionally, so that it can improve its own program. As far as students in the rest of Canada are concerned, we think it is vitally important that the new scholarships be awarded on the basis of need only. Access to education must be as wide as possible, irrespective of a student’s marks. As the representative of the FEUQ pointed out,

If the federal government intends to award its scholarships on the basis of merit, or excellence, we can only disagree. By analogy, this would mean that unemployment insurance should only be paid to the most productive workers! It doesn’t make sense ... To link the bread and butter of the least-well-off students to their performance in class reflects an ideology that we cannot accept.

The Bloc also objects to the idea of Quebec’s educational institutions being made to help promote federal initiatives when Quebec has its own system of loans and bursaries and offers its own training programs.

The Bloc’s recommendations

1.	The federal government must stop intervening in education. It must not go ahead with the creation of new programs for the education sector when it is clear that these will simply multiply bureaucratic structures and, more serious still, increase costs for the taxpayer.
2.	In the event that the federal government goes ahead with any program of bursaries or grants to students, or with the Millennium Scholarships, the Quebec government should use its right to opt out with full and unconditional compensation.
3.	Considering that Quebec is losing transfers worth some $13 billion between 1993 and 2003, the best solution to the problem of student indebtedness, whether in Quebec or elsewhere, is to tackle the problem at its source and restore to the provinces what has been drained away from them.
4.	The Committee should give careful consideration to the Bloc Québécois’s proposals for improving conditions for students, as set out in the Bloc’s February 1997 document entitled "Personal Taxation: Critical Analysis and Recommendations".

Conclusion

Despite all the claims made over many years by the people of Quebec, the Committee’s Report simply ignores the whole issue of Quebec and education by proposing that, to help students, the federal government invade this exclusively provincial area of jurisdiction and duplicate or overlap provincial programs. We have said it before and we say it again: the Quebec government is fully aware of the problems facing Quebec students, and of the increasingly decisive role of education in our technological era. To this end, it is already implementing its own policies, despite Ottawa’s unfeeling cuts in transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education, and it is continuing to invest massively in education for its people. Once again, the only conclusion open to Quebeckers who care about maintaining a productive and effective education system is that sovereignty is their best option.