Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I think that one thing I seem to be missing here is the whole priority of where we are as a government and where we see ourselves going in the future. When we talk about 70 percent of our finances going into the social and health envelope implementing programs and services for this government and yet any bureaucracy, it does not matter if you are Japanese, American, German, whatever, is based on the economics of the country which is based on the strength of the people that are in that country.
When we talk about generating revenues, when we talk about generating jobs, when we talk about finding new entrepreneurs out there to get involved in businesses and trying to be independent from government, from society, from becoming a social burden on society, we talk about education like it is something that is costing us money, but I think we have to turn the focus on exactly what are we doing here and where is the priority of this government. I think you have to consider that statistics have proven that if people are uneducated and do not have the basic skills to manage life on their own or to be independent from government and also be able to be hired because of having an educational background to take on jobs, responsibilities, that we will continue to see statistics where the Minister made some comment if it is costing this government $40,000 a year to house a student in a hostile setting. But you do not look at the other side where it is costing this government $80,000 a year to incarcerate somebody into our jail system. I think we have to look at where is this government spending its money and where the majority of these dollars are being spent. For myself, I feel that we have to put a priority on education and spend the money now because in the future statistics have proven that you either pay for it now or pay for it tenfold, ten years down the road. So we might be spending $1.6 million now and if we continue on the way we are, then in 10 years we will be spending over a billion dollars on education.
If you look at the statistical envelope of this government we are spending large portions of dollars to incarcerate people. People who are now a ward of the state in which by institutionalizing people, getting them into the social system without allowing them to continue on with their education and being able to succeed in life knowing that education is one of the most important aspects of life that we will have to go through and ensuring that those people who go through the education system at the end of the day will be successful and will not be a burden on society. So I think we have to take a look at exactly what has this government done to consider statistics of exactly what it is going to cost this government to continue running the system as it is by shortchanging the education system now and what will the cost to this government be in ten years?
So has the Minister's department considered the implication of the cost to this government for continuing on with the education system as it is going today which, from all responses we get from the government and this department, there is no money. So without the money we are having with regard to the dropout rates, the incarceration rates, the costs involved in health care and the cost for public housing of this government, has this department considered looking at the social and economic statistics in regard to this government, say five or ten years down the road, if we continue on the route we are going?