Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Mr. Ootes for that answer. He raised some of these in his answer, but one of the things our committee wants to ensure is that when we do have this overall broader literacy strategy, we are not just talking about school years in the school system. There are broader issues in the North that we have to look at. There are health issues.
Obviously, people without basic levels of literacy cannot read instructions on prescription medication. They cannot fill out an application to rent an apartment. They cannot do a lot of things. They cannot function in our society. They are unable to find gainful employment.
I think we would like to see the focus be at a really broad level, and tie in and work with and concentrate on families, not just individuals. I think it makes a lot more sense to focus on the family as a unit and help the family learn as one.
The Minister mentioned head start programs. We think these are critical and it is an obvious and logical tie-in to literacy and family, as is work place literacy at the other end. We have heard in committee briefings from organizations like BHP, who are now faced with the reality that in order to get people up to speed and able to work at their mine, they are going to have to spend considerable money on training, basic literacy and numeric type of things, so these people can be employed.
Certainly the department has to be working with them and understanding what sort of things they can do. I think the focus for us has to be broad. It has to involve families. It has to involve the workplace and it has to be tied into head start and early childhood education.
I think this committee looks forward to seeing the work the department does in this area. The Minister may have already committed to providing us with this, but I would like to get a copy of the literacy directive the Minister was discussing earlier. If possible, could he also supply that to our committee?
I would also like to talk here if I could about student financial assistance. We did get some assurance from the Minister that he was going to look at some of the issues. He realized there were ongoing concerns and he was going to deal with them expeditiously, I believe he said in the House.
There are two real concerns I would like to get back to here. There are many concerns with the way the program is being administered, starting from the hundred and some odd page booklet. However, the two key things for me are this issue of grandfathering and the issue of transition to the new program.
I think the committee feels that our concerns were not heard when we discussed this with the Minister and the department, or not understood. Because we do not feel they were reflected in the new regulations.
With grandfathering, we are concerned there are students who were formerly told they would receive levels of funding, and now with the changes, they will no longer qualify. I use the example of residency versus years of schooling. If I was a resident and I was in my second year of university and I had my high schooling in the south because my folks lived here but sent me out to boarding school, I used to be able to get grants. That is no longer the case.
I could be two years through a degree now and with the way that the department has chosen to interpret this, be left out in the cold. It is simply not fair and it defeats the purpose. We have already spent some money to get these people to this level. We do not understand why we are now going to turn around and hang them out to dry.
As far as transition, it also does not make sense to us that if you used up three or four years of your funding under the old system that you are now eligible for lesser funding than if you have used up one or two years. The argument was made, and Mr. Ootes will make the argument again, that it is a matter of money and he did commit to the transition and ensuring that the benefits would be there for students currently in the system.
However, it has to be done in a cost-effective manner, and there were cost considerations and it was deemed to be too expensive. I do not think this committee accepts that. I do not think we are talking about a large number of students. We do have the deputy here today. I am certain when they ran the projections on the new program, they knew exactly what it was going to cost to allow continuing students to receive the new level of benefits.
I would like to hear today from the Minister with his staff exactly what kind of dollars we were talking about to extend the new program equally for everybody, and ensure that everybody had the added benefit of the new semesters, in dollars, please. Thank you.