Thank you very much for your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, for me to speak on this motion. I, too, have not seen or am convinced that there are many benefits to people in my riding, but these higher end scholarships, as people have been telling me it’s called, and we are just barely graduating from our schools in the regions and this is something that is not really benefitting.
I do see a bit of a need for some merit-based system and as we deliberated this issue in our committee rooms, we found out through some
research from a colleague of mine, Mr. Glen Abernethy, that the original intent was a merit-based system to acknowledge hardworking students in our schools, in our graduate classes, in universities and to achieve the high, top marks. At that time, I think it was about 2001, it wasn’t an award that had a lot of money there, Mr. Speaker. It was a small award. I think it was $500 for high school, up to $1,500 for graduate programs, but now we’ve got this very bloated program. We’ve got like $10,000 for doctors, $5,000 for graduate programs and that’s something that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Employment is correct, it can’t sustain something like that. It will balloon up to like a $400,000 program and that kind of money can certainly be used in the smaller communities to support and sustain other programs that can assist our smaller communities as they move through our education system.
The motion speaks about…Maybe the Member can correct me if I’m wrong about some kind of prorated system where if you knock it down to 50 percent this year…That’s not something I can support either, Mr. Speaker.
I would support a return to the original programming at not a very significant cost, but to have a sense of entitlement, these people should continue with the graduated reduction in their scholarship is not something I can support at this time, Mr. Speaker. So I will be voting against the motion. Thank you.