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Results: 1 - 15 of 79
View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
Okay. I do have a chair's ruling on this, Mr. Julian, which I think you were expecting.
On Bill C-30, I'll read the one for clause 264 first. The other rulings on the other two amendments are basically the same, only with different acts.
Bill C-30 seeks to amend the Canada Student Loans Act to temporarily suspend interest and interest payments with respect to guaranteed student loans during the period that begins on April 1, 2021, and ends on March 31, 2023. The amendment attempts to suspend interest and interest payments by a borrower for an indeterminate period of time that begins on April 1, 2021, therefore extending the time the government would assume the payment of interest to the lender, which would result in increasing payments from the consolidated revenue fund. The amendment as proposed is inadmissible as it requires a royal recommendation since it imposes a new charge on the public treasury.
That relates to NDP-11.
The same wording, basically, relates to NDP-12, as it deals with the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act. It would be the same wording for NDP-13 on clause 266 as it relates to the Apprentice Loans Act.
On all three, I rule them inadmissible based on the need for a royal recommendation, since it imposes a new charge on the public treasury.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Yes. I'll just finish briefly. I haven't taken a lot of airtime over the last couple of days.
Given that it is the historical ability of the finance committee, with the government being pressed to provide a royal recommendation, I will appeal your decision to the committee, and the committee can decide whether they choose to overrule your decision and ultimately adopt these amendments. That, of course, increases pressure on the government to do the right thing and provide the royal recommendation.
View Wayne Easter Profile
Lib. (PE)
All right.
I will ask the clerk to go to a recorded vote on the chair's ruling.
(Ruling of the chair sustained: yeas 9; nays 2)
(Clauses 264 to 267 inclusive agreed to on division)
(On clause 268)
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Damsbaek. That was much appreciated.
We will turn, then, to division 31 and first nations elections. There is only one clause.
We'll go to Christopher Duschenes.
Does there need to be an explanation on this? I guess we had better. We might as well.
Go ahead.
Atiq Rahman
View Atiq Rahman Profile
Atiq Rahman
2021-05-17 17:27
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will make it very short.
I am the assistant deputy minister of the learning branch at Employment and Social Development Canada.
Division 30 proposes to waive interest accrual on Canada student loans and Canada apprentice loans for two years between April 1, 2021 and March 31, 2023. No interest will accrue during this period, ensuring that borrowers facing financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic can better manage their student debt as the economy recovers.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be happy to take questions.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will leave it to you to introduce the officials later on, but let me say thank you very much to the officials for being with us.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about Bill C-30, Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1.
After more than 14 months of uncertainty and challenges, Canadians are continuing to fight COVID-19, but we know there is light at the end of the tunnel. As we fight the third wave, more and more Canadians are getting vaccinated.
Bill C-30 is an essential piece of legislation that, once enacted, will allow us to implement our plan to finish the fight against COVID, create jobs and a swift recovery from the COVID recession and lay a foundation for robust, inclusive, green, long-term economic growth.
This budget is about helping middle-class Canadians, helping workers and helping more Canadians to join the middle class. It is about embracing this moment of global transformation to a greener, cleaner economy. It is a plan that will help Canadians and Canadian businesses heal the wounds of COVID and come roaring back.
First, we need to finish the fight against this virus. This bill includes a one-time payment of $4 billion to the provinces and territories to support their health care systems, support that is so essential as we fight the third wave. This is in addition to the $1 billion to support the provinces and territories as they ramp up their vaccine campaigns.
We are making progress in our vaccination efforts, and I know that team Canada can vaccinate even more Canadians even more quickly, and we will. I was vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine at a Toronto pharmacy 15 days ago, and I encourage all Canadians to get vaccinated as soon as it is their turn.
The pandemic has caused a recession, so we need to start by rolling out a comprehensive plan for jobs and growth, to address the disproportionate impact the recession has had on women, young people, racialized Canadians, low-wage workers and small business.
A cornerstone of our plan is a historic investment of $30 billion over five years, reaching $9.2 billion annually, in permanent investments to provide high-quality, affordable and accessible early learning and child care across Canada. Our goal is that within five years, families everywhere in Canada should have access to high-quality child care for an average of $10 a day. Dear colleagues from all political parties, let's make a commitment together today to all Canadians. Let's get this done.
I want to take a moment to recognize Quebec's leadership, especially that of feminist Quebeckers, who have led the way for the rest of Canada.
While we know better days are ahead, many families are still struggling. Around a million Canadians either remain out of work or are working significantly fewer hours than they were pre-pandemic. We must support hard-hit Canadians and businesses across the country so they can recover as soon as possible.
Bill C-30 includes emergency supports for Canadian workers, businesses and families.
The legislation extends the Canada emergency wage subsidy, the Canada emergency rent subsidy, and lockdown support through to September 25, 2021 which will help protect millions of jobs.
With this legislation, we are providing a bridge for people who are unable to work because of COVID by extending income supports, maintaining flexible access to EI benefits, and extending the EI sickness benefit from 15 to 26 weeks.
Bill C-30 also introduces a $15 an hour federal minimum wage. It expands the Canada workers benefit, extending income top-ups to about a million more low wage workers, and lifting nearly 100,000 Canadians out of poverty. These are measurable concrete steps to help Canadians who need help.
We must also help small business, the backbone of our economy and every main street in the country. To do that, we need to improve access to capital and help businesses hire more workers, in particular, through the new Canada recovery hiring program.
Young Canadians have made tremendous sacrifices this past year to protect their elders, and now, they need our collective support.
Through Bill C-30, we will make college and university more accessible and affordable by extending the waiver of interest accrual on federal student loans until March 2023. This will mean savings for more than 1.5 million Canadians repaying student loans. We will not let young Canadians become a lost generation.
Mr. Chair, I have spoken today about just a few of the measures included in Bill C-30, measures which will make a tangible positive difference in the lives of millions of Canadians.
This is a plan for jobs, growth and the middle class. It is a plan built around helping Canadians recover, succeed and thrive.
I recognize the critical role parliamentary committees play in scrutinizing government legislation, and I'm grateful to all of you for your hard work.
Bill C-30 is a historic first step towards recovery and new economic growth for future generations of Canadians.
I would be pleased to answer any questions you have as you study this critically important piece of legislation.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all our witnesses for coming here today. That includes the departmental witnesses. We hope your families continue to stay safe and healthy.
Congratulations, Madam Freeland, for shattering that glass ceiling as the first Canadian woman to present a national budget.
Now, the context of that national budget is that Canadians are suffering through an unparalleled crisis. At the same time, we've seen Canadian billionaires increase their wealth by $78 billion. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have not been able to return to work. Yet Bill C-30 slashes, in just a few weeks' time, as the third wave crashes on our shores—the most devastating wave yet—the CRB from $500 a week to $300 a week. At the same time, it does nothing to address the fact that Canadian students are having to pay back student loans during a pandemic.
Will the government accept amendments to ensure that the CRB is not slashed from $500 to $300 in the midst of a pandemic and that students get a debt moratorium so that they are not having to pay back student loans in the middle of this crisis?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Julian, thank you very much for the question and for your continued advocacy for low-wage workers and students.
Let me start with students. I do believe that this budget provides unprecedented support for students and young Canadians, with more than $5 billion in support for young Canadians. It includes support in three things, actually, in the Canada student grant—in extending to 2023, as I said in my remarks, the interest moratorium and also in lowering the amount and raising the income threshold at which Canadian students need to begin repaying their loan after they graduate. That is real support for our young people, and they deserve it.
I'm happy to talk about the CRB later on, if you would like. I see that you're wanting to speak, Mr. Julian.
Mr. Chair, maybe I've run out of my time for an answer.
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-11 17:03
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wasn't expecting a question in this round, so I'll treat it as a bonus.
Before I do, let me just put on the record my extraordinary disagreement with our colleague Ms. Jansen's perspective on the CERB. I can tell you the feedback that I heard, Minister, in my own community. During a time when people were being forced to stay at home to protect the health and well-being of their families and members of their communities, this is a program that made sure they could pay their rent and mortgages and put food on the table.
I want to direct my question towards the measures targeting young people, particularly students, in this budget.
Before I got into politics—in fact, before I got into anything—I was a student president at StFX University. Go X Go!
I see Wayne shaking his head up there; I'm a homer.
I was one of the folks who went to Ottawa to lobby MPs for important changes. Some of the things in this budget around extending a moratorium on interest on student loans, not requiring students to pay back their student loans until they're earning $40,000 a year, extending the doubling of the Canada student grant—which is going to cover, on average, 90% of the tuition for the lowest-income families in Canada—are all terrific measures. However, there is one in particular that I don't think has got the attention that it deserves. There is a new proposal in this budget that is going to ensure that students don't need to pay back their student loans if their monthly payments exceed 10% of their household income. I should say that they'll still be required to pay that portion back, but the amount beyond that 10% will be covered, both principle and interest, by the federal government.
In the case of students for whom, say, 10% of their monthly income is $400 a month and whose monthly payments are $650, this is going to extend hundreds of dollars every month to low-income students when they're trying to get their feet under them.
Could you tell me the motivation behind this policy and the importance of supporting young people? I'll add that the reason I care about this is that I think the next cure for cancer or the next business solution might be locked in the mind of some kid who can't afford to go to school. It's not just that kid who loses out when he or she can't get an education; it's every single one of us.
If you could highlight the importance of some of these measures to make sure that we can improve the affordability of an education, I would be grateful.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Fraser.
I do want to start by underscoring, as I did in my reply to Ms. Jansen, the strength of my agreement with you about the CERB and the CRB. Our government really stepped in when literally millions of Canadians through no fault of their own were suddenly left without a job and without the ability to find a job. I am really, really glad that we took action to support them. I want to say to those Canadians that we will continue to be there. The support is there to September 25.
On students, again I find myself in violent agreement with you, Mr. Fraser. When it comes to the unprecedented support for students in this budget, let me offer three motivations.
I really believe that young Canadians have made a huge and very particular sacrifice during the pandemic. They have curtailed their social lives and many of them have had to learn virtually. They've really done it for us, for their parents and for their grandparents. I think we owe it to them to support them now.
There is a robust body of academic research suggesting that if you graduate into a recession, your lifetime prospects on everything from income to likelihood of having children to likelihood of marriage to even your health can be stunted. This budget really believes in supporting young Canadians. It does that through the measures to support students that you listed and through aggressive action to create work experience and job opportunities. About 500,000 work experience and job opportunities will be created in this budget.
Nicole Brayiannis
View Nicole Brayiannis Profile
Nicole Brayiannis
2021-04-20 16:05
Thank you, Chairperson.
Thank you to the committee for inviting the Canadian Federation of Students to speak on this issue.
I want to start out by acknowledging the privilege that comes with addressing you today, as I ask you to join in paying respects to the original caretakers of the land where I reside, in so-called Pickering, Ontario, who are the Anishinabe, the Haudenosaunee and the Mississauga of the Credit peoples.
To share a bit of context, the Canadian Federation of Students is the oldest and largest student organization in Canada. We represent more than 530,000 students across the country, and our membership includes both domestic and international students at the college, undergraduate and graduate levels, including full- and part-time students.
I want to emphasize how proud I am of the student leaders who, for over a year, have been tirelessly lobbying for improved support. From parliamentary petitions signed by nearly 10,000 Canadians, to a federal lobby week dedicated to a “Just Recovery for Students”, we have been calling on our elected officials for adequate financial support.
This pandemic has proven to be a struggle across sectors. As classes shifted online and work became even more precarious, we continued to see students experiencing new and enhanced challenges to accessing post-secondary education.
While we appreciate the more than $9-billion student investment made last April, we want to address the ongoing shortfalls experienced by students and the PSE sector as a whole. To date, as reported yesterday within budget 2021, more than $2 billion remains unspent.
Instead, students have received a failed $912-million Canada student service grant, inaccessible exclusion criteria for centralized financial relief supports and a six-month moratorium on federal student loans that ended in October 2020. In fact, students spent weeks fighting for the Canada emergency student benefit, only to receive less funding support and to have it endure for less than half of the pandemic.
Therefore, our first recommendation is to uphold commitments to students and graduates by allocating the remainder of unused funds to expand the current and any future financial relief programs to include every domestic and international student and recent graduate. Alongside this, students need an investment in accessible mental health supports that are adequately funded and staffed to address the very real threat of a youth mental health crisis.
As youth unemployment hovers around 20%, following a record-breaking 29% in May 2020, students need a commitment from their elected officials to lay the foundation for a stable future. While the Canada summer jobs program holds value in providing youth opportunities for employment, it excludes international students and those over the age of 30.
Amidst ever-changing familial and personal situations, relief for every person living in this country needs to be readily available, without the stipulation and added barrier of productivity demanded only of young people in this challenging time.
Budget 2021 also promises to continue the doubling of the Canada student grants program for an additional two years, which will assist many students with continuing their studies into the next academic year. Alongside this, we need to see a focus on more permanent measures for low-income students and sustainable investments into the post-secondary education sector.
Our PSE system has been increasingly underfunded since the late 1970s and now faces extreme precarity, as we've seen in recent events with the collapse of Laurentian University in Ontario. Therefore, our second recommendation is to invest in the targeted funding of federal grants, with the intention to move to a universal framework that matches 50% of student tuition costs in each province and territory.
Canada is one of the only G7 countries without a federal post-secondary education act. To stay competitive on a global scale and continue to attract and retain talent within this country, our government needs to be investing in the education sector to see large-scale advancement.
In order to ensure that money is being effectively spent, we need a holistic approach to understanding the impacts of this pandemic. As part of this process, the PBO has been tasked, on the federation's behalf, with producing estimates and cost frameworks for this short- and long-term grant-matching program, federal student debt elimination strategies and annual program values to ensure investment adjustments with inflation, enrolment growth and institutional costs.
Yesterday's budget also waives the accrual of interest on student loans for the next two years and increased the income repayment threshold for borrowers living alone to $40,000.
This is a step in the right direction, but our third recommendation is to listen to student calls for the reintroduction of moratoriums until at least December 2021, implement a stopgap urgent loan forgiveness program and permanently eliminate interest on student loans.
Debt creates economic drag and causes students to delay making large purchases and life choices, and actually reverses the positive, upward mobility associated with pursuing a post-secondary degree. Now more than ever, the PSE sector is going to be critical in advancing our country forward. Re-skilling will be key to upkeep with the technological and virtual shift we've seen this past year, as well as prepare us for the parallel need for a greener economy.
In a just social and economic recovery from COVID-19, student and post-secondary issue prioritization will be critical in rebuilding Canada.
The Canadian Federation of Students appreciates being a part of this consultation to address these needs, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
View Brandon Rhéal Amyot Profile
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
2021-04-19 12:17
[Witness spoke in Ojibwe and provided the following text:]
Aaniin kina wiya.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Hello, everyone.
[English]
My name is Brandon Rhéal Amyot. I'm student at Lakehead University in Orillia and a co-organizer with the Don't Forget Students campaign. I am speaking to you from the territory of the Chippewa Tri-Council of Rama, Beausoleil and Georgina. These are lands under the Williams Treaties and the Dish With One Spoon wampum, long stewarded by the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat. I mention this not just because it's important to recognize the land, but because of the impact that the pandemic has had on indigenous peoples and, in particular, indigenous students and students of diverse communities.
Members, I speak to you today to raise a grave concern about the impact of the pandemic on post-secondary education, students and recent graduates. This pandemic has taken an immeasurable toll on our financial outlook, our job prospects, our quality of education and, most important, our mental health and community health.
In the past year, students and recent graduates have fought hard to get governments to listen and to act. At the beginning of the pandemic, we called for the CERB to be extended to students and recent graduates. After almost two months of advocacy, the Canada emergency student benefit was launched. This provided four months of relative stability and support for students and recent graduates, but hundreds of thousands of international students and recent graduates were not eligible, and recent graduates who are still in search of jobs and who were not eligible for CERB also could not access this program.
The other large program, the Canada student service grant, as you all know, did not end up rolling out and also did not equitably address the impact of the pandemic on students. In the end and to date, of the over $9 billion originally promised for aid to students through the pandemic, $3.2 billion remains unspent. If I'm to be frank, I feel that politics came before students and before responding to the impact this pandemic has had on us, the post-secondary system and our communities.
We're now 13 months into this pandemic, and I probably don't need to tell you that here in Ontario, where I live and attend university, new COVID-19 cases have hit an all-time high. This third wave is particularly impacting me and other young people across the province and across the country.
The toll this has had on my mental health is difficult to measure, and it's difficult to measure the impact it has had on our mental health for all of us post-secondary students, but research just this past November from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations and others paints a bleak picture—one that I'm living in. The lack of attention to post-secondary from all levels of government during the pandemic and the legacy of systemic underfunding have led to the pandemic being able to wreak havoc not only on our education, but on our lives.
Most recently, one of the casualties was Laurentian University. This is the product of mismanagement, systemic policy failures and underfunding, and it's not only billions of dollars lost in economic activity but a community ripped apart. These systemic issues are not unique to one school. They are present in this system across the country.
Students and recent graduates were barely making ends meet as it was, and we're barely making ends meet now. Despite the picture that is sometimes painted, we are not a homogenous group of recently graduated high-schoolers. Students are parents, caretakers and workers. Some of us, including me, are disabled and are struggling to cope. This is not an environment conducive to learning, and it is not an environment conducive to innovation.
Meanwhile, recent graduates and those about to graduate are facing one of the worst job markets in a generation and will be crushed under the weight of record high student debt and unreasonable payments. What possible justification is there for collecting student debt payments and interest during a pandemic? In the best of times, these payments are difficult to make. We have to find a better way, not just to get us through the COVID-19 pandemic, but to fully realize the potential of post-secondary education in this country as a part of a social, environmental and economic recovery.
In the short term, all funds that were originally allocated to students—and additional funds—need to be invested towards supporting us through the pandemic. This means relaunching the Canada emergency student benefit—or whatever you want to call it—in May and including international students in the eligibility. It means including all soon-to-be-graduating and recently graduated students in direct supports. It also means extending the moratorium on student loan debt and interest payments until at least the end of the pandemic, with commitments to significant student debt relief.
We have to think about the long term, and that means systemic investments in post-secondary students and education. It means expanding the Canada student service grant with a goal of returning to a fifty-fifty cost-sharing model. It means increasing funding to institutions, and it means creating a federal vision for a universal post-secondary system in collaboration with students, workers and academics.
With these measures, the government can begin to address the impact that the pandemic has had on students and our mental health and well-being, and the long-standing inequities and gaps within the post-secondary system.
In closing, I want to thank this committee for reaching out to hear from students, and I urge members to take action.
Meegwetch.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Brandon.
I want to zero in on a few things. I want to preface by saying that I know every single Canadian has been terribly affected by the COVID crisis, but I think that seniors and young people have particularly had their lives disrupted in certain ways—I think students in particular in that regard. I want to ask you a couple of specific questions.
What would be your recommendation to the federal government in terms of the appropriate policy to handle student debt and interest payments for student loans at the federal level?
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
View Brandon Rhéal Amyot Profile
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
2021-04-19 12:48
I think that, short term, obviously we need to get through this pandemic. We shouldn't be charging recent graduates interest and student debt payments. We paused it for the first six months of the pandemic, so I believe the federal government should work with the provinces and territories to refreeze payments to the National Student Loans Service Centre for the remainder of the pandemic. Long term, we should be looking at progressively and aggressively writing off student debt federally—the federal portion—and urging the provinces to do the same because, at this point, we have reached a critical junction in post-secondary policy and in terms of student debt. It is not in the economic interest of Canada to continue to burden people with student debt.
Particularly if we're talking about the marginalized communities in Canada—low-income students, indigenous students, women—they have a longer and harder time paying off student debt than their peers. If we're looking at this through an equity lens too, we need to acknowledge that. We should be working towards the progressive elimination of student debt, but in the short term, student-loan interest payments and debt payments.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Just so that I'm clear, Brandon, right now as we speak, are graduates paying federal interest on their student debts?
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
View Brandon Rhéal Amyot Profile
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
2021-04-19 12:49
It's my understanding that a freeze on interest has been implemented or is about to be implemented. They are still making hundreds of dollars in payments a month; there's just no interest. Frankly, the removal of interest is not sufficient, not during the pandemic and not in the best of times.
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