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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 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 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.
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.
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.
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
View Brandon Rhéal Amyot Profile
Brandon Rhéal Amyot
2021-04-19 13:00
Thank you, and I apologize for my cut-off.
I was actually about to touch on the fact that Internet has been an issue for post-secondary education across the country. Even in bigger cities, it's an issue. I have missed many a class because my Internet cuts out, as it just did here, so now I'm on mobile data.
To answer your question regarding the federal budget today, we need to go bold with our post-secondary policy on funding. During the pandemic, we need to reimplement the Canada emergency student benefit. We need to extend it to international students. We need to put a moratorium on student loan debt repayment and interest. In the long term, we need to increase federal transfers to the provinces for post-secondary grants for students to reduce the amount of debt we have to take on.
We need to increase institutional funding, and the federal government should create a federal post-secondary education committee. We are the only G7 nation with no federal oversight of post-secondary education. It is time to get bold, when it comes to post-secondary policy, so that Canada can really stand out on the world stage.
View Carla Qualtrough Profile
Lib. (BC)
Helping to provide relief for students' debt obligations was, as you know, one of the first things we did when the pandemic hit. In the fall economic statement, we have committed—I think it was around $329 million, but I'll confirm—to provide immediate relief to all student loan borrowers through a one-year interest waiver, which I guess is the best way to describe it.
Again, we're looking at the way forward through our budget preparations, and I will have more to say on additional supports for students in the coming months.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to be with you virtually today. Accompanying me virtually from the Department of Finance are Maude Lavoie, Dave Beaulne, Trevor McGowan, Lesley Taylor and Nicolas Moreau.
I'd like to begin by acknowledging that today is a sombre anniversary. It is one year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the WHO.
On this national day of observance, I know that all of us honour the memories of all those who have lost their lives to this disease, and we have the deepest compassion, I know, all of us in this committee, for their families and their loved ones.
To the extraordinary Canadians who have been serving on the front lines in our country's fight against COVID-19, to personal support workers in long-term care facilities, to all of our health care workers and to the essential workers keeping food on our shelves, from cashiers to truck drivers, let me just say thank you.
I'm happy to be with you, parliamentary colleagues, to talk about Bill C-14, which would implement several important and necessary measures from the fall economic statement, which I tabled last November 30.
For over a year now, Canadians have been coping with an unprecedented crisis that is still in progress. But spring is coming and there will be better days ahead.
Until we've got COVID-19 under control, our government will do everything it can for as long as it's needed to help Canadians get through the crisis. From the beginning of the pandemic, the Government of Canada has done everything in its power to get the virus under control and limit its economic impacts. So far, $8 out of every $10 spent in Canada to combat COVID-19 and help Canadians came from the federal government.
In the 2020 fall economic statement, we set out a detailed plan to protect Canadians, jobs and companies in Canada during the pandemic's second wave. We took rapid action to meet these commitments.
By supporting Canadian businesses, jobs and families, not only were we helping our communities get through a difficult winter, but also preventing economic after-effects. This support will allow for a full and robust economic recovery once the virus is totally under control.
Bill C-14 is an important component of our government's economic plan. It makes it possible to move forward with the emergency measures outlined in the economic statement designed to provide immediate assistance to families with young children, students and businesses, in addition to measures to protect the health and safety of Canadians.
When we debate Bill C-14, here is what is concretely hanging in the balance.
The fall economic statement announced a new $1 billion safe long-term care fund to help provinces and territories protect seniors. Of this, Bill C-14 would provide $505.7 million immediately, while our need is most urgent, to support long-term care facilities over the coming months to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to help prevent outbreaks and deaths in supportive care facilities.
In addition, we have proposed, through this bill, to provide up to $395.6 million to support a range of health initiatives to help Canadians cope during the pandemic and to continue our fight against the virus with vaccine funding and development, testing and treatment.
The challenges brought on by this pandemic have caused great hardship for Canadian families with young children and brought unanticipated costs. Bill C-14 proposes to provide immediate relief for low- and middle-income families with young children who are entitled to the Canada child benefit by providing up to $1,200 in 2021 for each child under the age of six. Families that have a net income at or below $120,000 would receive four tax-free payments of $300. Families entitled to the CCB who have a net income above $120,000 would receive four tax-free payments of $150, for a total benefit of $600.
This temporary assistance would directly benefit more than 1.5 million families and more than two million children at a time when many are still grappling with the financial impacts of the pandemic.
If I can speak personally for one moment, I am hearing so clearly from my neighbours and constituents who have young children just how hard COVID is for them. I know we would all love to give them this extra support. As you all know, we can't get it to them until Bill C-14 receives royal assent.
Our government is also working to protect the future of students who had to leave school or who were unable to obtain summer internships or jobs.
Through Bill C-14 we will eliminate interest on repayment of the federal portion of Canada student loans and Canada apprentice loans for 2021-2022. This important measure will provide $329.4 million to 1.4 million Canadians who are looking for work or who are in the early stages of their career.
The bill also formalizes an amendment to the Income Tax Act that will allow the Canada emergency rent subsidy to recognize rent payable as an eligible expense, provided certain conditions are met.
As members of this committee will recall, the Canada Revenue Agency is currently administering the rent subsidy with rent payable as an eligible expense. This is because the businesses relying on this subsidy told us that it was what they needed, and all of us listened. Not all small businesses have the cash flow to pay their rent on the first of the month with the reimbursement to come later. This bill ensures that those small businesses can get the support they need. Again, I'm sure we've all heard from small businesses in our ridings who really need that support.
Additionally, Bill C-14 authorizes payments to Canada's six regional development agencies for the regional relief and recovery fund. The government announced the $962-million fund on April 17, and then expanded it to $1.5 billion on October 2. As a next step, Bill C-14 proposes a further top-up, to $2 billion, for this fund. It helps support businesses that for one reason or another are unable to access other federal pandemic support programs.
The point I'm making here is really simple: The measures in Bill C-14 are essential. Canadian families and Canadian businesses need this support to get through the crisis.
Colleagues, today let's set aside partisan sparring and work together to support the people all of us serve. I welcome vigorous debate, care and study. Indeed, debate has been central to Canada's response to COVID-19 so far. Our government has received constructive input from all parties, very much including all the members of this committee. I recognize the critical role parliamentary committees play in scrutinizing government legislation. I understand that the opposition's formal role is to oppose, and that delay forms part of the opposition tool kit in the Westminster parliamentary system. I get that. When I was first elected, I sat in the opposition benches. I asked questions in committee of the member for Abbotsford, who now sits in this committee with us all, when he served as trade minister.
That said, it is now time for us to move forward. Canadians need the concrete support this bill offers, and they need it urgently. At second reading, some of our colleagues on the opposition benches set partisan politics aside to do what is best for Canadians and supported the bill. I was frankly surprised that the Conservatives chose to do the opposite. I was surprised they did that even as they put forward an opposition day motion urging the government to support small business.
I say to my Conservative colleagues, on this committee and in the House, that—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Julian, I'm really glad you raised students. In my opening remarks, I singled out the importance of Bill C-14 in allowing us to provide more support for students. It is really important to me, and you're right to raise the issue.
What I would say, collectively, is that we need to understand that the three groups that have been hardest hit by losing their jobs are youth, women and low-wage workers—particularly racialized and new Canadians. We need to be sure that our support is targeted there.
Mabel Tung
View Mabel Tung Profile
Mabel Tung
2021-02-17 18:14
Ever since Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997 its people have strived to protect their way of life and their system of government. In July 2020, China imposed a sweeping national security law, stripping the city of any remnants of autonomy, civil and social freedom. Tens of thousands turned out to protest this new legislation. Thousands were arrested and hundreds were imprisoned.
In 2021, the mass arrests have intensified. Pro-democracy legislators, democracy activists, a media tycoon and a human rights lawyer are on the list. Some are held, being denied bail.
Many Hong Kongers who participated in the movement fear they will face the same fate as the student protesters in Tiananmen Square 32 years ago. They look to western democracies for protection and safe harbour. Already 46 Hong Kong citizens are seeking asylum in Canada.
We urge the Government of Canada to lend support to Hong Kongers seeking political asylum. We welcome the new open work permits for Hong Kong residents announced by Minister Mendicino as a major step when it comes to helping young activists become integrated into Canadian society.
To make the new policy more accessible to activists under imminent persecution, we submit the following recommendations:
First, appoint a designated commissioner within the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong to handle, with utmost confidentiality, cases from political asylum seekers, including vetting, background checking and evidence gathering to establish the validity of their claims. This commissioner can enlist the help of prominent Canadian civil rights organizations such as VSSDM, which have direct connections with Hong Kong civil society. In urgent situations, we recommend providing temporary resident permits with special quotas to activists who need to leave Hong Kong and complete the application process within Canada.
Second, broaden family reunification, including for siblings and extended family. This would be another way for more young activists to flee Hong Kong. Again, in urgent situations, we also recommend providing temporary resident permits to activists who need to leave Hong Kong and complete their application within Canada.
Third, provide grants or loans to asylum seekers. Instead of applying for refugee status, asylum seekers would receive a loan to further their studies and they would pay back the loan in the same way that one pays back student loans. This way the federal government would not be required to pay any financial assistance, thereby saving taxpayers' money. Furthermore, this would save the activists from having to live through a year of uncertainty.
Number four, support former Canadian citizens who returned to Hong Kong and ran for public office in the pan-democracy camp. These Canadians were required to give up their Canadian citizenship. These legislators have subsequently been either disqualified to run or stripped of their seats under the national security law. We ask that the Canadian government grant them pathways to regain their Canadian citizenship, such as giving them permanent resident status to work towards citizenship.
Number five, extend the visas of Hong Kongers currently residing in Canada under the temporary work permit who participated in protest actions in various Canadian cities since 2019. They face an uncertain future. They fear returning to Hong Kong only to be arrested or barred from leaving the city, or remaining in Canada without proper status. We recommend allowing for an application to extend their existing visa to a five-year visa with an expedited pathway towards obtaining permanent resident status.
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 17:39
The cost estimate we did, which was pegged to not imposing interest on student loans, as you pointed out, was a $315-million gross cost, minus $5 million in reduced tax credit for the interest expense. Of course, this would probably have a positive impact on the number of defaults, given that the amount owed by students collectively would be lower, so the probability of default, other things being equal, would probably go down slightly.
That's one thing we considered, and we also noticed when we did cost estimates in a previous setting. In the electoral campaign a couple of questions were asked by various parties on various student loan measures. When relief measures are afforded to students, they have a corresponding impact in reducing the number of bankruptcies, loans in default and loans written off.
Yves Giroux
View Yves Giroux Profile
Yves Giroux
2021-01-27 17:41
Yes, it is, but given my apparent age it's been a while since I've paid interest on student loans.
Maybe Xiaoyi or Trevor knows the going rate on interest on student loans.
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