Evidence of meeting #26 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was youth.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
I call this meeting to order. This is the 26th meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance.
I would ask all colleagues, including distinguished chairs of other committees, to find their seats, please.
Mr. Wallace, thank you so much.
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
3:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
I want to welcome all of our colleagues and all of our witnesses here.
Our orders of the day are pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), continuing our study of youth employment in Canada. We have a number of organizations here with us today.
We have, first, the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. We have the president and CEO, Ms. Denise Amyot, welcome.
From the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum we have the executive director, Sarah Watts-Rynard. Welcome to the committee.
We have the Canadian Federation of Students, Mr. Brent Farrington. Welcome.
We are supposed to have La Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec. We are still waiting for that gentleman.
We have Bonnie Schmidt, who is the founder and president of Let's Talk Science. Welcome back to the committee.
From the National Educational Association of Disabled Students, we have the national coordinator, Mr. Frank Smith.
We want to welcome you all this afternoon. You will each have five minutes maximum for an opening statement and then we'll have questions from members.
We'll begin with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, please.
3:30 p.m.
Denise Amyot President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Given that the youth unemployment rate is twice as high as the national average and that there has been little improvement since the economic recovery, the Government of Canada must play a leadership role in maximizing youth employment opportunities.
The Association of Canadian Community Colleges, which I represent, is the national and international voice of 133 publicly funded colleges, institutes, and polytechnics serving over 3,000 urban, rural, and remote communities from coast to coast to coast.
Targeted measures for disadvantaged youth, I would like to begin by recommending targeted measures to increase the employment opportunities of disadvantaged youths: those neither employed nor in education, aboriginal youth, and those with disabilities. We need to increase participation in post-secondary education and the labour market by enhancing existing federal programs including increased support for the post-secondary support program administered by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to ensure all eligible first nations and Inuit students have access to funding.
Second, we need to increase grants through the Canada student loans program targeted for youth from low-income families, youth with disabilities, and for non-status and non-Métis youth.
Third, we need to strengthen the capacity of aboriginal organizations supported by the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy to improve career counselling services, pre-employment, and essential skills training. We also need initiatives to support upgrading as well as science and mathematics bridging programs for youth who have not completed high school or who lack the skills and prerequisites for post-secondary programs. As the committee knows, most of the new jobs created mean that you need to have science and mathematics in order to be eligible for that education. Science and math are the foundations of many occupations in key sectors such as construction, IT, health, engineering, and the environment. Canada must do more to encourage a science culture in youth. We need to increase the outreach capacity of colleges and institutes to engage disadvantaged youth and facilitate access and pathways into upgrading and post-secondary programs, including apprenticeships.
As to supporting underemployed youth, targeted measures are required to improve opportunities for the nearly 450,000 youth who are poorly integrated into the labour market. Thirty-three national industry organizations and ACCC have come together to form an industry-college coalition to address employment and innovation challenges. Industry organizations emphasize the need for better labour market information and the importance of dispelling the myths about the value of college-institute certificate, diploma, degree, and post-graduate programs. Too often college and institute credentials are seen as second best, which we all know is not the case.
All college institute programs are developed with input from employers to ensure graduates have the skills employers seek. Underemployed youth would benefit from knowing about the 660 post-graduate certificate and diploma programs offered by 56 colleges, institutes, and polytechnics that are all our members. These are highly specialized employment-oriented one-year programs. These programs require a post-secondary diploma or bachelor degree. What is very interesting is that our student population now includes 22% of students who have previously attended university.
To address the needs of underemployed youth, ACCC recommends that the federal government take the lead in improving national labour market information on both the supply and demand side so that youth have the information on the full range of post-secondary education options available to them as well as on the careers, the salaries, and how quickly they can expect to find a job.
Next is enhancing employability through essential skills. Essential skills are key to improving access and employability. ACCC essential skills projects funded by ESDC completed in 2013 demonstrated the value and impact of essential skills training. Seventeen college pilot projects assessed learners and workers across Canada—
3:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges
Yes.
They found that 40% to 60% of them tested below level 3 literacy. That's why essential skills are so important.
Last is an increase in entrepreneurship education and support. We recommend the creation of a pilot project to enhance the development and delivery of innovative approaches for entrepreneurship training offered by post-secondary institutions. This would support the sharing of models and exemplary practices across Canada, foster a culture of entrepreneurship, and encourage more youth to become entrepreneurs.
Thank you.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much.
We'll now go to the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, please.
3:35 p.m.
Sarah Watts-Rynard Executive Director, Canadian Apprenticeship Forum
Thank you.
Thank you for your invitation to appear today on the subject of youth employment in Canada. The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum has prepared and submitted a brief summarizing our recommendations about how to better connect Canadian youth with career opportunities in the skilled trades.
The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum is a national non-profit organization that looks at apprenticeships through a pan-Canadian lens. Though regulated by the jurisdictions, apprenticeship stakeholders assign value to connecting the dots across trades, across sectors, and across Canada. Our organization provides a national voice, influencing apprenticeship strategies through research and collaboration. In addition to unbiased research insights, we connect stakeholders in order to share promising practices and promote apprenticeship as a valued post-secondary pathway.
While apprenticeship training is the primary responsibility of the provinces and territories, I believe there is a significant role at the national level.
In terms of your current study, I would like to concentrate my remarks on the value of work-integrated learning to support employment outcomes, better preparing youth to fill job opportunities in the skilled trades, increasing the visibility and appeal of apprenticeship programs, and providing supports that increase the likelihood of certification.
Youth in Canada have excellent access to post-secondary education and a wide range of choices when it comes to programs and institutions. Access to advanced education is a huge asset; however, in creating that access, education has become an end unto itself. Youth without part-time jobs in high school could conceivably enter university never understanding the skills required to succeed or the value they stand to offer the labour market.
Apprenticeship programs are different, in that the learner is an employee. Apprenticeship provides opportunities to develop trade-specific skills in the workplace, doing work valued by their employer. At the same time, workplace skills like teamwork, communication, attitude, and meeting deadlines are being practised. When an apprentice is certified, they have qualifications and work experience, and this is a key benefit.
However, apprenticeship isn't without challenges. High-achieving students are rarely encouraged by their parents, teachers, or friends to consider skilled trades career options. In a survey of youth we conducted last year, 24% thought the trades were more appropriate to men than women. This quote shows what one student suggested: “Skilled trades are promoted as an option for students who have difficulty in school. A friend was thinking of becoming a mechanic, and many of our teachers stated he was better than that.”
Though we found that youth are more open to considering careers in the skilled trades than in the past, a university degree was identified as the first-choice post-secondary option by 53% of students. An apprenticeship program was chosen by less than 20%. This reflects a continuing bias against apprenticeships as a post-secondary pathway.
Students who perform poorly in school continue to be directed to the trades, only to find that advanced math, science, and technology skills are prerequisites for success. Frankly, we need to be directing young people with a propensity for three-dimensional problem-solving and the desire to work with their hands to opportunities in the trades.
When I say that we need to direct youth to opportunities, I think there is scope for much better direction. Though there's value in educating youth about the trades in general, they need to know where opportunities exist locally. The reality is that skills shortages vary considerably from one area to the next.
Finally, I would suggest that more needs to be done to support continuous employment opportunities among apprentices. As uncertified employees, they're particularly vulnerable to layoffs. Disruptions in employment can end a skilled trades career before it has even begun. Solutions may include consortia of small employers who share the commitment to local apprentices and/or policies and programs that recognize apprentices as learners.
CAF has outlined three recommendations in its brief to the committee. These are areas where I believe the federal government can make a substantive contribution to youth employment in the skilled trades.
Thank you.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much for your presentation.
We'll now hear from the Canadian Federation of Students, please.
3:40 p.m.
Brent Farrington Internal Coordinator, Canadian Federation of Students
Thank you for having me.
Young Canadians have been sold a bill of goods. They've been told that if they take the initiative to get a higher education there would be a well-paying, secure job that would follow to pay back their student loans with ease and that they would enjoy higher income over their lifetimes.
Unfortunately, young Canadians are facing a very different reality. Despite accounting for less than 20% of the labour force, Canadians aged 15 to 24 accounted for over 50% of the 430,000 jobs lost during the recent recession. By fall 2013, only 56,000 of the net new jobs created since 2009, a mere 0.5%, have gone to young Canadians.
Since 2009, the Canadian economy has created over one million jobs. In order to keep pace with the population, however, the economy would have needed to create an additional 280,000 jobs. This, along with the financial impact of more established workers, has increased competition for the jobs that have been created, with Statistics Canada now reporting that there were 6.3 unemployed Canadians for every job opening. Unfortunately, the jobs being created in Canada are increasingly falling into the precarious work category as they have lower or stagnant wages, few with any benefits, and little security compared to previous years. Even more troublesome is the growing trend of youth being forced to work for free through unpaid internships. It is estimated that there will be up to 300,000 unpaid internship positions in Canada this year.
While quality, well-paid jobs have been harder to come by since the recession, tuition fees at post-secondary institutions across the country have continued to rise at levels above inflation. Average tuition fees during the 2008-09 academic year were $4,700. Fast forward five years, a mere five years, and that amount has risen by over $1,000 to $5,700 per year.
As of July 2012 there were 1.1 million borrowers with outstanding Canada student loans. Over half of those were in repayment and 17% of those in repayment could not make the full payments required under the law. In Canada post-secondary education costs are roughly double the OECD average. If this trend continues, children born in 2011 should expect to pay over $139,000 to obtain a four-year degree.
Current outstanding student debt in Canada is estimated to be at $28.3 billion according to Statistics Canada. High levels of debt are impacting young Canadians' ability to integrate and participate in the broader economy upon graduation. Young Canadians are waiting longer than ever before to buy a house or start a family and with mounting student debt levels the prospects of entrepreneurship are well out of reach. These impacts will have, in turn, a greater effect on the broader economy as it is estimated that over the next two decades, $23.1 billion will be foregone in lost wages or long-term wage scarring of Canadian youth as a result of youth under- and unemployment.
Increasing competition for available jobs disproportionately favours older workers with more experience. Part of the reason for this is that employers are failing to provide on-the-job training. Investments in employee training have dropped 40% since 1993. While previous generations had access to on-the-job training, if young Canadians want to gain training and experience outside of the classroom, it's becoming more common to be forced to do so by working for free, often through unpaid internships. These internships favour students with little or no student debt and or young Canadians from higher-income backgrounds as they can afford to forego an income. However, for those with high levels of debt or from lower-income backgrounds, they often end up either underemployed or working outside of their field, which often contributes to degradation of their skills and a loss of networking opportunities.
Canada's youth unemployment rate was close to 14%. While this is already double the rate for all Canadians, it's important to note that if this rate actually accounted for all those individuals involuntarily working in precarious jobs, those who aren't getting the hours that they desire, graduates who are returning to school who can't find employment, or young Canadians being forced to work for free or unpaid internships, this number would actually jump to 27%. In fact, of all OECD nations, Canada now holds the dubious honour of having the largest proportion of university graduates earning less than the national median income.
In order to address the issue of youth unemployment and intergenerational inequality our federation, the Canadian Federation of Students recommends that the federal government develop a strategy to address youth unemployment, underemployment, and unpaid internships that includes as a first step collecting relative employment data on recent graduates, working with the provinces to create employment standards for precarious work and internships as well as the ability to enforce those standards, and eliminating the practice of unpaid internships within the federal government's agencies.
Thank you.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much for your presentation.
We will now hear from Tierry Morel-Laforce, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec.
Mr. Morel-Laforce, you have five minutes.
3:45 p.m.
Tierry Morel-Laforce President, Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec
I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Finance for receiving me. I am the president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ). We represent 13 university student associations from all over Quebec, which means 125,000 students from all levels.
My presentation will focus on the research conducted by the FEUQ in 2009 on paid work and university education, based on results from the surveys administered in 2009 to 15,000 students in Quebec. I will therefore be looking at the employment situation among university students in Quebec.
It is important to paint that picture. The employment situation among students is not often studied, given that their main job is to study, not to work. However, working while going to university is increasingly the norm; it is no longer an exception today.
Scientific literature indicates that the decision to work is highly influenced by financial needs. A study by Quebec's department of education, recreation and sports states that 70% of student income is used for housing, food and tuition fees. You can see that students cannot ignore those expenses.
Between 1980 and 2009, the student employment rate while studying full time went from 25%, at all levels combined, to 58% among men and to 69% among women in undergraduate studies. During that period, the summer employment rate did not change much. The rate is higher than the average Canadian employment rate for working while studying.
In 2009, the FEUQ study showed that full-time undergraduate students were working on average almost 19 hours a week, with more than 42% of students working more than 20 hours a week. Their average income was estimated at $10,500 a year. The average among graduate students was 21 hours a week with an average income of $12,500 a year.
There is a strong correlation between working and student debt. The FEUQ survey and its subsequent report on debt showed that having a job was one of the main solutions to debt. Students working less have a higher debt rate, regardless of the source of the debt. We are talking about government loans and bursaries, private loans, lines of credit, credit cards and household debt.
However, we see that, in most cases, working has a negative impact on students’ academic progress. We see that 55% of undergraduate students feel that their jobs do not complement their fields of study, 44% say that their jobs have a negative impact on their school performance, and 32% state that they have to extend their studies because of their jobs.
A number of factors contribute to the fact that students have no choice but to work. That is the situation for women; significantly more women are working and studying at the same time. The same is true for first generation students, students whose parents do not have a university degree or who come from modest means. The same goes for student parents who are trying to achieve an education-work-family balance, which can have a negative impact on their school performance. Over 62% of them say they have to extend their studies.
Overall, students who do not have scholarships to assist them financially, or whose summer income is lower, must work more while going to school. Their academic performance and progress are affected the most. The students who choose debt are the least likely to go to graduate school or to buy a house, start a family or a business.
Graduate students, researchers, work more than their undergraduate counterparts. As a result, they experience tighter academic constraints, thereby delaying their official entry into the labour market.
In light of those findings, the FEUQ strongly recommends an increase in funding for the Emploi-Québec summer program so that students can work only in the summers, avoiding over-indebtedness and the negative impact on academic performance, and speeding up their entry into the labour market.
For graduate students, who must juggle education and work, and, often, education, work and family, funding from various granting organizations must be increased to ensure that more students and researchers focus on their studies and research projects.
Still today, too many deserving students do not receive grants for their projects and must quit their graduate studies, especially when they accumulate a higher than average student debt.
Thank you.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much for your presentation.
Next we will hear from Let's Talk Science, please.
3:50 p.m.
Dr. Bonnie Schmidt Founder and President, Let's Talk Science
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the committee.
As the founder of Let's Talk Science, I've spent the last 20-plus years trying to help ensure that Canadian youth are ready for and prepared to thrive in a very different kind of work environment. I think my take-home message would be that I really urge the committee to think about the entire chain of how we get young people even thinking about employment. What is the age at which we begin to even think about this?
Let's Talk Science is a national charitable organization that engages youth across the full developmental continuum. We start in preschool. We work all the way through to post-secondary and graduate studies. We help young people develop the critical skills, competencies, and attitudes that are increasingly needed in a knowledge-based economy, and we do that by engaging them in meaningful science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs or STEM, and I'll talk about STEM.
Every year we work with 40 universities and colleges—we have a waiting list of others that want to get involved—and we engage over 3,000 young volunteers in reaching out. The average age of our volunteers is early twenties. We work with thousands of educators to ensure that they have the support so that the young people in their classrooms know how to start thinking and finding information about employment.
I have to say we do benefit greatly from the ESDC employment programs for summer youth employment. Those I do urge you to keep. They really help charities to operate.
I'm here to touch on a couple of points about youth employment. I do want to just underscore the fact that we need to do a better job of helping youth understand and develop the evolving skills that are needed for employment, and we need to start a lot earlier.
My first point is that STEM really does underpin 21st century employment opportunities. Over the past few years, Let's Talk Science has produced a few different reports that look at current and projected employment opportunities and matched them up to their connections in the STEM fields. We found that a vast majority of them are requiring STEM skills and knowledge regardless of the post-secondary pathway. I really do want to underscore what the first two panellists spoke about—the needs for university, college, and trades. We found that STEM feeds very much into all three of the pathways.
Our estimates are that well over 70% are needing or benefiting from STEM skills, and those are the jobs that we know about. We need STEM skills for engineers, engineering technicians, health care workers, farmers, and heavy equipment operators. I could go on. We have to stop thinking that math and science are only for research laboratories. They really are important for Canada's jobs.
Despite this growing need for STEM talent, fewer that half of our kids are leaving high school with the courses they need to pursue. In fact, fewer than 20% of our high school kids graduate with physics now. At a recent meeting I had at one of the colleges in the eastern board, the faculty there said that advanced physics and calculus were needed for their automotive program. So by the time kids are leaving high school, 80% of the cohort is disappearing.
STEM engagement prepares people for high-demand occupations, which is what we typically think about, but it prepares people for the lower-skilled jobs that don't look like they did a generation ago because of technological advances. Most young people don't even realize how many doors they're closing when they drop their programs. So we really need to do a better job of promoting the importance of STEM for all jobs in Canada, for all employment opportunities. Too many kids are leaving. They don't have career information. They don't see the connections. They're not seeing that they are relevant for their future opportunities.
While we're touching on jurisdictional issues here, I have some ideas that we can talk about in the question period.
The second point is about the importance of supporting volunteer opportunities to build employability skills. We really rely on the volunteerism of thousands of graduate students, undergraduate students, and college students across the country. They're all over the country doing hands-on programming for free. We have about 100 student coordinators in place who are currently doing their master's or their Ph.D.s while they're actually doing this as volunteers on their campuses. By doing this—
3:55 p.m.
Founder and President, Let's Talk Science
Okay. Our research is showing that we're building their employability skills enormously.
The third point I have is around talent development, starting in the sandboxes. I had mentioned earlier that I really do urge the committee to define how early you begin thinking about who youth are. Too often we ask kids when they're very young what they want to be when they grow up, and then we never really pursue the conversation. I'm finding that only about 20% of parents are talking about opportunities for employment with their kids and really pursuing what kinds of prerequisites they need to go where they want to go.
My fourth point is that although we are a highly developed country, we're the only developed country that doesn't have a secretary of state for learning at the federal level or a national department of education. That often causes us to shy away from discussions that can actually bring sectors together and form a long-range vision. So I do urge this committee to think deeply about the role that we can play at the national level to set the stage for our future.
Thank you.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Okay, thank you very much.
We will now hear from the National Educational Association of Disabled Students, please.
3:55 p.m.
Frank Smith National Coordinator, National Educational Association of Disabled Students
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss youth employment. This is an issue of fundamental importance to our work as a national organization.
Today I'll focus on the employment of youth with disabilities from our perspective as a group that represents post-secondary students and graduates with disabilities.
Since its founding in 1986, the National Educational Association of Disabled Students has had the mandate to support full access to education and employment for post-secondary students and graduates with disabilities across Canada. We represent over 100,000 persons with disabilities studying in Canadian public colleges and universities. Most of our constituents are youth.
NEADS is a consumer-controlled, cross-disability organization that is governed by a national board of directors representative of all of the provinces and territories. We are an autonomous organization, but also a member group of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.
Our work has focused on three strategic program areas: student debt reduction, student experience in class and on campus, and student and graduate employment. With our mandate, the organization functions collaboratively with post-secondary stakeholders, other national disability organizations, and many student groups, including national groups like the Canadian Federation of Students. We also provide ongoing, expert advice to Employment and Social Development Canada.
The association's primary activities include maintaining a comprehensive website and a financial aid portal—disabilityawards.ca—and holding events and conducting research that benefits our membership.
Since 2005, we've held 25 transition from school to work forums in cities right across Canada to consult with youth with disabilities. These interactive conferences have included the participation of some 2,000 college and university students and graduates with disabilities who are mostly youth, private sector employers, career professionals in the post-secondary community, employment agencies, and other NGOs. We also have created a national scholarship program that has given out 57 scholarships worth $3,000 to outstanding college and university students with disabilities across Canada.
In the last two years we have been engaged in a project to consult with career and employment centres on college and university campuses right across the country to determine how effectively they're serving disabled students. Youth with disabilities clearly need to be better supported and served by their on-campus career centres to ensure that they have opportunities for summer employment and part-time work during the school year to build their skill sets.
The 2013 federal report “Rethinking DisAbility in the Private Sector” from the panel of labour market opportunities for persons with disabilities identified an alarming statistic:
...of the 795 000 people with disabilities who could be—but aren’t—contributing to our economy, almost half (340,000) have post-secondary education.... These qualified, capable people can play an important role in filling the forecasted two-thirds of all jobs requiring higher education.
At the same time, the overall labour force participation rate for working-age adults with disabilities is around 60%, compared to around 80% of those without disabilities. The 2011 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics has shown that the employment rate of youth with disabilities aged 16 to 24 was 45.7% and for the same age cohort among those without disabilities it was 56%. That's a large disparity.
According to the 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, persons with disabilities are better educated than in the past and their educational profile is generally similar to those without disabilities. However, their participation in university programs, for example, is substantially lower than it is for the non-disabled population.
4 p.m.
National Coordinator, National Educational Association of Disabled Students
I'm going to have to skip through a whole bunch of stuff here. Maybe I'll move on. It's fairly long, although we call it a brief. Let me go to the heart of the matter.
The federal government has a variety of programs and supports for persons with disabilities: the labour market agreements with the provinces that provide about $500 million in transfer payments, the opportunities fund. There is skills link, which is a program that supports youth and about 17% of the participants in skills link are youth with disabilities.
I have six recommendations here: that the federal, provincial, and municipal governments encourage the hiring, retention, and promotion of persons with disabilities across all sectors of the Canadian economy, including the disability supports or accommodation required to enable Canadians with disabilities to be successful in the workforce; that the federal government strengthen support for post-secondary study through the Canada student loans program, particularly the Canada student grants and other measures such as repayment assistance for persons with disabilities to ensure that more Canadians with disabilities are able to access post-secondary education; and that programs like skills link be enhanced to support more youth with disabilities.
There are two more: that federal government should continue to work with provincial and territorial partners to ensure that financial aid programs are delivered in concert to best support the post-secondary studies of students with disabilities; and finally, to reiterate a recommendation of the Council of Canadians With Disabilities to the HUMA committee last year, that:
...there should be a specific strategic investment or investments for youth with disabilities—that is, persons 18 to 30 years old—to support the transition from school to work so they don't become permanently detached from the labour market.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you for your presentation.
We'll begin members' questions.
Monsieur Dubé, s'il vous plaît.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Chambly—Borduas, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to our witnesses for being here with us today.
My question has several parts. It is mainly for the representatives from the student associations, the FEUQ and the Canadian Federation of Students.
You both talked about two of the consequences of student debt, not only during studies, but especially afterwards, when it has to be repaid. I will keep hammering the same point I have been hammering since the beginning of the TD Bank study. That study shows the impact on a young graduate of being unemployed or of accepting a “McJob”, as they are called. There are no other expressions really to describe those types of jobs. They are jobs that really do not match their talents.
Some people do not realize the impact debt can have on young people, forcing them to accept jobs for which they are either not qualified or too qualified. I would like to hear what the representatives from the two associations have to say, starting with Mr. Morel-Laforce from the FEUQ.
4:05 p.m.
President, Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec
I briefly mentioned that the level of undergraduate student debt in Quebec is $14,000 at the end of a bachelor's degree. Quebec's loans and scholarships program allows them to pay it all back after seven years, but the fact remains that it will affect their life choices after graduation.
As I said, 60% of students will postpone buying a house because of their debt and 40% will postpone their plans to start a family. In addition, 45% will postpone starting a business. Young entrepreneurs who would like to start a business in Quebec or Canada will not be able to do so because of their debt.
Forty per cent of undergraduate students will put off graduate studies until later because of their debt. Those students are ready to contribute to research, be it basic or applied, and to advance knowledge. We need researchers like that. However, because of their debt, students will not be able to contribution to their field.
If they have a debt while going to school, it might take them longer to graduate. As a result, they will not enter the labour market right away. As mentioned, salaries are not always guaranteed after graduation. It is not a guarantee that they will find work. Just because you have a bachelor's degree or a graduate degree does not mean that a job awaits you once you are out of school. You still have to find it. In addition, you don't know how much you are going to make.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Chambly—Borduas, QC
Can the representative from the CFS answer the question as well?
4:05 p.m.
Internal Coordinator, Canadian Federation of Students
For sure. Thank you for the question.
One of the main reasons I focused so heavily on debt within my presentation was that the two are very intertwined. You cannot separate the level of debt a student is currently incurring to obtain the skills they need to work from their ability to find successful employment within that field.
I spoke briefly about those impacts on the post-graduation finding of a job in your field. I can't underscore enough that things like unpaid internships and those types of precarious work result in skill degradation. People are losing the skills they obtained through their education because they aren't able to find work in that field. That's a serious factor.
Many people could find an unpaid internship within a field. Let's say somebody in engineering, as an example, could find an unpaid internship position. They can't necessarily take that position if they don't have the financial capacity and if their student loans are due. While Quebec's level of student indebtedness is lower than the national average, we're talking about being $27,000 in debt at the federal level. The Statistics Canada report that came out identified $28 billion as the current holding of student loan debt.
I think that's a major factor for someone, and it weighs quite heavily when making those decisions about your future. It results in people not pursuing the field they are trained in, so they lose those skills altogether, or they find themselves in an underemployment status.
