Human Resources Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Scott Gorry]

I don't support the bill on its merits.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We will move to Mr. Lessard for five minutes, please.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I also want to thank our guests for agreeing to give us their opinions on this bill.

My question is more particularly for you, Ms. Aziz, because you seem to have considered the entire question of transfer payments. You also seem to be of the view that the foundation must be expanded with regard, if I understood correctly, to Canada's responsibility for postsecondary education. I find that quite hard to understand, since the Canadian government had a fairly significant responsibility in training, but cut transfer payments starting in 1996, which undermined the budgets of the provinces and triggered cuts in those provinces. We now find ourselves with what Scott Gorry earlier called a band-aid approach, and that is what we are resorting to in an attempt to offset measures taken in the past.

Our thinking is as follows: since responsibility falls to the provinces, all the budgets should fall to them as well. What do you think about the fact that, in financial terms, we are finding ourselves with two stakeholders as regards training, whereas primary responsibility belongs to one of those two stakeholders?

[Amanda Aziz]

I think you've raised a very good point in terms of where the responsibility lies. Certainly we understand that post-secondary education is a provincial jurisdiction. Education in general has been left up to the provinces, but historically the federal government has always played a role in post-secondary education, much like it has in health care. From our perspective, the federal government needs to be providing some leadership on post-secondary education, but obviously not encroaching on provincial jurisdiction in terms of very specific things related to the provision of education within the provinces.

But you do talk about the idea that the government has a broad responsibility for education. From our perspective, the federal government has two very important roles to play. The first is an increase in funding, the funding for programs that exist provincially through transfer payments. The second is through the provision of student financial assistance. We think those are two areas where the federal government can and should be playing a very large role. Those are two areas that I believe do not encroach on provincial jurisdiction. In fact, both of these areas are where provincial departments of education have said they need more funding from the federal government, and we'd like to see more assistance for students at the federal level. Although it is a provincial jurisdiction, I think the federal government has historically provided funding for post-secondary education.

If we compare it to health care and the idea that health care obviously is a provincial jurisdiction, the federal government plays a large role in the provision of health care, ensuring that Canadians have access to a quality system. The same thing needs to happen in post-secondary education.

I agree with Scott that at this point there is a patchwork of assistance. There is no focus or vision for post-secondary education coming out at the federal level and that's what needs to happen.

I only spoke to this bill because this bill is what is being debated and discussed here, but just as important as this bill on student financial assistance is this idea that there needs to be a reinvestment in post-secondary education and in fact a vision for post-secondary education in this country.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Don't you think that's an anachronism? I think you were here when Mr. Regan answered my question about manpower training. It was said that an overview might enable us to constitute a labour force that could meet the needs of Canada as a whole. However, as regards employability, we know that everything, or virtually everything, has to be done over, precisely because there is a division of responsibility in this area. I would like to understand why this anachronism exists. You seem to be in favour of that way of doing things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Just a quick response, because we're out of time. Go ahead.

[Amanda Aziz]

In terms of the idea of sharing responsibilities, I absolutely do favour the idea that there needs to be a sharing of responsibilities, especially for something as important as post-secondary education, which does affect all of Canada's economy. Obviously, there are different implications for trained skilled workers in different provinces, but overall the necessity for a skilled and educated populace is a concern for the entire country, not just for specific provinces. There needs to be a shared responsibility. And I think that until this point there has been a shared responsibility, but it just hasn't been as strong as it needs to be from the federal government's perspective.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Madame Savoie for five minutes, please.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I think certainly our young people's ability to compete worldwide in this knowledge economy is a matter of national interest, and I would agree very strongly that the federal government has a role to play in matters of national interest. There is a need for a broader debate. As Paul Cappon mentioned here, and at different times, there is no vision for post-secondary education in Canada and there are no criteria for success. This is where the federal government could be playing a role and is not and has not in the past.

You're supporting this for the reason you've stated very clearly--it helps students. As limited as it is in some areas, and I think I've indicated some areas and would agree--it excludes mature students, it excludes students who switch programs, it excludes independent students, it excludes a bunch of people--but it does do one thing: it provides help at the time the student needs it.

I'm wondering, what has to happen to move from access grants as they currently are to a comprehensive grant system? From what I'm hearing from you, it sounds as if you would prefer that, and support it, and would probably like the existing government to present something on it.

[Amanda Aziz]

I think Scott touched on it a little bit, and I think I heard some members speaking about it earlier, but the idea of a national system of needs-based grants, a comprehensive system, would be a bit broader than what's currently on the table, so it's broader than what the Canada access grants currently represent.

We've talked about this idea between low-income versus needs-based assistance. Low-income assistance is obviously helping those in a pretty limited category versus needs-based. As Scott was saying, some students have assessed need but their familial income doesn't put them in a low-income category. So I would think a national system of needs-based assistance would be needs-based and have some special emphasis on low-income students but also include this broader category of needs base.

I think there needs to be a more clear system, a clear system where students are receiving this financial assistance. Right now, there's this patchwork of systems, and from our perspective, with all these tax credits and these savings programs, the funding already exists for this comprehensive system of needs-based grants, by just taking all the money that's currently provided through tax credits and savings programs into upfront financial assistance. I think the most basic criterion is needs-based versus income-based.

Then, within that program, I think it's not a problem to have specific provisions for students such as aboriginal students, mature students, and students with disabilities, those who face perhaps additional barriers to just average students who have assessed need. So, yes, in terms of the most broad answer or the most basic answer, there needs to be a provision for needs-based assistance and not just low-income assistance.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Do you think there would be any value in trying to modify this bill to respond to some of those criticisms that have been levelled?

[Amanda Aziz]

Certainly I think there's room for that debate and discussion within this committee. Our priority is ensuring that students get the financial assistance they need, so hopefully all committee members are interested in discussing how best to do that. Absolutely, I think there's a lot of information and research out there that does provide different statistics for low-income versus needs-based assistance.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I think Mr. Regan pointed out that he was interested in getting his bill through and he wasn't clear on whether making those modifications might make it more difficult. But in the report that was published today, $1.3 billion is going to families that disproportionately are at the wealthy end, as you mentioned. So I think there is a need to start thinking about where we're investing to really help students.

[Amanda Aziz]

Absolutely, and we have long said that there needs to be a discussion or at least an examination of who is receiving the financial aid from the federal government.

The quote that I stated in terms of families over $70,000 benefiting the most from RESPs is from Don Drummond, the chief economist of the TD Bank Financial Group. These are economists. These are high-profile people who are dealing with these kinds of savings programs, knowing that they're not helping the students or families they should be helping.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. That's all the time we have. We're over time.

We're going to go to Mr. Chong, for five minutes, please.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing in front of our committee.

I empathize with the situation your members find themselves in. There's no doubt that in the last 15 or so years tuition has skyrocketed. As somebody who lives in Ontario, I know that tuition has risen from about $2,000 in the early 1990s to close to $5,000 a year today. The same goes for other provinces. Despite the fact that Quebec has the lowest rates in the country, it has still increased tuition significantly in the last 15 years.

From the stats I've looked at, I think the annual increase has been close to 7% over about the last 15 years, so there's no doubt that tuition has risen in real terms faster than the rate of inflation. But one of the challenges your organization and your membership have is that there's consensus among many universities that the solution is to not freeze tuition or decrease tuition. As a matter of fact, some of the country's largest universities are calling for further increases in tuition.

We all know that tuition is provincially regulated. The Government of Canada has no say in tuition levels. For example, in Ontario the current Liberal government made a commitment to freeze tuition. That lasted for only two years. There was immense pressure from the university community to lift the freeze, so the government lifted the freeze and tuition is now climbing back up. In fact, Ontario had one of the highest increases in tuition this last year to make up for the two years of freeze that the provincial government mandated. So provinces that have put these initiatives in place to freeze tuition often end up reversing it with even further increases.

In Quebec, for example, there was a big conference at McGill University, pour un Québec lucide. Coming out of that conference, the principal of McGill University, Madame Heather Monroe-Blum, is calling for the Province of Quebec to allow McGill to raise its tuition over the next three years to the average of the rest of the country.

I empathize with you, because your members obviously want to see lower tuition, but I think you're facing some immense challenges. There are competing voices out there advocating for precisely the opposite of what your membership would like to see and what your organization is advocating.

I just want to finish on this point. Obviously tuition is an important aspect for your membership in accessing post-secondary education and training, but I also think there's often a forgotten element that is equally important, if not more important, and that's the quality of post-secondary education. My observation is that the quality of undergraduate post-secondary education in Canada is quite poor in many cases. We don't have sufficient data to come to a hard conclusion on that, but from what I see the drop-out rates after first year are immensely high. The class sizes in the first year in the country's leading universities are way out of range compared to leading universities in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It's not unheard of to have classes with 1,500 students in a single classroom.

There's a huge issue there about the way provincial formulas are structured to fund universities. It seems to me it's done on basically a factory mechanism, where you cram in as many first-year students as you can because you get dollars per student. If they drop out or struggle or there aren't the resources there to support them we don't really care because, frankly, we get our dollars per head whether or not they succeed in their first year. You end up with this weird system where in first year you have this massive bulge coming in. Then you get a bunch of people falling off the map and there don't seem to be the resources there to support them.

I would suggest that's a huge issue, and it's an issue about access. There's no use getting into first year university if after year one you fall off and nobody ever looks to you again.

So I put that point on as something your organization might look into.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'll leave it at that.

We're going to move to a second round of five minutes.

Ms. Dhalla, please.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank both of you for coming today and sharing your perspective.

Just to start off, Amanda, you're with the Canadian Federation of Students. How many members do you guys have in your particular organization?

[Amanda Aziz]

It's close to 600,000 students.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

From across the...?

[Amanda Aziz]

Yes, it's undergraduates, graduates, and student unions. It's about 85 student unions across the country.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

And Scott, you're here.

[Scott Gorry]

I'm attending Carleton in the fall as a mature student.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Now, you had, I believe, spoken about the fact that there were some issues you had that didn't allow you to support the bill, I think, based on its merit. Can you just maybe quickly tell me a few of those?

[Scott Gorry]

The highlight of what I said was that I think it lacks focus. You're putting a band-aid on something. If you wanted to table the bill, it should have been tabled with something that was a little more focused on solving the problem, instead of just trying to focus on two specific areas.

Post-secondary education is a prerequisite for a lot of jobs and a lot of careers in this country. When you limit the focus or when you think inside the box by saying we're just going to fix this or we're just going to fix this problem, instead of actually sitting down.... I think that's what my major frustration comes from: too often bills get tabled and debates happen like this, on just two specific issues, instead of someone saying we know there's a problem. Everybody in this room can say there is a problem, but nobody wants to step forward and say this is the solution to the problem, and this is how we're going to do it, and come together to fix it. Instead, you get these little band-aids, and you get these different private members' bills trying to push your agenda, instead of sitting down and saying, how are we actually going to fix this solution across the board?

To answer your question of why I don't support it, it's because it's not focused on a long-term solution.