Mr. Speaker, the last petition comes from over 900 students of Selkirk College in Castlegar who are saying that whereas the Canada student loan debt is increasing by more than $1.5 million each day and has ballooned to more than $12 billion, that whereas the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation has largely just replaced pre-existing provincial grants, that whereas the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation has failed at improving access to post-secondary education, and that whereas among developed nations only Canada and Japan do not have a national system of needs based grants, they call upon the House of Commons to replace the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation with a national system of needs based grants through the Canada student loans program for students at public universities and colleges.
In the House of Commons on March 3rd, 2008. See this statement in context.