Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak here today.
The Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations is a Nova Scotia-specific student lobby organization. We represent 33,000 university students here, from Dalhousie, Acadia, St. Francis Xavier, and Saint Mary's Universities.
We want to speak on a couple of what we feel are specific Nova Scotia issues here today, but first, a little bit of a background from our perspective.
Obviously the costs of education in Nova Scotia are extremely high, and Chris has done a pretty effective job of telling you about that. We certainly know that one in four students with debt in Nova Scotia have a debt level exceeding $40,000. We also have the highest percentage of students in debt of any jurisdiction in the country, at 48%. So it's a very significant problem here in Nova Scotia. We think this raises some very significant economic development issues.
The first, we feel, is risk aversion--that is, when students graduate with that amount of debt, they're not really in a position to be creating a small business, to be going into a risky job, or anything like that, that could actually enhance the economy of Nova Scotia. They have to play it safe because they have a significant debt level that they have to try to service. We think that's generally bad for the economy.
The second is regional immigration--that is, Nova Scotian students are leaving after they graduate because they need to find places with more stable jobs. They go to Ontario, or they go to Alberta. We're really concerned about the effect this is going to have in the long term in Nova Scotia. I'd be happy to talk more about that during the question period.
We have some issues that we want to raise. The first issue is federal funding distribution. We also believe there needs to be a dedicated education transfer. We believe this needs to be done on a per student basis, and there is a very compelling reason for that. Nova Scotia is the second highest importer of students. The first highest would be Alberta. A couple of years ago, 4,769 students were imported into Nova Scotia. That creates a structural deficit of about $25 million that Nova Scotia is paying to educate students from elsewhere--we put it in the brief as $40 million, but after getting some better information from the ministry we've revised that number to $25 million. That structural deficit is something that needs to be dealt with. So it provides some fairness in the system to be distributing this money on a per student basis.
We obviously also believe there needs to be a Canada education transfer, supported by some sort of agreement or legislation, or what have you, much the same as Chris says. We think there needs to be a minimum of $4 billion put into that program. There is already about $1.8 billion in the system, depending on what estimate you look at, but there's about an extra $2.2 billion needed.
Thirdly, I want to talk a little bit about the Millennium Scholarship Foundation. We do disagree with the Canadian Federation of Students on this one. We think it is worth replacing or renewing the organization, primarily because it provides stability. There is certainly no political interference when you go and endow money in that nature.
We think an endowment structure is more or less a good thing. Of course, there are questions about accountability, and while I don't really feel like getting into a debate about any particular thing that the millennium scholarships may or may not have done, we definitely think that if there is some sort of a replacement foundation created, having an eye to effective accountability for that program would obviously be a good thing. At the same time, they have site-based budgeting, which we generally think is good. They're able to create their own incentives by having control over their own money. This means they can actually go and spend the time to put grant money where it's needed.
Yes, it has created some problems in Nova Scotia. Right now, it's worth about $9.1 million of debt reduction and other forms of assistance in Nova Scotia. If that disappears, then that money is more or less just going to disappear from Nova Scotia altogether. The Nova Scotia government hasn't really provided for any money to replace it. And yes, we're very concerned about what that's going to do to accessibility within Nova Scotia. So there needs to be something that follows up with that.
Those are three very basic things. Again, we'll be more than happy to get into this in a bit more detail during the question period.
Thank you for your time.