Good morning, committee members. I hope everyone is doing well.
My name is Shelley Melanson. I am the chairperson for the Canadian Federation of Students in Ontario.
The federation represents more than 300,000 college and university students at 38 student unions across the province. We are the Ontario affiliate for the Canadian Federation of Students, Canada's national student lobby organization.
Before I start, I think it is important to highlight the student context that surrounds this year's budget deliberations for the federal finance committee. Data released this week from Statistics Canada, just two days ago, indicates that Ontario has surpassed Nova Scotia in having the highest undergraduate tuition fees in Canada, an honour that we have actually held at the graduate level for a few years now. National student debt surpassed $13 billion this past January, and this number doesn't include personal lines of credit, credit cards, or provincially held debt, which in Ontario surpassed an additional $2 billion last year. On top of this bleak picture, student unemployment reached record high levels this past summer, over 21% on average.
The government has demonstrated its commitment to helping students, with the introduction of a new Canada student grants program. Despite these tough economic times, and perhaps because of them, we believe post-secondary education should become one of the government's fundamental priorities.
In our submission, the Canadian Federation of Students in Ontario has highlighted three key priorities. Students also illustrated our priorities this past week in Ottawa, where over 50 student representatives from across the country presented Canada's education action plan to nearly 200 parliamentarians during an intensive lobby week that we have been participating in.
First, students are calling for the introduction of a federal post-secondary education act, modelled after Canada's health act, and a dedicated cash transfer for post-secondary education. We believe it is essential for establishing national standards for quality and affordability and ensuring that the federal government is committed to making education accessible across the country. We estimate that this will cost $1.2 billion and will go a long way towards equalizing the quality and cost of post-secondary education from province to province.
We also believe such an act would provide greater accountability and transparency for federal moneys allocated to the provinces for funding post-secondary education. Let's face it, when the federal government commits taxpayers' dollars to an important national priority, it has the right to ensure that the subsidy is being used to meet benchmarks for quality and access.
Our second recommendation is for the government to convert money dedicated to tuition fees and education tax credits into needs-based grants. The current system of providing tax credits does very little for students, who need money at the time of paying their tuition fees. Instead, tax credits are disbursed in May, nine months after students and their families have had to pay their first semester tuition fees. We believe that by converting the money that is indicated for tax credits to upfront grants, students will benefit from this government program, because the money will be there to open the door to educational opportunities. This is, of course, a cost-neutral recommendation that could benefit all students greatly.
Finally, we are calling for the number of Canadian graduate scholarships available to master's and doctoral students to be doubled, and for increases to the scholarships to be tied to future increases in enrolment growth. As part of Canada's strategy to become a knowledge-based economy and a leader of innovation, Canadian universities have aggressively expanded graduate studies, but funding has not kept pace with enrolment. We estimate that, for $125 million, graduate student funding could meet the needs of new students who have entered graduate school and ensure that we have enough funding to be able to undertake the quality research that this country needs to compete in a knowledge-based economy.
I have brought copies of our written submission and our latest policy document. I've also translated copies of our submission for those who would like them.
Thank you so much for your time. I hope that we can work together to build Canada's knowledge potential to transform our economy by ensuring our place as world leaders in post-secondary education.
I have with me here today our federation's government relations coordinator, Joel Duff, and we both look forward to your questions.
Thank you so much for your time.