Those are great questions. Coming from Brampton, the godfather of Ontario's post-secondary system, Bill Davis, of course, is one to be celebrated. His mantra for 50 years has been accessibility and excellence and that no qualified student should be deprived of the opportunity of post-secondary education.
I think as a country we have made great strides in both accessibility and excellence. The last federal budget included important financial assistance measures. At the provincial level there are a number of important shifts going on, some right here in New Brunswick. I'm more familiar with the policy commitments in Ontario to make sure that students with family incomes below a certain threshold pay net zero tuition. That's groundbreaking in Canada and it's important to make sure that post-secondary education is attainable for all families.
I want to take the opportunity to underscore that half of all university students in this country graduate debt-free, owing zero. Of those with debt, two-thirds have debt of less than $12,000. So we need to be careful about how we analyze the barriers to education, and we need to increase the opportunities to explain both the affordability of post-secondary education and the outcomes. Over the last decade we've had business leaders and other community leaders suggesting that it's not worth the investment. We have data that shows it's absolutely worth the investment.