Thank you so much.
Good afternoon, members of the committee, and thank you so much for having me here on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Students.
With the release of budget 2017 on March 22, students welcomed investments for indigenous learners and part-time students. However, we felt that the budget lacked an innovative vision for higher education overall. I'm going to take you through that right now.
First, on the issue of funding for indigenous learners, the 2017 federal budget promised $90 million in funding over two years for the post-secondary student support program. This program is a federal initiative that distributes non-repayable financial support to indigenous students attending post-secondary education institutions.
While this commitment still fell short of the government's 2015 election promise of injecting the program with $15 million in funding annually, the injection of funds was nevertheless welcomed by students, and will permit an additional estimated 4,600 indigenous students to obtain funding for post-secondary education.
However, while removing the 2% annual funding cap on the post-secondary student support program, and injecting $90 million in new funds over two years, the program continues to fail to provide full zero-cost access to post-secondary education to all indigenous learners, a treaty right guaranteed in several foundational nation-to-nation treaties and reaffirmed as a constitutional right in the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982.
In order to address the backlog in applicants to the post-secondary student support program, whose funding has been capped for two decades, the government would need to invest an additional $420.8 million over three years, or an investment of $141 million per year. Additionally, eligibility for the program continues to exclude Métis students, something the federation would like to see changed.
Second, I wish to speak on the expansion of eligibility to the Canada student grants program. A second area of progress made in budget 2017 was with respect to the Canada student grants program, which will now include part-time students and those with dependent children, beginning in 2018-19.
We estimate that the investment of $167.2 million over four years will make an additional 10,000 part-time students and an additional 13,000 students with children eligible for these grants as of 2018.
Once again, while this reform is definitely a step in the right direction, we believe that Canada student grants program eligibility should also be expanded to include graduate students. Further, the federal government should take this one step further and eliminate interest rates on student loans, through the Canada student loans program, while providing two-stage assistance for all Canada student loans program borrowers five years after graduation. In the last academic year alone, we know the federal government profited by over $580 million in interest off public student loans, affecting the most vulnerable, impoverished groups in Canada. We believe this government must end this practice.
Third, we also saw that budget 2017 committed investments in co-operative education and work-integrated learning programs. These investments were welcomed by students. However, we feel that the government's focus on programs in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematic fields alone demonstrates a narrow understanding of innovation, and leaves many students behind.
Additionally, we were pleased to see, in budget 2017, progress in our fight to end unpaid internships. However, we will continue advocating until all unpaid internships are eliminated, including those that are part of a formal educational program.