[Witness spoke in Ojibwe and provided the following text:]
Aaniin kina wiya.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Hello, everyone.
[English]
My name is Brandon Rhéal Amyot. I'm student at Lakehead University in Orillia and a co-organizer with the Don't Forget Students campaign. I am speaking to you from the territory of the Chippewa Tri-Council of Rama, Beausoleil and Georgina. These are lands under the Williams Treaties and the Dish With One Spoon wampum, long stewarded by the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat. I mention this not just because it's important to recognize the land, but because of the impact that the pandemic has had on indigenous peoples and, in particular, indigenous students and students of diverse communities.
Members, I speak to you today to raise a grave concern about the impact of the pandemic on post-secondary education, students and recent graduates. This pandemic has taken an immeasurable toll on our financial outlook, our job prospects, our quality of education and, most important, our mental health and community health.
In the past year, students and recent graduates have fought hard to get governments to listen and to act. At the beginning of the pandemic, we called for the CERB to be extended to students and recent graduates. After almost two months of advocacy, the Canada emergency student benefit was launched. This provided four months of relative stability and support for students and recent graduates, but hundreds of thousands of international students and recent graduates were not eligible, and recent graduates who are still in search of jobs and who were not eligible for CERB also could not access this program.
The other large program, the Canada student service grant, as you all know, did not end up rolling out and also did not equitably address the impact of the pandemic on students. In the end and to date, of the over $9 billion originally promised for aid to students through the pandemic, $3.2 billion remains unspent. If I'm to be frank, I feel that politics came before students and before responding to the impact this pandemic has had on us, the post-secondary system and our communities.
We're now 13 months into this pandemic, and I probably don't need to tell you that here in Ontario, where I live and attend university, new COVID-19 cases have hit an all-time high. This third wave is particularly impacting me and other young people across the province and across the country.
The toll this has had on my mental health is difficult to measure, and it's difficult to measure the impact it has had on our mental health for all of us post-secondary students, but research just this past November from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations and others paints a bleak picture—one that I'm living in. The lack of attention to post-secondary from all levels of government during the pandemic and the legacy of systemic underfunding have led to the pandemic being able to wreak havoc not only on our education, but on our lives.
Most recently, one of the casualties was Laurentian University. This is the product of mismanagement, systemic policy failures and underfunding, and it's not only billions of dollars lost in economic activity but a community ripped apart. These systemic issues are not unique to one school. They are present in this system across the country.
Students and recent graduates were barely making ends meet as it was, and we're barely making ends meet now. Despite the picture that is sometimes painted, we are not a homogenous group of recently graduated high-schoolers. Students are parents, caretakers and workers. Some of us, including me, are disabled and are struggling to cope. This is not an environment conducive to learning, and it is not an environment conducive to innovation.
Meanwhile, recent graduates and those about to graduate are facing one of the worst job markets in a generation and will be crushed under the weight of record high student debt and unreasonable payments. What possible justification is there for collecting student debt payments and interest during a pandemic? In the best of times, these payments are difficult to make. We have to find a better way, not just to get us through the COVID-19 pandemic, but to fully realize the potential of post-secondary education in this country as a part of a social, environmental and economic recovery.
In the short term, all funds that were originally allocated to students—and additional funds—need to be invested towards supporting us through the pandemic. This means relaunching the Canada emergency student benefit—or whatever you want to call it—in May and including international students in the eligibility. It means including all soon-to-be-graduating and recently graduated students in direct supports. It also means extending the moratorium on student loan debt and interest payments until at least the end of the pandemic, with commitments to significant student debt relief.
We have to think about the long term, and that means systemic investments in post-secondary students and education. It means expanding the Canada student service grant with a goal of returning to a fifty-fifty cost-sharing model. It means increasing funding to institutions, and it means creating a federal vision for a universal post-secondary system in collaboration with students, workers and academics.
With these measures, the government can begin to address the impact that the pandemic has had on students and our mental health and well-being, and the long-standing inequities and gaps within the post-secondary system.
In closing, I want to thank this committee for reaching out to hear from students, and I urge members to take action.
Meegwetch.