I think that, short term, obviously we need to get through this pandemic. We shouldn't be charging recent graduates interest and student debt payments. We paused it for the first six months of the pandemic, so I believe the federal government should work with the provinces and territories to refreeze payments to the National Student Loans Service Centre for the remainder of the pandemic. Long term, we should be looking at progressively and aggressively writing off student debt federally—the federal portion—and urging the provinces to do the same because, at this point, we have reached a critical junction in post-secondary policy and in terms of student debt. It is not in the economic interest of Canada to continue to burden people with student debt.
Particularly if we're talking about the marginalized communities in Canada—low-income students, indigenous students, women—they have a longer and harder time paying off student debt than their peers. If we're looking at this through an equity lens too, we need to acknowledge that. We should be working towards the progressive elimination of student debt, but in the short term, student-loan interest payments and debt payments.