Thank you very much, MP Hogg.
You're right. The Canada student loan default rate is steadily tracking downward, and that is as a result of the supports that we're providing students in terms of repayment assistance. We've increased the amount of support for non-repayable Canada student grants, so that helps as well. Obviously, for lower-income students, having more grant and less loan is one way to prevent the default of loans. We know that for lower-income students, oftentimes even the prospect of taking out debt can be a deterrent to education.
There are changes to the repayment assistance program so that no graduate who applies will have to repay their Canada student loan until they're earning at least $25,000 per year. This is going to benefit 54,000 students, and the writeoff represents less than 1% of the overall amount of the Canada student loans, so this is obviously heading in the right direction.
We want to make sure that any young person who wants to attend post-secondary training has an opportunity to do so and can see a financial path toward that goal.
Again, we know when people feel confident to invest in themselves through higher education or skills training, they repay that investment multiple times over in their contributions to their communities and to our economy.