I'll build on Carla's comments a little bit about people with disabilities. There's a piece in my portfolio as well that increases eligible grants for services and equipment for students from $8,000 to $20,000. Also...harmonize definition of “disability”, so if there's a severe and permanent disability when studying, a student can receive loan forgiveness. That's just to build on Minister Qualtrough's comments about trying to make sure that we are being thoughtful in terms of supporting people with disabilities in accessing education.
The Canada learning bond is an amazing tool, but you're right, there has been a low uptake. In my mandate letter from the Prime Minister, I was mandated to ask those same questions about why that is. What is it that we're doing wrong as a government, or is it that people don't know about it? Are we not getting to the right people at the right time?
This year the one-millionth child received the Canada learning bond, meaning that one million Canadian families do have that head start. But we know there's more to do. We know there are still about 1.8 million eligible children who are yet to receive the Canada learning bond. That's why we have decided we can't do it alone, and we've launched this call for concepts. We're seeking submissions from partner organizations that often are better suited and are interacting more closely with families that would benefit from receiving the Canada learning bond to see how we can increase awareness and the take-up of this bond in an innovative way.
I talked about this at a local agency in my own community that does a variety of counselling with low-income families, including credit counselling. To be able to use agencies that are embedded in the communities and have those relationships with people who could be benefiting from the Canada learning bond is one of the ideas we've had, thus the call for proposals and concepts.
I look forward to receiving those submissions and working with Canadians all across the country who have a better sense of how we reach families in need.