Human Resources Committee on Nov. 15th, 2016

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Could you give me a minimum and what could be a maximum? What could the minimum be, and what could be the maximum be? What's typical? Do you have that?

[Paula Isaak]

I don't think we have that. We don't ask communities how much they pay for each student. Some may pay for everything, including all the wraparound services, such as child care, transportation—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

How is the $300 million allocated, then, if you don't know what it's being received for?

[Paula Isaak]

It's given to communities based on a formula and on the potential number of students, but we don't know if they're augmenting that. We don't know how many students ultimately they may be supporting, so that is the challenge. We don't have data to be able to make—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Let's use an example of $1 million being awarded to a particular community. Do you not know how many students receive that funding?

As an educator, the one thing that we look for is successful students who have fulfilled the program requirements and who come out at the other end as graduates. For student Joe, do we know how much that particular student is costing? Are you guys measuring success rates as well, as they relate to that money being expended?

[Paula Isaak]

We don't know how much the individual student is getting. We don't know that. We have some basic statistical information about graduation rates from universities by indigenous students.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

What would be that total per year, based on...? I'm looking at $300 million equals.... I'm still asking for that number. Do you have a success rate of how many students have been successful in a particular year?

[Paula Isaak]

We can get the graduation rate for indigenous students.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Do you have that now?

[Paula Isaak]

I will just have to see if I can find it.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

No problem.

I have a question for you. I don't want to stop you looking because I want the answer, but maybe I'll ask a broad question, while you're looking. I talk about the money, because often we see a lot of money coming into certain programs. With education, it gets dumped in, and we don't really measure success.

We were alarmed at some of the low success rates for some of the funding. I'm a trades teacher as well. I have two degrees, but I'm a trades teacher, because I am a former carpenter. It was amazing to me how much money would get put in a particular program and the success rate would be remarkably low. For instance, I remember one program where I think the average funding was $50,000 per 10, and there was only one success out of that particular expended amount of money.

I guess it answers the question. As somebody said here, it's not just about the money. There are more issues there, so it's not just about the money. I'm not saying that money isn't necessary. I'm getting to what Ms. Tassi referred to before, that there's more to it, and that's what we need to understand further.

What are the issues surrounding lack of success in aboriginal education? In February 2016, the C.D. Howe Institute talked about how to improve quality results on reserve. A couple of our witnesses who are going to appear Thursday are going to answer some of these questions on how they were successful and, hopefully, we can see success attached to these dollars.

There are a couple of things. I care about the kids, because I taught a lot of these kids. They have great outlooks on life, but for some reason, they get caught up in the trap and they're not able to be successful. They have high failure rates in high school, so they don't even make that next level. Ms. Tassi was saying that you need to graduate in order to become part of a post-secondary program, so if you can't even graduate.... The next question is why are you not graduating? We see other barriers there as well.

I think we need to be clever in how we look at spending some of this money so it ensures success, rather than just dumping money regardless of success.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That's your time.

Do you have an answer to the question, or would you be able to provide that?

[Paula Isaak]

We'll have to get back to you in writing. I don't have it with me.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I would really appreciate that number, if you have it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

We'll go over to MP Julian for three minutes, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I'll be very quick then.

I'll just follow up on Ms. Tassi's and Mr. Zimmer's questions to you, Ms. Isaak. I'm a little surprised that we can't actually track the number of indigenous students who are not able to access post-secondary education. It would be helpful, I think, for the committee to have an understanding of what the barriers are to gathering them and what those statistics are.

We're talking about treaty rights, the right to education. Are there other ways—for example, forgiveness of Canada student loans—that are allowing indigenous students to access post-secondary education? Are there other programs that are being put in place for the 10,000 students who, according to the AFN, seem to be denied post-secondary education? Are there other means or pathways they have for post-secondary education?

[Paula Isaak]

Yes, thank you, there are other ways, and what I failed to mention in my earlier comments was that we also fund Indspire, which is a charitable organization that provides bursaries to indigenous students in post-secondary education. It receives funding from a number of partners—the private sector, as well as the federal government. It is a key organization that funds indigenous students.

There are a number of bursaries supported by the private sector and universities and other post-secondary institutions, and we actually have an aboriginal bursaries tool, which is a website that identifies all the areas in which students can access support.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Would you be able to tell the committee exactly how many students have been impacted by each of those programs? I'm asking you to provide written information if you could.

[Paula Isaak]

Yes. We can get information on Indspire.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

That would be useful.

[Paula Isaak]

We wouldn't know the numbers for every single other bursary that's out there, because we just don't track every single bursary that's there.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to go to Ms. Pichette.

Turning to interest on federal student loans, are there any plans to eliminate all interest for students, given that we're seeing, evidently, that post-secondary education debt is a huge barrier to post-secondary education, which leads to higher poverty rates?

[Mary Pichette]

I can't speak to whether there are plans to change the interest rate for the Canada student loans program. I can tell you that for Canada student loan debt, the debt has actually remained relatively constant at roughly $12,400 for those who graduate. It's absolutely true that in addition to that, many students have other debts from provincial programs as well as non-government sponsored loans, but for Canada student loan debt, the amount has actually remained quite constant because of the introduction of grants.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go to Ms. Bertrand—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Actually, Peter....