Thank you.
Thank you to all of our witnesses today for your very insightful testimony on our study on poverty.
Ms. Arte, I want to begin with you, and thank you for your very powerful presentation here today.
The message that you made very clearly is that times are changing for young people in our country. You raise some shocking statistics that 42% of young people live in their parents' basement, a number that has skyrocketed over the last 20 years. You talked about how the amount of debt owed collectively by young people in this country, and by some older young people, is over $20 billion. You talked about the average student debt being $28,000.
I am an older millennial and having graduated from university with my first degree over 10 years ago, this reality is different from what I experienced. It's clear to me that, year after year, young people in Canada are paying a higher price to simply do what we expect of them, which is to get an education.
Today we're talking about how we can come forward with a strategy to support Canadians who are trying to get out of poverty. We've heard from you that for a lot of young people, getting an education means struggling in poverty and not seeing a way out, given these levels of student debt. This is a reality that we've never seen before in this country.
I want to thank you for raising those alarm bells, alarm bells that those of us who spend time with peers hear about on a daily basis.
First of all—and I realize it came up already in the question of how we could possibly afford this—given the work that you've done, along with so many organizations that support the vision that you've brought forward today around free education, I wonder if you could talk to us a bit about where the money will come from.