Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
It's indeed an honour to have the witnesses here today and to talk about some of the issues that are so important to such a large sector of our society.
Of course, the type of education that you're going to be offering in the fall and into next year is going to be quite different, thanks to COVID-19, and students are going to be asked to take courses online, which many regard as a substandard learning experience, especially when it comes to labs and hands-on courses. I know I've spoken to many students who were excited about going to university this year, and they were so disappointed that this method of learning is going to be their new reality—so much so that some of them are considering waiting for a year in order to be out of the system until things get sorted out.
As perhaps you might have heard as the different MPs tried to get on to this virtual meeting today, we have concerns with broadband access and so on. Those Canadians who are living in rural Canada don't have adequate broadband access to the Internet, so we're almost looking at a two-tier education system, whereby some students will have full access to courses and all the things that entails, while others are left out of the higher education system almost completely.
My question is whether universities have put in place plans to address this particular issue. How will you be able to provide universal access to higher education if students have enrolled in your courses and they find out that it just can't work for them? Will you have the flexibility to be able to offer them a refund or to allow them to come back at a later time?
Perhaps I could go to Universities Canada first.