Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
I come to you from Newfoundland and Labrador. The island of Newfoundland is the unceded traditional territory of the Beothuk and the Mi'kmaq, and we acknowledge Labrador as the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Innu of Nitassinan, the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and the Inuit of NunatuKavut.
Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I'm very new to this role, but I am the campaign commissioner for the national graduate caucus, representing all graduate students across Canada.
I have a few things I would like to raise today, such as the poverty that students are facing: 71% of graduate students live below the poverty line, and one in three graduate students lives on less than $1,250 a month. This is incredibly low, and is creating lots of struggles and barriers for students in completing their research and also creating a life for themselves.
On May 1, as Mackenzy said, thousands of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, faculty, staff and community supporters across Canada walked out of their academic institutions to demand increased federal investments in scholarships, fellowships and grants to support increased pay for graduate students and post-doctoral fellowships. Although I am not an international student, I want to recommend that it is incredibly important that we create substantial funding to allow graduate students to pursue their studies without the stress of being able to afford their daily life. Lots of students do not have access to federal and provincial funding, and we would like to see them have access to this.
Our recommendations are set forth in section 4 of our pre-budget submission. We want to extend eligibility for Canada student grants to graduate students, estimated at $25 million per year.
We recommend exploring the creation of dedicated research fellowships for indigenous and international students. As I said, they are not adequate, so we would like to see approximately $30 million per year associated to this.
We would like to increase the value of graduate scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships awarded by the tri-council agencies by 48%, to match inflation since 2003—especially the post-graduate scholarships.
We would like to see all award values indexed to the consumer price index, which will ensure that awards are internationally competitive and increase with the cost of living.
We recommend doubling the number of post-doctoral fellowships awarded by tri-council agencies. The cost is $51 million in 2023, and we would like to see that doubled.
We would like to see a 50% increase in the number of graduate scholarships awarded by the tri-council agencies. We would like to see that increase as well.
It has been communicated to me that there is no mention of graduate students in the last budget, specifically in research or science. As government has been vocally supportive of this research, and of research in general, we are looking for the government to action ways that we can increase research in Canada and create a better experience for students.
Thank you so much for this opportunity. I look forward to answering your questions as well.