Thank you.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak about the problems faced by students at post-secondary educational institutions in Canada.
My name is Gishleine, and I am the national treasurer of the Canadian Federation of Students. We represent some 530,000 students from 63 student unions across Canada, including 20 graduate student unions.
I'd like to begin by drawing attention to the tireless work of graduate students in Canada, because it's thanks to their work and the efforts of groups like Support Our Science and the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies that changes were made in the 2024 budget.
I would also like to thank all the members of this committee for the leadership they demonstrated in putting pressure on the government to ensure that graduate students are no longer paid at a level that keeps them at the poverty line.
These new investments in research and graduate students constitute a first step in the right direction to demonstrates clearly that Canada wants to remain competitive internationally, and they also show how important it is to introduce significant measures to modernize research and fill gaps in the existing research infrastructure.
We applaud the measures taken in the budget, but that doesn't mean we have to stop there. We must continue to pursue the momentum generated by these investments to ensure not only that graduate students can pursue their studies, but also that they get the support they need to avoid having to make a choice between continuing their education and just having a life.
We are aware of the fact that grants from the three granting agencies have been increased, but Canada still ranks 26th among OECD members in terms of the percentage of people pursuing a graduate education. And since 2010, Canada has experienced a significant drop in the number of researchers compared to other developed countries.
Our organization would like the government to provide funding that would enable universities to address the realities of students in various areas, including the number of years of study, reducing the burden on student associations, for example when funding for doctoral students ceases after four years. Nobody completes a Ph.D. in four years in Canada. The average length of time is six years.
We would like funding to be understood not as research funding, but rather funding for researchers, by which we mean compassionate funding that would alleviate their financial straits and factor in their diet, health, accommodation and transportation needs. Such needs are often much more serious for graduate students.
Introducing measures like indexing post-graduate and postdoctoral grants to inflation would make Canada more competitive internationally.
It's also important to ensure that public funds allocated to universities, particularly to those in the U15 group, are not only equitable, but also proportionate to funding for small and medium-sized universities, with due regard to research in the natural sciences, health sciences and especially the social sciences, which are often shortchanged.
We would also like Canada to provide enough funding to keep universities from having to depend so much on foreign students to obtain the funding they need to stay afloat.
Lastly, we would like Canada to invest in a manner that is consistent with the Official Languages Act and thereby contribute to the vitality of official language minority communities. We would like events like science fairs, which encourage scientific research at the high school level, to be developed and funded at that level to support research not only in graduate studies, but in particular at the undergraduate level. There's a lot of talk of research at the higher levels, but not nearly often enough about people with bachelor's degrees who are interested in research.
We therefore need a bold strategy to eliminate inequalities in the system, a strategy that would provide equitable support to aspiring graduate students and the same opportunities as their peers, regardless of their geographical location or the size of their institution.
Additional financial support for students at small and medium-sized universities would not only lead to more diverse and innovative research, but also contribute to local economies, which would benefit enormously from the availability of talented new researchers.