Absolutely. As I had mentioned earlier, we would love to see the gender-based analysis of existing policies, for example, the Canada student loans program, the Canada student grants program, but also breaking that down by intersections. I talked about first nation students, for example. One-third of that population are parents.
At my university, one of the initiatives that we've brought forward is indigenous family housing, because indigenous students are often hesitant to enter post-secondary education because they don't have adequate child care or the opportunity or resources to necessarily support their families as well as participate in education. So anything that we can do to reduce those barriers.... That was a really helpful statistic for us to have.
So it's a matter of breaking those statistics down and using that gender-based analysis to really provide data on existing policies.
As well, we're really encouraged to see the investment in youth employment through budget 2016 and 2017. However, we'd like to see the data on those investments. We'd like to see whether those investments are really meeting the policy objectives and how can we improve those.
What we as the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations want to ask for and see is how we can better inform our students back at our campuses to pursue certain opportunities.
As well, we have lots of gaps in data when it comes to the specifics of investing in co-op and paid internships. When we saw the investment in budget 2016, for example, in co-op and paid internships, or work-integrated learning, those tend to favour existing programs, meaning those in STEM or business. But, unfortunately, those really benefit male students over female students. We'd like to see data that shows how many women are really participating in those STEM and business programs and where the gaps are that we would like to see investments made. Are we looking at physical therapy, nursing, social work, things like that, and how can we better support those students to help decrease their financial burden?