Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity today to speak in support of Bill C-316, which has been introduced by the member for London North Centre.
I would like to congratulate the member for bringing forward this proposal which will help provide some relief to students who are in very dire straits in Canada.
As we have heard, the purpose of this bill is to allow a person who pays interest on a student loan to deduct from income, for the purposes of determining tax payable, the full amount of the interest for 10 years after the first payment of interest was due. If the student does not use the full deduction in any year it may be transferred to the person, if any, who guaranteed or co-signed the loan initially.
I believe that the member's rush now for bringing forward this bill is because business owners are permitted to deduct interest paid on business investment loans. Using that provision as a precedent, Bill C-316 acknowledges the role of student loans as investments which deserve the same consideration.
Certainly from that point of view, in terms of the motivation of the member, we would support this bill coming forward. However, I think it also needs to be pointed out that this particular bill is a bit like treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. The fact is that tax relief, while always welcome, does nothing to ease the fact that students must cough up increasingly high tuition fees in order to make it through post-secondary education.
This bill, although providing some relief, does nothing to address the fact that post-secondary education is becoming increasingly inaccessible to more and more students, particularly those with low and moderate incomes.
Unfortunately it does nothing to address the fact that over the last decade tuition fees have climbed a whopping 240%. Even in the last year alone tuition fees rose 12% nationally, which is seven times the rate of inflation.
That should give us some idea of the severe difficulties that students are facing today in trying to pay their tuition and in making it through school. It is simply an astounding fact that tuition fees are now seven times higher than the rate of inflation.
Nor does this bill, unfortunately, expunge the massive debts that students are graduating with, which now average $25,000. That figure is up from the average of $13,000 when the Liberals took power in 1993.
We are talking about a bill that would amend the Income Tax Act. The bottom line is that the reason we have a crisis in post-secondary education is because we have seen a retreat in public funding. We have seen the federal government slash funds from post-secondary education by $3 billion since 1995. As well, $4 billion has been cut from training.
If we really want to examine what is facing students in Canada today, why they are having such a hard time and why more and more students are graduating into poverty, we have to look to federal public policy from this Liberal government which basically has withdrawn its support to the provinces in transfer payments. Students are paying the price for that. That needs to be said.
While I support the member in his efforts to provide some relief, I also hope that the member would, within his own caucus and within his own government, rethink and examine the policies that have been put into place.
One of the changes in the last budget that was particularly cynical which affected students was the change in the bankruptcy laws. That has really had a very dramatic impact on students. It used to be that a student could declare bankruptcy two years after completing studies. It should be pointed out that most students do not declare bankruptcy. Most students will do everything they can to pay off their Canada student loan. In actual fact, the new law passed by the Liberal government now says that a student cannot declare bankruptcy until 10 years after completing studies or finishing school. That virtually rules out that option.
I do not know about other members of the House, but I have heard horror stories from students about how they are harassed by collection agencies at 7 a.m or 8 a.m. because they defaulted on a payment.
I am glad the member brought this forward. However, we have to get the real picture of the things that have been done by the government, such as changing the bankruptcy law and slashing public funding to post-secondary education, which have made the lot of students much worse.
Liberal members often point to the millennium fund as the panacea and the cure-all for the difficulties that face students. We should recognize that the millennium fund, which does not even begin until 2000, is just a drop in the bucket when one compares it to what actually has been taken out of public funding.
New Democrats are not about to let the federal government forget about the student debt crisis. Instead of creating a scholarship program which duplicates existing programs and does nothing to help students in need, we have called on the federal government to take steps that would reduce student debt.
We have demanded of the government that we end the privatization of Canada student loans, that we end the harassment that students have to go through.
We have also called on the government, along with the provinces, to begin to restore the billions of dollars that have been cut from post-secondary education. If we really are genuine about wanting to assist students we have to begin at that point. There has to be a recognition of what the erosion of public funding has done to post-secondary education.
I would also suggest that we should follow the leadership of my province of British Columbia which has had a tuition freeze for three years in a row. That is something that needs to be done on a national basis.
If the federal government really wants to show leadership for students and show that it cares about what happens to students, then the minister should be convening a meeting of provincial education ministers, putting some bucks back on the table and saying “We are going to help students by enacting a national tuition freeze”.
That would be the first step in restoring confidence in what really has been a first class system in Canada of public education, which now is going down the slippery slope to privatization.
The NDP would change the millennium fund to make it the first step of a national grant program to assist first and second year students.
Probably most important, we would begin by saying that accessibility has to be a national standard that is brought forward by the federal government with the co-operation of the provinces so that we can say to young Canadians “You do have a future. You do have accessibility and you are not going to come out of post-secondary education with a massive debt around your neck”. That is what the reality is now.
I have talked to students who have a $60,000 debt. They are single parents who are trying to pay off that debt and they have not started working yet. It is an appalling situation.
In closing, this is a good measure that has been brought forward, but I urge the member to go back to his caucus and say that the government must rethink its priorities and that if they support public education it needs public funding and confidence to make sure students are not facing the severe situation they face.