Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Motion M-205 brought forward by the member for Fundy—Royal. I believe that this is a very legitimate motion and I want to congratulate the member for his initiative.
The motion calls on the federal government to eliminate the parental contribution standard from the Canada student loan program.
Right now, a family must allocate part of its annual income to a child's postsecondary education. Ironically, just before coming here today, I was reading an article that appeared in a New Brunswick French-language daily that talked about the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Canada. The data was collected by Statistics Canada. Is that not a contradiction? The federal government is asking parents to finance part of their children's postsecondary education at a time when Canadian families are becoming poorer and poorer.
The member for Shefford said that the Liberal government was doing this so that children would not get further into debt. However, she forgot to mention that the government accepts the fact that the whole family is getting into debt. She forgot to mention what happens to a family where three children in a row go to university for four years. These people cannot pay to send their children to school. Instead, children should be able to apply for a student loan so they can pursue their studies. It makes no sense at all.
In the late 1990s, several student associations and other organizations spoke out against the critical state of funding for postsecondary education. Who do the Liberals think they are? They think they are everybody's saviours. Why do they not listen to what students and associations have to say?
The New Democratic Party participated in various campaigns directed at Canadians and the federal government to raise awareness about the urgency of the situation, but these efforts were not very successful.
In the past ten years alone, tuition fees in Canada have risen by 126%, while Canadian salaries have not seen a similar increase. Tuition is approximately $3,000 per year. There is no balance.
This figure of $3,000 does not apply to young people attending university outside their region. Their studies cost them up to $10,000 per year. By the time these kids graduate, they or their parents owe $40,000. Imagine parents with two children at university; their debt is approximately $80,000.
University graduates will owe $40,000, unless they attend university in the city in which their parents live. For example, kids in the Acadian Peninsula must go to Moncton to attend university. This costs money. It is an expensive degree, especially since now, student debt is no longer included in a personal bankruptcy.
Collection agencies have never been as busy as in the past ten years. Our children cannot keep up; they are struggling. Their debt is killing them. What a wonderful legacy to leave our children.
I would like to give one quick example. A young woman from my region was telling me that because she was unable to repay her debts and because her parents were unable to help her, she had to turn to a credit office. Now she cannot get any more loans. This is someone who is employed.
The Liberals say that they hope to prevent young people from going into debt, but it is all right for the poor. The rich have no problem, but what about the middle classes? They can no longer even send their kids to university. They are the ones being excluded.
People increasingly realize that having a postsecondary education is essential to getting a good job. In the new millennium, HRDC had reported that 45% of new jobs required 16 years of education. That is reality.
Applying for a job today and getting it, when one has only Grade 9 or 10 is a rarity today. That is why young people are obliged to go to university. It was not necessary 10, 15 or 25 years ago.
In 1993, 9.57% of universities' revenues came from government. In 1999, that figure had dropped to 8.31%. Students and universities are constantly asking for more money to guarantee the availability of quality postsecondary education to all at an affordable cost. In comparison, between 1994 and 2001 the federal government reduced transfer payments to the provinces for education by $5.2 billion, a huge amount.
Many students drop out before graduation. They quit because they are short of money.
In my riding, I have a number of files on young people who have had to drop out for financial reasons and now are having to pay back all their loans, yet they have not been able to find work.
One young person attempted suicide out of despair because he could not get a job and was being strangled by his heavy student debt load. Imagine the state of a family seeing their son lose any hope in life. In the space of a few months, he lost all interest in looking for a job, finding solutions. The family also had neither means nor solutions.
Is that what we want for our children? One can easily imagine the despair of parents who see their children getting deeper and deeper into debt without being able to assist them financially because they are themselves strapped with huge personal debts.
I am rising in this House today to point out that those bearing the brunt of these cuts are students and their families.
Since the beginning of this year, in my riding office alone, half of all calls received are from students and parents asking for assistance so that these young people can pursue postsecondary education.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development said that the federal government has a good program. I must say that this is not true; it does not have a good program. There are countries where university education is subsidized so that students and their families do not have to get into debt, by contrast with the way the federal government is currently handling our students.
Last fall, I even had a visit from a young woman who had qualified for a student grant from the government. However, her application was reviewed by the HRDC office without her consent, and as a result, this young woman received $2,400 less than the amount originally approved.
What was the reason for this decrease? Her brother died in August. Human Resources Development Canada said that with one less child the parents could afford to contribute more money to their daughter's education. It is truly unbelievable. When the parents were going through a painful grieving process and had to cover the costs related to the funeral, Human Resources Development Canada delivered them another blow.
Most cases that I process are students who receive small loans of $2,000 while the total cost is generally assessed at $9,000. Where can these young people go to get the rest of the money they need to pursue their dreams?
I know parents in the Bathurst area who learned that the mine they work at will close its doors sometime in the next five years. How do you expect a family to contribute to their child's education knowing that in four or five years, the 50-year-old father will be unemployed and will have difficulty finding another job because he is uneducated and has no other experience?
It seems that the federal government is seriously lacking common sense here. That is why I think that for students in Canada, when the federal government says that it is paying down the debt or balancing the budget, it should admit that it is doing so on the backs of the poor and students. The government claims it does not want to leave Canada's young people with a legacy of debt. Yet our young people leave school with $40,000 in debt. It is a disgrace.
That is why I would like to congratulate the member for Fundy—Royal for his motion. I think that what he is presenting is important. We want the government to review the financial situation of students. The government should look at the student loan situation and family situations. This is not a lot to ask. This proposal should at least be presented to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development so that we can make recommendations to the minister. I think this is important.