Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of my colleague and the NDP with respect to this important bill on students loans and bankruptcy, Bill C-236.
Specifically, I would like to start with a few shocking numbers. In the House we have heard a number of times the current government of the day talk about how well it has done on behalf of students, particularly post-secondary students. The reality in terms of the numbers is otherwise.
Since the Liberals took power, we have watched $4 billion cut out of core funding for post-secondary institutions and the average increase in student debt over that period rise by 110%. The average debt for students leaving with bachelor degrees is now at $25,000. For students obtaining more than bachelor degrees, it is close to $100,000.
These numbers tell me there is a situation of dire need for university students leaving and entering post-secondary institutions. I use this strong language of dire need because these people often represent the greatest hope for our country in terms of their ability and capacity to formulate part of our economy, the investment the country needs to make consistently for Canada to become the world leader, as the government would pretend us to be.
When it comes to post-secondary institution funding, the numbers speak for themselves. Taking $4 billion out of core funding over the period the Liberals have been in office and then calling it a success story is an absolute embarrassment. It is a shame that the bill is even necessary.
The Liberals have now introduced legislation that suggests the way students can get out of bankruptcy is if they die. It is most commendable on their part, but they should not be congratulated at all for their cynicism and approach in dealing with student debt and poverty.
They refuse to invest in education. The numbers will roll out and the Liberals will talk about how wonderful they have been contrary to the real and anecdotal evidence we see by the number of students leaving university or being barred from them. It is representative of a lack of courage on behalf of the government to tie any investments they have made in post-secondary institutions. The money is passed to the provinces and in some cases they have been able to defer their contributions, leaving universities in the same dire strait. That has caused tuitions to go up.
When the NDP government in British Columbia left office, the Liberal government that took over immediately lifted the freeze on university tuitions. This caused tuition fees to escalate and put them beyond the reach of many ordinary Canadians and their families.
We want to be leaders in the world and we use that language often in the House. Yet by not investing soundly in post-secondary education, it leaves us behind the rest of the world, a world which knows that advanced technology and education will be the coming economies.
I look at the numbers presented to me in terms of the debt load of students who are leaving university. These moneys go to our financial institutions, primarily the large banks, rather than go to where the economy needs that investment. The banks have been reporting record profit quarter after quarter. They are doing exceptionally well.
I am not sure a lot of tears need to be shed for the banking institutions. They have done well and no one should condemn them too much, given what they have produced in economic joys for their shareholders. With regard to investing, the question becomes this. Is the money better placed in the private banks and taken out of the hands of students so when they leave post-secondary education, they are required to pay these loans, which students are exceptional at doing?
When we compare it to the corporate sector's ability to pay back and not default on loans, students have been consistently reported as good risks, if we can use that term. These students are no longer able to invest, put a down payment on a home, or purchase a car, when they are leaving their student life with a crippling debt. In the past 13 years the average student debt has gone up by $1,000 per year, every year.
Certainly, if such a similar increase and rapid expansion in debt were placed on our business community, the cries would be loud and far-flung across the House, but because it is students, there seems to be some notion that we can tolerate something like a 110% increase in tuition fees during the life of a government.
I went to college, as many members of the House did. I had an excellent experience which afforded me better opportunities to seek good, sound, and well paid employment, yet I left with a burden of student debt that inhibited my ability to contribute more to the economy. It held me off for a number of years before I could start up my own private business and take an incurred debt and risk that is needed for just about every business venture.
Many people ask why we should change the Bankruptcy Act when most Canadians, particularly most students, that enter into a loan arrangement with a bank have all the intention of paying that loan back in good faith. Students will often do whatever they can by just about any means necessary to pay these back. We need, in this House, to dispel the myths that students are bad investments or that they are at great risk of defaulting on loans when the numbers are absolutely showing the opposite.
We need to recognize the contribution that universities make across this country to their local communities and that those students make to the local communities as well. We must truly see them in terms of an investment, no different than the investments that we consistently find room to make in terms of the auto sector, large industries, or border security. All of these investments that we seem to come to the conclusion are sound investments for the prosperity of this country, yet, the government continues to dither on promise after promise made to the people of Windsor to improve their border situation.
It seems to me that the government and the Prime Minister, and the former finance minister, understand the principle of investment. The Prime Minister understands that lowering the costs for business that he previously ran by moving it offshore was a sound and wise move for the profitability of his business.
Yet. when we talk about the investment needed for students in this country, the House stalls and stutters, and pretends to pat itself on the back for issuing such ideas as small investment in students that may be born today that will achieve a $5,000 perhaps $7,000 grant available to them 18 years from now. At the current rate of increase in tuition, putting it out of the hands of most ordinary Canadians, what will that look like 15 or 20 years from now? What will the proposal that the Liberals have brought forward actually do for students? I hesitate to think that it may get them through their first semester, if that.
In 1998 the Liberals changed the act to say that Canadians cannot receive bankruptcy protection for student loans until 10 years after they complete their studies. This is unfair. This special treatment of students is the absolute opposite of the message that this government should be sending to our young people. Our message should be that we trust them, that we believe in them, and that we are willing to invest in them. Surplus after surplus has shown up for the Liberal Party because of its miscalculations on the budget. The Liberals are exceptionally skilled at missing the mark over and over again, regardless of how many economists they bring on board.
However, in all of these surpluses and particularly this surplus year, the Canadian Federation of Students, and other advocacy groups for students, found the budget not only wanting and lacking but an absolute failure when it came to investing in students. Even in the face of a huge surplus beyond everyone's expectations and combined with all the rhetoric that we heard during the last election, and consistently in the House about the need to support students, there is still a continued cynical lack of support for students by the government.
I appreciate this bill. It is a strong bill. We look for the bill to be supported throughout the House.