Mr. Speaker, over the period of the last five to six years the government has addressed some of the issues with regard to student loans from various perspectives. One of them was obviously to look at whether students were able to pay off loans if they did not have a job after they had finished university or school. We also looked at how they would be able to be forgiven their debt or not have to pay any interest and eventually, if this kept continuing and they did not make enough money or did not have enough of an income, to have the principal of the loan actually forgiven over a period of time. We address some of those issues in this bill by bringing down that timeline to seven years.
We have been working with students with regard to student loans. We have listened to them and there is no one place where we can resolve this problem. In this particular amendment we can bring the timeline down. We did it in other areas within the budget. We will continue to address the area of student loans in many other ways, not only by assisting students to pay off their loans but by decreasing the number of students who have to borrow. We will create structures, as we have done in past budgets, to allow for students who are disadvantaged economically to be able to get grants, and for disabled students or single parents with children to have access to grants for post-doctoral studies.
There is more than one way to skin that cat. The government has been well aware of that and has been looking at all avenues to assist students.