Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question is very significant. When we stop and think about student debt increasing, that is a reality, and certainly I do not think anybody here believes that government should control the costs of education outright totally, but I do believe that the costs of education have substantially gone up over the last 20 years.
When I went to school, certainly we had student debt and we had to pay for bills that we accumulated as students. Some of us were fortunate enough to have summer jobs and earn enough money to pay off the debts and some families were able to help students go through school, but it has always been the case that a student is at the lower end of income in our society.
I think the fact is that each year of school in the main adds a tremendous amount to students' incomes. As they become better educated and better able to enter the workforce, their potential for making dollars is extremely high compared to that of a lot of other Canadians who do not have the opportunity to go to school.
I think it is critical to understand what we as a government have control over. What we are talking about in this bill today is the aspect of the Insolvency Act and how it affects students who find it difficult after they have graduated, for whatever reason. Possibly they could not get a job in the field for which they had been trained or possibly other things intervened. Possibly circumstances in their lives made it impossible for them to make the money to pay back the loans. As a result, there are a lot of filings by students through the Bankruptcy Act.
What we as a government are looking at very carefully is where that maximum is: the number of years that a student has tried to pay back the loan and the ability of that student to pay back the loan. All the information comes together to give the direction that the student cannot afford to pay the loan back. There is a seven year time period in which we are going to allow the student to file bankruptcy at an earlier stage in order to dispense that debt, but in fact that is not the major portion of people who go to school. People graduate and are able to pay off those debts.
I remember one person who spoke with me when I was quite young; it was suggested that sometimes our society may be a little upside down. Young students should get paid high wages and as we get older the wages would be reduced somewhat. Then their houses would be paid for, their new family would be covered and their kids' education paid for and all of that. It was suggested that maybe when we start out our incomes should be higher and then go down. That goes counter to what our society does and the value placed upon it.
We have to remember, though, that those students who graduate do have the potential of earning a great number of dollars in our society. The better educated have the benefits and ability to make higher payments and are able to pay back those student loans. Where it becomes a crisis situation for students is what we are trying to ease this by this legislation. Quite frankly, I think that will be helpful to the students.