Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions. One is addressed to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. The petitioners state that students are being hit hard today, that the chronic federal underfunding of core post-secondary education has led to soaring tuition fees and average student debt is approaching $25,000, and that it is very difficult in the area of student loans.
Therefore, these petitioners would like the government to create a federal needs based grant system for all Canada student loans in every year of study by rolling in the budget of poorly targeted federal PSE programs and the expiring millennium scholarship foundation, to reduce the federal student loan interest rate, to create a federal student loan ombudsperson, and to create enforceable federal standards governing the conduct of government and private student loan collection agents subject to the policy objective of helping students find ways to repay their loans, among other things.