Industry committee  As I was saying, among our recognition of what is a strong system of copyright right now, there are obviously opportunities to strengthen copyright law. An area of particular interest for students and academics is copyright law as interrelating to indigenous knowledge and indigenous ownership of information.

Industry committee  I certainly acknowledge that students are increasingly struggling to afford all aspects of post-secondary education. That includes textbooks. When students are put in a position where tuition fees are increasing at exponential rates every single year, they're certainly having to make difficult choices.

Industry committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for your invitation to present today. As you said, my name is Charlotte Kiddell, and I am the deputy chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. The federation is Canada's largest and oldest national student organization, representing over 650,000 university and college students, including the 90,000 graduate student members of our national graduate caucus.

Finance committee  Pardon me?

Finance committee  I don't have that number in front of me, and I'm very embarrassed about that. I'm sorry.

Finance committee  What I can say is that with the changes made to the repayment assistance plan, which say that you don't have to start paying back your student loan until you're making $25,000 a year—that is still, I will mention, well below the poverty line—I believe that a third of folks holding Canada student loans qualify for that program, which is an alarming number, in my opinion.

Finance committee  Absolutely, and thank you. I also will mention that our lobby document is available online and can be consulted for more exact numbers. Canada is the only OECD country without some form of national or federal oversight of post-secondary education. What we recommend in our lobby document is a national post-secondary education act.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is Charlotte Kiddell, and I am the deputy chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. The federation is Canada's largest and oldest national student organization, representing over 650,000 post-secondary students from coast to coast.