Opposition parties and student groups both opposed new student loan measures in the now-defunct 2011 federal budget.
The budget was set to enhance the Canada Student Loans Program, especially for part-time students. Fewer full- and part-time students would face reductions in loan and grant eligibility based on their earnings while in school.
Currently, full-time students who earn more than $50 a week receive less money in student loans. The budget would have allowed students to earn up to $100 a week.
About 4,000 part-time students now benefit from Canada Student Grants, worth up to $1,200 for each student. Changes to income thresholds would have made another 1,600 students eligible. Part-time students would also have been exempted from paying interest on their student loans while in school.
But the budget did not pass the House of Commons before the dissolution of Parliament March 26. The government fell to a non-confidence motion tabled by Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, in which he cited the government’s secrecy, lack of ethics and “contempt for democracy.”
The enhancements to the loans program — like the rest of the budget — were unacceptable to opposition parties and student lobby groups groups alike.
Speaking to the Canadian University Press, David Molenhuis, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, pointed to what he called the more pressing issues of spiraling tuition fees and student debt, and “chronic underfunding.”
The budget was “very underwhelming. It fails to address what we were hoping it would,” he said.
The increase in income thresholds for grant eligibility effectively means that those who earn more money would be eligible for more in loans, Molenhuis said. As such, it represents “a lack of non-repayable financial assistance for those who need it most,” he added.
It was full of what Molenhuis called “back-ended measures.”
One of these was a pledge by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to begin offering loan forgiveness of $40,000 for new doctors, and $20,000 for new nurses and nurse practitioners that work in rural areas after graduating.
Molenhuis said that is not an effective means of increasing access to health care in rural Canada, an important issue of the current election campaign.
National director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations Zach Dayler called the measure “unbalanced,” noting that it forgives loans for those who work in a very high-paying field.
A Forum Research opinion poll released March 28 shows the Conservatives well within reach of their long sought-after majority with the support of 41 per cent of decided voters as the parties head toward a May 2 election.
Ignatieff has already begun pursuing the student vote, promising to provide every high school student who chooses to go to college or university with a $1,000 yearly bursary, the CBC reported March 29.
–with files from Oliver Sachgau