M-95 Eliminating post-secondary tuition fees

That:

(a) the House recognize that,

(i) a post-secondary degree is now the required level of education for many employment opportunities in Canada, but high tuition fees are leaving too many students unable to access an affordable education and burdened with enormous amounts of student debt,

(ii) the average debt owed by students upon graduating from a bachelor degree program is $28,000, and coupled with interest payments and the increasing cost of living, families are often burdened for decades,

(iii) in 2020-21, the same year Canadians were struggling with the economic downturn and high unemployment rates caused by the global pandemic, the average costs of tuition for respective undergraduate and graduate programs were $6,580 and $7,304 per year, reaching as high as $50,774 per year depending on the program,

(iv) during the pandemic, mental health challenges and dropout rates have risen in universities, colleges, and trade schools,

(v) on November 24, 2020, the House unanimously passed a motion recognizing the significant financial hardship that COVID-19 has caused to post-secondary students across Canada,

(vi) the government committed to waiving interest payments on the federal portion of student loans until March 2023, and budget 2021 states that waiving interest on student loans for an additional year would “ensure that the cost of post-secondary education in Canada remains predictable and affordable for everyone during the economic recovery”, but in reality no amount of interest deferrals would make the cost of post-secondary education affordable considering the average cost of tuition in Canada,

(vii) many Northern and Western European countries have built their knowledge-based economies on free post-secondary education, investing in their people to support a highly-educated workforce, including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden; and

(b) in the opinion of the House, the government should eliminate all tuition fees for post-secondary education and forgive the portion of existing student debt that is held by the federal government.