Will the student debt interest waiver offered during the pandemic — and which is expiring — be renewed? The Trudeau government is negotiating with Quebec so that students in the province can benefit from the permanent elimination that Ottawa is proposing elsewhere in the country.
Last Thursday, during the unveiling of the fall economic statement, the federal government announced its intention to permanently eliminate interest on all student and apprentice loans it administers, including those in the process of being repaid. — a way to renew the assistance measure offered to students during the pandemic, which is due to end on March 31.
However, for the moment, Quebec students are not affected by the measure, because Quebec administers its own financial assistance program.
However, things could change if the two levels of government agree, as they have done in recent years. “Education is a jurisdiction of Quebec. We are studying the possibility of harmonizing our loan and bursary program,” said the office of the Minister of Finance of Quebec.
If the province follows in the footsteps of the federal government, Ottawa will pay it financial compensation, the amount of which is not yet known. “We have provided money, but we are in negotiations with the Government of Quebec,” said the person in charge of the file, Rachel Bendayan, MP for Outremont and president of the Quebec caucus of the Liberal Party of Canada. “We’re holding on to it. We would really like to offer that to Quebec students and [aux étudiantes] Quebecers. It’s one of my priorities,” she says.
According to Ottawa, half of Canadian post-secondary students use student loans to pay for tuition and essential school supplies. A student borrower would save an average of $410 per year through the permanent cancellation of interest on student debt.
The measure proposed by the federal government would cost Ottawa about $2.7 billion over five years, and $556.3 million thereafter, the economic statement says.