HANSARD
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
Ms. Becky Kent (Chairman)
Mr. Gordon Gosse
Mr. Mat Whynott
Ms. Pam Birdsall
Mr. Jim Morton
Hon. Michel Samson
Ms. Kelly Regan
Hon. Christopher d'Entremont
Mr. Chuck Porter
[Mr. Gordon Gosse was replaced by Mr. David Wilson.]
[Ms. Kelly Regan was replaced by Mr. Zach Churchill.]
In Attendance:
Ms. Jana Hodgson
Legislative Committee Clerk
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HALIFAX, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2010
STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Ms. Becky Kent
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Good morning everyone. At this point I'd like to call the meeting to order. We have a little lengthier agenda compared to some that we've had in the past, so we're going to proceed with doing our appointments to agencies, boards and commissions, and then we'll follow up with our guests who are here to do a presentation and answer some great questions, I'm sure, no doubt. Before we get started, I would like to invite our members to introduce themselves for the record and for our guests, and then we can proceed.
[The committee members introduced themselves.]
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Perhaps what we'll do is we'll ask you to introduce yourselves when we do the presentation so our esteemed members won't forget your names, if that's okay with you. I hope you enjoy our meeting.
We have our agenda before you. Are there any issues around the agenda at this point? Hearing none, we'll proceed with our appointments.
Our first appointment is with the Department of Education. Perhaps you could start that off for us, Mr. Whynott.
MR. MAT WHYNOTT: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that Norbert LeBlanc be appointed as a member of the Université Sainte-Anne Board of Governors.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
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The motion is carried.
The Department of Health. Mr. Wilson.
MR. DAVID WILSON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. On behalf of my colleague, Gordie Gosse, I so move that Terrance Crawley and Daphne Hutt-MacLeod be appointed as board members of the Cape Breton District Health Authority.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
The Colchester East Hants District Health Authority. Mr. Morton.
MR. JIM MORTON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that David Fielding and Dianne Forshner be appointed as board members of the Colchester East Hants District Health Authority.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
The Pictou County District Health Authority. Ms. Birdsall.
MS. PAM BIRDSALL: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that James Shaw be appointed as a board member of the Pictou County District Health Authority.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
Finally, the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. Mr. Whynott.
MR. WHYNOTT: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I so move that Dr. Allan E. Marble be appointed as a member of the Public Archives Board of Trustees.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried. Thank you very much.
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With that, we will go into our presentation. At this point we'll have our guests present. Take all the time you need and then we'll follow up with a question-and-answer period. Then we'll offer you an opportunity to close out your presentation.
Today we are hearing from the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations. I'll let you introduce yourselves.
MR. ROBERT LEFORTE: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. My name is Robert LeForte and I am the Chair of the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations. We are an organization that represents 80 per cent of the students in Nova Scotia, which is over 35,000 students at Acadia University, St. Francis Xavier University, Saint Mary's University, Dalhousie University and Cape Breton University.
MR. CHRIS SAULNIER: My name is Chris Saulnier and I am the President of the Dalhousie Student Union. I represent the 16,500 students at Dal.
MR. LEFORTE: I'd like to take the opportunity right now to thank the committee for having ANSSA here. We appreciate the opportunity to come and speak and respond to the report. Today we're going to be dealing with the Dr. Tim O'Neill report on the university system in Nova Scotia. Our organization recognizes the time and effort that went into creating the report and we greatly appreciate the very substantial contributions that it has made to understanding what our system does and how it is funded.
It is also very nice to see a lot of familiar faces around here that I know our organization has met with in the past. As well, I think we have a few former members here too. We'd really like to have the opportunity to continue the discussion with government over the next couple of months.
We are here to provide as much information as we can about how students feel with regard to adopting some of the recommendations that the report makes. That being said, we know that the report has been generated now; we understand that the decisions to implement those recommendations are up to government and we're excited to begin consultation on that as well.
To address the report directly, in one sense we believe that it does take a very comprehensive approach at looking at the system as a whole. It addresses a variety of different issues within post-secondary education in the province. It looks at stability, affordability, the quality of the university education that is given to students. In this way it is very broad. However, we feel that the broad variety of topics addressed does not fully address the issue itself because we think that the numbers expressed here are looked at through a narrow lens and that is strictly an economic one.
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As I've expressed to the Minister of Education on a previous occasion, we think that a more fitting title for the report may have been, An Economic Analysis of the Universities of Nova Scotia in the Wake of a Recession. It is our view that the solutions presented are shaped entirely by current economic realities. We feel strongly that having the scope of the analysis narrowed by the current fiscal challenges limited the ability of the report to actually suggest some genuine, long-term solutions that we had hoped to see in such a report being done.
One of the questions that we would very much like to keep in mind during everyone's reading of the report and discussion of its consequences is do we want to do the same things that we've done in the past and run into the same types of problems again, or should we be taking this opportunity to invest in whatever we can to avoid those types of problems in the future? That being said, even given the context that the report is framed in, we feel that there are some apparent discrepancies with some of the recommendations. Of these we're most concerned primarily with the deregulation of tuition fees.
We must bring to attention the logical inconsistency of a province that's starved for young talent, which is approaching a demographic disaster putting up even larger barriers to post-secondary education participation. In our province we know that it's soon going to be a challenge to fill jobs, we know that an emphasis on preparing the fewer people that we are going to have over the next many years is going to be even more important for the job market that the province has and it's going to be a great necessity to make sure that those individuals are well-trained and very adaptable to those situations.
The report itself outlines on Page 1 that the primary cohort of age 17- to 24-year-olds on which universities primarily draw is shrinking across the country, but also that it will be particularly pronounced in Nova Scotia as a province, and that's due to our demographics. The report did a very good job of addressing the demographic decline that's anticipated over the next number of years. What this really tells us is that our universities are going to have to be more and more competitive at bringing individuals from outside the province, not just in Canada but the rest of the world, to make sure our universities and our communities as a whole continue to thrive.
[9:15 a.m.]
Our province has been identified as having tremendous resources to unlock. We know that companies are lured here by young talent. Not only do we need to identify the products that our province has, but we also need to recognize that those products won't be able to be unlocked without harnessing the young talent that we have here, retaining it and making sure that the products that we have are able to be used and utilized by our citizens, but also by the rest of the world as something that we can export.
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We have to realize that without our most important resource, which is skilled youth, to take up that mantle and support our province in the future, our residents are going to be heavily disadvantaged. It would be very easy to sit here and present a number of statistics on student success, attraction and retention, how debt drives away graduates, but I feel that each of us knows that some of those things are weaknesses that our system has already. It's something that is outlined in the report as well.
Rather than focusing on solving those problems, deregulation of tuition will only exacerbate them because of the current financial realities for students. It will take the action of funnelling more of their money - those individuals using post-secondary education - and less of taxpayers as a whole into a system whose products benefit everyone, which I can go into more detail about in the question period. It's something that benefits our province in terms of consumption, but also in terms of social contributions that students make to this community, as well as individuals who are employed at universities in the province and especially in terms of research and development.
What good will it be to increase competitiveness with academic quality, program specialization and attractive learning environments that the report professes to do if it turns out that our institutions are becoming debt factories for individuals which require graduates to go find jobs in other parts of the country in order to pay that debt down? We know that a lot of the problems that students face are going to be facing them not only while they're in post-secondary education, but well after they're done participating in the system.
To sort of expand on what I've said and the problems that face students directly, my co-worker from the Dalhousie Student Union, Chris Saulnier will talk a little bit more about those issues.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. LeForte.
MR. SAULNIER: The students I represent struggle with a wide range of issues and student leaders like myself are often in the role of first responder when it comes to student concerns. I hear from students whenever they face challenges and it's part of my job, and it's something that I'm happy to do because I see the problems facing students directly on a daily basis. It came as a surprise and shock to me that the O'Neill report did little to address their direct interests.
Indeed it was necessary for our province to take a good look at the economics of our university system and it's very timely to look at the fiscal realities that our institutions face and the way that the government and students support those realities. The problem with this assessment is that students are looked at in a limited capacity, as numbers rather than as people. However, even as numbers their challenges are staggering.
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As I'm sure many of you know, our students pay the third-highest tuition in the country. Something which you might not know is that our graduate students actually pay the highest tuition in Canada. Did you also know that on a per-student basis our system provides the least funding per full-time equivalent student? Our graduates take on the highest debt loads and almost 70 per cent of students bear an average of $31,000 of debt. These are the realities that I face daily with students.
Many of the recommendations that are put forward in this report would significantly help to address these issues, namely that the cap on student loans be raised or eliminated and that the quality control and accountability measures are laid out. Implementing a grant-administered debt cap, which would progressively allow the grant portion of the student loan to increase as assessed need is realized, is a very good strategy. The difficulty that we have with these recommendations is that they're paired in the context of a recommendation which would see tuition fee collection increase by over 24 per cent next year and over 85 per cent by 2015-16, in a jurisdiction that already places the highest burden of debt on its students.
The tragedy of economic decline should not be allowed to further exacerbate the difficulties faced by students as they work to become highly-contributive members of society in the future. The problems that they face now will inevitably spill over into greater provincial challenges in the future. We should not be magnifying the problems that already exist in Nova Scotia by restricting the exact system and individuals which could be solving them. Thank you.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. At this point we'll open the floor to questions. We're going to start with 10-minute rounds, where each member is allotted 10 minutes, and then we'll move on to another member. I will take the time to interrupt you if I need, but you certainly can take some more time afterward if time allows. We'll start with Mr. Whynott.
MR. WHYNOTT: Thank you, guys, for coming today. I know that you've been doing your rounds, I'm sure, with all the caucuses and also individual members to discuss the potential impact of this report and you started that early, to be quite frank. I remember getting a phone call back in June, I believe, about having a meeting, which is a good thing, consultation is certainly important.
I know that no matter who I talk to, people always talk about keeping young people here in Nova Scotia, ensuring that we as a province and we as a society build a framework to allow people coming out of high school to go to some sort of post-secondary education, which is important. I know when I visit the high schools in my areas, that's certainly one of the things that they push students to do.
It's interesting, too, that we as a province have also seen the worst student assistance program in the country. I believe a lot of people would say that and I think that the O'Neill
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report addresses that. I just wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the student assistance program and some of the inefficiencies and how we can move forward with that.
MR. LEFORTE: Certainly. One of the financial issues that we see the most with students who come to us and have problems - and not only students but also graduates, I get former students that come to me - is about assistance with student aid appeals and those types of things. We know that our students do incur the most debt in terms of total repayable dollars. Students in this province, between their Canada Student Loan and their Nova Scotia Student Loan, are able to incur, if they have the most assessed need, over $43,000 of loans over the course of their education. That is ranked ninth in the report out of all the provinces in Canada, with the least amount of assistance available in terms of up-front grants.
If you're assessed for a need you get the same amount of money as a grant as you would if you weren't assessed for the most amount of need. As a percentage, it would be 20 per cent of the student loan. In terms of what is repayable, our province expects students who have student loans to repay the most, so over the course of the years after graduation, somebody who has incurred the most amount of debt will have to repay about $43,000.
With the student loan system as a whole, one of the things that we did see included was the recommendation to raise or eliminate the debt cap. Many students have higher bills in this province, due to our high levels of tuition, than is available through student loans. Many students also have to take on jobs, credit card debt, and bank debt to finance their education outside of what is available in the student loan system.
One of the things that we very much appreciated the report touching on was the recommendation to increase the non-repayable grant portion of student loans, so that as a student is assessed for more need - that would be the students who have low income as opposed to students who have a higher income, closer to the cap where assistance isn't available - that they receive more, a greater proportion of that loan as a grant so that they're not expected to repay as much after graduation. We know that it's more difficult for a student who doesn't have a strong financial background in their family to repay a large amount of debt and it's harder for them to take on that debt.
One of the things we find troubling is that students who are going to need the most money are going to be the ones who are having to make the decision of, do I want to take on this higher amount of debt, when they're deciding whether or not to go to post-secondary education. What we'd very much like to see is for them to be able to make that decision more easily by saying, the amount of debt I'm going to have to take on to access post-secondary education is much less than I would have had to take on in the past.
However, the recommendation being paired with tuition increases leads me to believe, personally, that because greater amounts of money are going to be needed, in the report it says that if the bursary and tuition freeze are removed over the next five years, that
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we could see an over 85 per cent increase in total tuition dollars. Even if I'm able to take out more debt, and a lot of that is going to be non-repayable, the expectation that I have is that somebody who sees the ability to take on more debt isn't going to be more inclined to take on post-secondary education because they're limiting themselves in the future, after completion, with a greater amount of debt. It's not really a tool that is going to make more people attend post-secondary education when we're trying to have more and better-equipped individuals entering the job market after post-secondary education.
MR. WHYNOTT: So as far as the student assistance, how does Nova Scotia compare to other provinces?
MR. SAULNIER: Well directly, to put number figures to it, we have the lowest grant-to-loan ratio of all the provinces in Canada. In Nova Scotia it is 20 per cent as a non-repayable grant, 80 per cent is a student loan. The Canadian average is closer to 30 per cent to 70 per cent. In provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec, both have a year 50-50 grant-loan ratio.
MR. WHYNOTT: How do we, as a province, entice or encourage people who potentially could be in junior high or elementary school right now - not the kids but the parents - to begin to save some money to help with tuition costs? Have you guys thought of that, as far as 15, 20 years out?
MR. LEFORTE: For now, to tell individuals that you have to prepare for it, we haven't really taken a strong stance on anything. We don't have policy in that area yet, but it's something that we're always talking about. We look at early outreach strategies in a much broader context than strictly financial because we understand that a lot of the barriers are social as well. It is something we will definitely be looking at over the coming years, given the current realities.
MR. WHYNOTT: We know that we have the largest amount of universities per capita than any of the provinces in the country. I'm sure you guys deal with this on a regular basis; when I went to university, we saw it. What sort of inefficiencies do you see in the system itself? I'm talking about duplication of services, that sort of thing. I really think that the solution can come from the universities and from the students themselves. For instance, CBU and Acadia can work together to share some sort of common service. Any comment there?
MR. LEFORTE: One of the models that we look at that we're leaning toward currently - we're not advocating strongly for - is the model that's available in Ontario for applying to the universities and for applying for student assistance. Currently if you want to apply to a university in Nova Scotia you have to apply to each one individually, pay that fee to apply to each one individually and each one charges a different amount for how much it costs to apply, but each university also has their own admissions officers and their own
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officers who assess student needs for funding and scholarships, those types of things. Those happen at each school individually.
In Ontario, there's a program where if you apply to one university in the province, you apply to many at the same time; you don't have to apply to all of them. All of that calculation is done at the provincial level. It is something that we are definitely looking at as an option for Nova Scotia.
[9:30 a.m.]
One other thing that was interesting to me, in terms of addressing the inefficiencies in the report, was that a lot of the discussion around looking at ways for the universities to collaborate and to work together seemed to be negated by the current fiscal realities. It's just another example of how what the economy is like right now is affecting this decision or the recommendations that are being put forth, just because a lot of the time when it recommended things it said we can't do that because we don't have the money right now to invest, as opposed to saying if we invest right now, here are the potential savings we could see. Because of the current fiscal reality, I think that's one way that the report is limited in making recommendations in terms of collaboration and co-operation.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. At this point your time has elapsed and we will move to Mr. Churchill.
MR. ZACH CHURCHILL: Rob and Chris, thanks for coming in today - a great and thoughtful presentation. This is a very thoughtful report you submitted to the minister and submitted to us today.
I want to talk about a couple of specific things. In terms of the recommendation to eliminate the tuition cap, that seems counterintuitive during a time we want to increase, as you mentioned, the amount of people who come here from outside the province, so we become this university capital that everyone in the country has been talking about.
A concern of mine also would be competing for our own students to stay here. I'm just wondering if you have any information on the amount of students who do leave Nova Scotia to a university like MUN, for example, where the cost of education is much cheaper. Is that information available?
MR. LEFORTE: Absolutely. One thing that we've seen and that the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission has identified is in the survey of the graduate class of 2003, I believe the number was over 1,800 students, who had graduated high school in Nova Scotia and then went to Nova Scotia universities, had to leave.
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To address the point of more affordable jurisdictions, the one number that we see coming up most frequently is that between 1997 and 2007 at Memorial University, there was an increase of 1,400 per cent of the amount of students from Nova Scotia studying there. That's a jurisdiction that Chris identified earlier as having almost a 50-50 loan-to-debt ratio, higher per student funding than any other province. Also, it's a province that has a single university and is able, on a per capita basis, to offer $140 more per individual in the province to students studying in that province. That's an efficiency they possess that allows them to draw more students from other parts of Canada.
MR. CHURCHILL: Just for clarification, that was a 1,400 per cent increase in Nova Scotia students that attended Memorial between 1997 and 2007?
MR. LEFORTE: Yes.
MR. CHURCHILL: If my memory serves me correctly, that was during a time when tuition was increasing in this province as well, is it not?
MR. LEFORTE: At the time, tuition was increasing in Nova Scotia, yes.
MR. SAULNIER: I would just like to latch onto the point you raised about how trend demographics will be shifting. We've already seen it at Dalhousie, our international student enrolment is increased by almost 35 per cent this year and that is a trend that we expect to continue into the future. As student union president, I also sit on the university's board of governors and it's Dalhousie's strategic plan to keep current enrolment levels that they have to draw from the rest of Canada and internationally. This isn't a far-off thing, it's happening right now and it will be continuing to happen in the next few years, that we will see our international enrolment increased and we're also trying to be more competitive in the Canadian market. Any increase of tuition will make us less competitive and will likely affect enrolment numbers.
MR. CHURCHILL: Was there any discussion in the report around differential fees for international students?
MR. LEFORTE: Not for international students specifically. ANSSA does not have a policy regarding international students specifically, it's an issue that we just started to look at this year. Our differential-fees discussion focuses on students from out of province.
MR. CHURCHILL: In terms of student funding, O'Neill does say that these increase the capacity of student financial assistance programs in Nova Scotia and focus more on students with the greatest financial need. He identifies - this is needs-based support, but in the report, I thought he talked mostly about low-income students. Does he distinguish the difference between needs-based support and income-based support? Which one is he actually advocating for in the report?
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MR. LEFORTE: From my perspective the report generally focused on low-income as being needs-based.
MR. CHURCHILL: Okay, because there is a difference in needs-based and income-based support. Income-based support would be support given out to someone - which the federal government is now doing through the Canada Student Grant Program - based on the amount of income that their family has, whereas needs-based support is given to someone based on the amount of financial need they have. So that would be if someone needs to move in from Cape Breton to Halifax, their rent goes up, their moving costs, all that sort of stuff comes in to assess their need, so that's an important distinction to make; I don't think he makes it in the report. Giving out money on either a needs-based system or an income-based system is very different and will have very different outcomes.
Also, there's no mention in the report about the need to accompany any sort of financial assistance program with strong communications and early outreach. Mr. Whynott brought up a good point, how do you encourage people at a young age to start thinking about post-secondary? What we've noticed from the research is that students who aren't pursuing post-secondary education are often making their minds up on that decision much earlier in life, during even elementary, junior high, even before they get to high school. Any sort of financial aid program needs to be accompanied by an early outreach program, especially if it's going to be targeted for under-represented students who aren't in the system.
Were student groups consulted during this report?
MR. LEFORTE: We met with Dr. O'Neill on one occasion and also forwarded our concerns to him via a document.
MR. CHURCHILL: What were you consulted on specifically?
MR. LEFORTE: We got to give a fairly comprehensive report to him over the course of an hour and a half in, I believe it was, March. That discussion focused around concerns about university funding, student financial assistance, attraction and retention. Then later on the context shifted and we gave some feedback about university structuring, as well, the structure of the system between the institutions.
MR. CHURCHILL: It seems there have been reports done in the past that have looked at the various post-secondary institutions in the province and assessed the overlap and their efficiencies. I think that has been done once or twice and each time it has come out and the reporters have said there isn't much overlap in terms of what's being offered at the various institutions. I don't know if he recognizes those previous reports in the document.
What was the reaction to only removing the idea of the universities in Halifax for five years and not removing it off the agenda completely?
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MR. LEFORTE: As far as organization is concerned currently, the issue with putting things off the table right now in terms of integration and collaboration is problematic, just because what we would like to see is that any concern or any attention brought to what the post-secondary education system in the province should look like, should be focused on accessibility, affordability and accountability. We believe that by putting those types of things off the table, not enough due consideration was given to how they may make the system more affordable.
MR. CHURCHILL: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Morton.
MR. MORTON: Thank you, Rob and Chris, for being here and for the report that your association prepared. This is a very important topic and I think probably many of us sitting around the table are reminded of how important the work that you're doing is and how important universities are to us; not many of us are products of universities in Nova Scotia. In the dawn of history I sat on a graduate student council at Dalhousie, so I have a sense of some of the work that you're involved in.
I think, too, just as a comment, the door of our government certainly has been open to students and we've been hearing a lot about the minister having an opportunity to consult more than once with student bodies across the province. You have done a great job of meeting with MLAs all over the province and all of that has been very helpful.
You talked in your remarks today about the deficiencies of Dr. O'Neill's report and I guess I'm wondering if you could perhaps talk just a little bit more about what you think he should have focused on and how maybe he should have restructured the way he went about the consultation?
MR. LEFORTE: From my perspective, the issue is that if this report had been generated we had been asking for an economic analysis of the university system for a long time. It had been one of ANSSA's priorities, I think as far back as 2009. We believe that if the report had been done in maybe August 2008, it would have had a substantially different tone, as opposed to looking at ways to reign in government support for the system and pass that on to students, who are the other primary supporting mechanism of the universities' operation revenues and operation funding.
We think the report would have taken a very different tone in terms of the solutions that the university system can provide for the province, things like attracting immigration from domestic, out-of-province students and international students. Things like making our system one that is more competitive with other universities, one that has a higher level of quality. What we've seen here is that it attempts to simply maintain what we currently have,
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which we have identified as having some significant deficiencies for students, but not only for students and do that in the context of making the students pay for it.
We believe that had the report been done sooner, we might not be in the position where we're talking about how much we have to cut, how much we have to raise tuition, how much we have to expect individuals to take on student financial assistance, how much those individuals are going to rely on student financial assistance over the coming years and instead say things like how much we can make our universities produce, how much we can get them to contribute to the overall community that they're a part of.
I know, for example, some universities in smaller towns in the region - Acadia, for example, accounts for almost 35 per cent of the economic footprint in Wolfville. It's a very specific example and a very genuine example to Acadia. But these are the types of things we would have liked to have seen the report address: how much more universities can contribute as opposed to how much more students have to contribute to the universities.
MR. MORTON: Thank you. So I guess in some ways you're suggesting if the report had been prepared earlier, it might have dealt with some funding issues but in some ways - I guess I'm wondering how much emphasis you're putting on the current recession and maybe how little you're thinking about sort of structural financial and economic issues that government faces.
MR. LEFORTE: One of the things that we recognize is obviously that the province has challenges, very significant challenges. It's something that we've been briefed on a number of times by a variety of individuals from the governing Party but also from bureaucrats, too, which has certainly been eye-opening at times, as people who were just finding out as much about the economy as we did. But more significantly, I feel, in my time as a representative of students, seeing the contributions that students actually make to the communities that they are part of and seeing the footprint, the employment statistics, the amount of money that international students bring to the province, those types of statistics have been more shocking to me, seeing numbers like $4.4 billion in total economic footprint of universities in Atlantic Canada. Numbers like that are things that tell me universities are a place to invest in, as opposed to divest from.
[9:45 a.m.]
What I am saying is that while I recognize there are significant challenges in organizations - I'll recognize that there are significant challenges - our focus is on the productivity that could be created not only by universities themselves, as they exist currently, but as they could exist by the amount of students that we could have in the province, by the amount of graduates that we could retain in the province, more so in terms of future returns.
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While I respect greatly the efforts being made to rein in spending, because I know that it is something that's going to affect me as a resident over the next number of years, something that I think could be done is a maintenance of what we have currently because the numbers are staggering and a lot of what the report suggests has to do with increases of funding.
I know that to maintain the tuition freeze for the next year would cost the province $30 million but I see that if we're not creating a system that is going to continue to return as much as universities do and as much as the students who attend those universities do to the province, I think we could see potentially greater losses of revenue in the future. Our organization would like to see the province avoid that cycle.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Two minutes, if you'd like to. If not . . .
MR. MORTON: If I could ask another one, Madam Chairman.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Sure.
MR. MORTON: You have talked a little bit about restructuring. I guess I'm just interested in pushing your thinking a little bit further around that area. We have 11 institutions in Nova Scotia with various mandates. I don't think anybody is suggesting and I don't think Dr. O'Neill suggested that any of those mandates are unimportant or that the economic investments that those institutions generate aren't important to the communities in which they exist.
I am interested in your thinking or if you have had any thinking about how there may be some different ways of imagining how we deliver post-secondary education in Nova Scotia and whether there may be synergies that could exist, through different kinds of affiliations or configurations. I guess including perhaps through the community college system, which Dr. O'Neill didn't deal with directly.
MR. LEFORTE: One thing that I will say on behalf of our organization is that before we began the process of consultation with Dr. O'Neill, we hadn't been made aware yet of the fiscal challenges. The cycle for knowing where the economy stood hadn't been completed yet, so those weren't questions that we had anticipated getting and it wasn't something that we, as students, had gotten together and talked about very much, up until a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago, once we started hearing as much back from the government as we have, which we appreciated. We're going to take a lot of time to address those questions next weekend, we have a conference to talk about it.
One of the things that I would say we do recognize and needs to be highlighted in terms of universities, themselves, is that while we're ready to begin those discussions, they are discussions that need to be had with many stakeholders in the room together, at the same
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time. For us to sit as students and talk about it isn't going to provide the necessary amount of background as it would for us to sit with government, students, the university administrations, and community stakeholder groups that would create a whole picture of what the mandates are that universities provide, how much they provide to the communities that they're part of, how much they produce for the province. Those are things that we think need significant more discussion, but we think if there is more discussion on those in the future, then there are things that we'd be more willing to come out and have a strong position on.
The overall integration of institutions is a very challenging question. I know that there are probably far greater challenges to integrating universities than we really could have seen, even at the time that the report was produced. It's something that we'll be coming back to, and hopefully we can get you more information on that over the next couple of weeks.
MR. MORTON: Thank you.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: At this point we will move the floor to Mr. d'Entremont, followed by Ms. Birdsall.
HON. CHRISTOPHER D'ENTREMONT: I just have a few quick questions on behalf of our Education Critic, Karen Casey. When it came to the issue of grant versus loan, if in the recommendation of Tim O'Neill to allow tuition to grow again, removing that cap, which really was put into effect to try to at least bring us to a national average within the scope of things - in your report you mention trying to bring a better ratio of debt versus grant. Where should Nova Scotia fit in that, if we are the lowest grant givers? There are those who have grants of up to 50-50 kind of thing. Where should we be fitting within that scope of things?
MR. LEFORTE: One of the biggest challenges that is going to affect exactly where our organization sits on that would be over how much tuition would increase by. Obviously, if there is a substantial increase in tuition over the next five years, the statistics that are given here, if everything is removed, would be over 85 per cent. We would need a much, much higher overall assessed need, but also a higher grant because our levels of debt would continue to rise.
One of the biggest financial issues with loans versus grant provision is that one of the statistics that we've received from the department itself is that for every dollar that's lent to students that they have to receive back, approximately 31 cents to 34 cents is spent on making sure that that money is given to students, distributed with the information and sort of watched over the course of how long it takes them to pay it back. That also includes things like non-repayment and defaulting on loans.
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A grant that is given would not incur that cost. It's overall an entire dollar, but it is a more efficient way of giving the assessed need that we know those students have and giving them a decreased debt burden at the end of their degree, which we know will keep more students in the province. We've had research show that of students who incur over $26,000 of debt, they're 20 per cent more likely than other students to leave the province to find work after graduation.
MR. D'ENTREMONT: The other point is, there had been some discussion over the last number of years and it's not necessarily in the Tim O'Neill report, but it revolves around, when do you help out with that debt? What we ended up hearing from students especially was it would really boil down to access. It's wonderful to have a grant or a bursary once you're complete - you're starting the repayment of your loan and you receive a stay-in-Nova Scotia rebate and those kinds of things - but ultimately you need to have the money to go to university to begin with in order to pay for your day-to-day, pay for tuition and those kinds of things. Is there another mechanism in which to provide dollars and living dollars for students beyond the scope of the Student Loans Program, which in my mind is a bureaucracy that is far too big for what it actually delivers to Nova Scotians?
MR. LEFORTE: Your question is, have we identified anywhere else that the province could spend money that would assist students in accessing post-secondary education? One of the things that we found problematic is that making investments like the tax rebate after the fact doesn't actually help students, they help graduates. Everyone is pretty clear on that fact and we haven't been led to believe otherwise.
One of the things that we believe is that if that money that is spent - which we see increasing from about $16 million this year, in its first year, to over $24 million by the last year that it was stated for in the provincial budget - would have been put into upfront grants, we could eliminate a significant portion of the student loans that people who have been assessed to have need already have faced. What we would very much be encouraging would be for the graduate tax retention credit to be removed and for that money that is put aside already for that fund, to be brought into making the debt-to-grant ratio increased in favour of the grant. So that's one way that we think money could be better spent.
MR. D'ENTREMONT: One final comment, because it's in the news today and it revolves around Dalhousie University. We're in the middle of discussions on tuition, tuition increases, service to Nova Scotians, a whole quandary of issues. There is talk about a $600 million expansion to Dalhousie University. In my visits to Dalhousie, it does have some really nice infrastructure, and it has some other infrastructure that really needs some work. I'm just wondering, what are your thoughts about an investment like this and how it might trickle down and students might end up having to pay for this as well?
MR. SAULNIER: What you're referring to is the campus master plan which the board of governors approved yesterday and was also presented to Senate. It's not that $600
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million of projects that have been approved, it's that the university for a long time has been operating on the basis where we need a new building, we don't have enough space, let's just put one up right there and it will be good enough for us. What they did over the last three years is, they brought in a consulting group to make a campus master plan, which is a framework for how the campus should be developed in the future. This plan has identified a few key principles and priorities that the university should follow over the next 10 to 30 years, which include intensification of the campus. So instead of expanding the land that Dalhousie currently owns and spreading out in the city, just developing on what we currently own and also just what projects and priorities are of high importance.
Some needs that were identified were athletic facilities at Dalhousie, which has extremely low student happiness statistics, we'll say, they've identified that as a need and that is in the campus master plan. These are projects that would be occurring whether the plan was approved or not. It's more just now the university has a framework to operate under. Also, as a part of this, all of the infrastructure was evaluated, what is currently good enough to use, what can be upgraded and what it would be cheaper to replace rather than maintain.
So, yes, it is a concern that with any new building project where the funding is coming from, but this campus master plan isn't the university setting out on a goal to spend a large amount of money on capital projects. This is something that would have to occur anyway as the regular life cycle of the university and now it's just being done in an intelligent and sustainable way.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, and I'll offer the floor to Ms. Birdsall.
MS. BIRDSALL: Thank you, Robert and Chris. This is a very exciting kind of endeavour, when government goes forward and puts forward a report and then we have groups such as yourself to come together and give your feedback and then synthesis happens, which is the whole process.
You were saying that you were surprised, looking at everything through a narrow economic lens and that is the fiscal reality that we're dealing with right now. It has been said over and over recently that you can only pay your MasterCard with your Visa so many times and then someone comes knocking. That is the difficult position that the government is in. Given that, having said that, looking at various ways of looking at this report and seeing how, in fact, assessments can be made of the assessment of universities and students and how is funding linked with that - there are always people saying, well, am I getting my dollar's worth, are they worth this? A cynical public will always say those sorts of things.
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In Recommendation 7, Dr. O'Neill says:
Create key performance indicators for quality assessment and accountability under the following guidelines:
a. Engage experts in the design of quality assessment tools for higher education to assist in the development of a prototype report card for Nova Scotia universities.
b. Negotiate the elements of a regular report on performance of the province's universities.
You say that this is a step in the right direction and yet there needs to be more around that. Could you talk a bit more about that?
MR. LEFORTE: Well in terms of the financial - would you like to know more about the financial ways of doing that?
MS. BIRDSALL: Yes.
MR. LEFORTE: I would like to let you know that I know a lot about paying your Visa with your MasterCard or with your line of credit. (Laughter)
MS. BIRDSALL: We all do, Robert, as discouraging as it may seem. (Interruptions)
[10:00 a.m.]
MR. LEFORTE: In terms of setting out a quality assessment tool for the province, I honestly believe that there is probably a way of doing that without spending any money at all, I think - I mean probably like under $150,000, because we have this report for $90,000 and it is very comprehensive.
If that's something that's going to benefit our system over the long run, that is going to create quality and attract students, make our graduates much more marketable - because everyone knows that the system is a strong one, that it's not creating bad graduates, that people coming from each institution are valued to a certain quality level - I think that's something that is going to be a smart investment. Making an investment like that is something that's going to help not only the students now and when they graduate, but it's also going to help our businesses, it's going to help our communities because they're going to be able to make better decisions about who to hire, what those skill sets actually mean.
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I believe that if we have a strong relationship with the institutions themselves, and I think it is a good relationship in terms of wanting to work together, I believe that creating and fostering an environment whereby institutions want to be part of that process is going to be beneficial to them too. So by encouraging them to make sure that assisting the province is going to return for them, I think that they'd be more willing to give as much of the information that they have and sort of an in-kind contribution of work time from their staff.
I know that each institution has individuals who are responsible for quality assessment already and to strike a committee on that over a few months, I don't see it as being particularly financially onerous right now. I think it is something that we should do, absolutely. What it is going to look like, the report is kind of vague, too, about it but it is something that we'd be very happy to help encourage our universities and get our members to encourage their universities to be part of.
MS. BIRDSALL: Can you talk a little bit about how the alliance does now currently interact with universities? How do you do that? Is it on a regular basis, do you do reports, do they ask information of you?
MR. LEFORTE: Well currently, with the five universities that are members, the president of the student union and the equivalent - which is my position of vice-president external, or academic external at those institutions - sits on our board. We meet monthly, we have very informal discussions at times, in various places. We have a very strong connection to the other students at those schools. Each of them sits on their university board of governors, meet regularly - monthly or biweekly - with the university presidents. Our organization meets with the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents, with them as a whole but also with the executive director of CONSUP, Peter Halpin, and the Association of Atlantic Universities, so it is a discussion that we have very frequently, I would say, in comparison to other groups that I have been part of.
MS. BIRDSALL: And you're discussing the financial parts of things, or how courses will go? What's the meat of it, all these discussions?
MR. LEFORTE: In terms of courses and programs, most of the discussions seem to be had at the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission. Each of our universities have individuals who liaise with our organization, but are on committees which students are part of and those students are us, at other institutions. So currently most of the discussion has to do around finances, areas where we can co-operate more together such as this when they come up, and basically sharing our priorities because funding of the university system is a priority for both groups. We're also very aware that our relationship is one of attempting to work together with the others as much as possible and trying to give any assistance where we see - I guess you could call it constructive criticism, for the institutions from us. They've given their fair share of constructive criticism to us as well.
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MS. BIRDSALL: And you've given it back?
MR. LEFORTE: Yes.
MS. BIRDSALL: When you talk about integration, can you talk a little bit about that - integration of services and that sort of thing?
MR. LEFORTE: I think I covered most of the points that I had earlier. Primarily the report deals a lot with back-end services. Those are things that wouldn't require a substantial change in governance for the universities, or as Dr. O'Neill suggests, a huge investment at the outset. Those are the types of integrations that they mention.
One of the things that we stress when thinking about integration is that the priority needs to be made on accessibility and affordability. That's basically where we stand as an organization.
MS. BIRDSALL: In Recommendation 10, Dr. O'Neill talks about the basic framework of funding, the funding formula and all of that. He says:
a. Negotiate the enrolment baseline and the proportion of the formula driven by changes in enrolment levels.
b. Set the minimum length of the agreement at three years.
You said that Dalhousie's enrolment was up 35 per cent?
MR. SAULNIER: No.
MS. BIRDSALL: What did you say? I wrote down 35 per cent and I thought that that surely could not be international students.
MR. SAULNIER: I said our international students; our enrolment, it's between 6 per cent and 8 per cent.
MS. BIRDSALL: Okay, so we're up 6 per cent or 8 per cent over last year?
MR. SAULNIER: Yes.
MR. LEFORTE: One thing to add, though - provincial enrolments in Nova Scotia have gone up, too, and that's just in the last year. We know that the last year is potentially a bit of an outlier because people have highlighted that the recession has prompted individuals to return to study, but we know that once you've returned to study, there's an 80 per cent chance you're going to stay in that field until you get a job to complete.
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Over the last year, international students - which are referred to as full-time visa students - have increased by 17.7 per cent provincially. Full-time, first-year post-secondary students have increased by 7.3 per cent - that's not just at Dalhousie but at other institutions as well. We've seen the reflection be that more students are attending. If we see more students continue to attend post-secondary and can encourage more students to attend in numbers like this, those tuition revenues can offset the current baseline amount of students having to pay more. Expecting this baseline amount of students to be the negotiated number, not accounting for growth but for decline - if we do see growth, the institutions could see surpluses on their operating revenues if they're kept at the current level. Where that money goes, the province doesn't have as much of a say.
MS. BIRDSALL: Which would be a wonderful thing if that could continue. Hoping that it does with international students, what sort of recruitment process is there going on in universities?
MR. LEFORTE: Not enough currently. The recruitment processes are different at every school right now. Recruitment is something that takes on a lot of forms. We know that recruitment of students individually happens by recruiting officers; however, the brand, the overall marketed image, Canada's university capital, for example, those are things that also contribute to recruitment, contribute to bringing students here. Academic quality, assessments of institutions as being the top 200 institutions in the world, those types of things help to bring international students here as well. Just the recognition that the university is a quality system helps to bring students here.
Of the actual types of recruitment that are going on in schools, they haven't changed a whole lot, but some of the other factors have contributed to more students wanting to attend here. One of the things that I would say is vital over the coming years that isn't in place right now, is that every institution have some sort of publicly-funded individual who can assist international students when they are completed, finding jobs at our career services centres, international students specifically, getting immigration papers filled out and going through those processes. The amount of communication that's done right now is insufficient to reach all of those students.
One problem that we do have is humongous. When we do get those students here their levels of attrition are much higher than domestic students. Varying factors go into that, but it's something that could definitely be fixed by - I don't know exactly what type of an influx it would be, but it would definitely be a smarter way of doing things, as opposed to necessarily a more expensive way of doing them.
MS. BIRDSALL: Excellent. Thank you very much.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Samson.
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HON. MICHEL SAMSON: Thank you, Rob and Chris, for coming in to do this presentation. There are a number of us around the table who are very familiar with the impact of tuition, student loans and everything else that comes along with that. I'm just wondering, just to put some numbers on the table, what is the average cost of an undergrad tuition in Nova Scotia right now?
MR. SAULNIER: The average cost of tuition in Nova Scotia in 2010, accounting for our student bursary program, is $5,495. The average cost for an undergraduate tuition across Canada is $5,138. If the bursary program were not available this year the average cost would be $6,637. Also, as I mentioned, graduate tuition is the highest in Canada and that is $7,350, the national average is $5,182.
MR. SAMSON: Do you have some specific numbers, for example, Chris, I'm curious, what is the tuition at Dalhousie Law School this year, for example?
MR. SAULNIER: I have those numbers, I don't have them on me.
MR. LEFORTE: Around $11,500.
MR. SAMSON: They're up to $11,500. I got out in time, I guess. Back in 1997, when I graduated, I think they were just around the $5,000 mark, so they've obviously doubled in that period of time. I'm curious, let's say this year - and I don't know if you have these specific numbers - let's assume someone has taken a three-year undergrad at Dal, a three-year Law School, six years in total, what kind of student debt, if they were on the maximum loan right through, what are they looking at as a student loan total at the end of their degree?
MR. LEFORTE: The absolute maximum loan you can get over the course of a four-year undergrad is just over $43,000. That would be if you have the highest amount of need, so you make the least amount of money and your parents make the least amount of money. That is the maximum that you can be assessed for based on your costs, and that is between the Canada Student Loan Program and the Nova Scotia Student Assistance Program. So once you get into professional degree programs, there are a lot of other opportunities available to students to get more student loans because my understanding is that banks will give a significant amount of loans to students in professional degree programs, such as engineering, medicine, law, pharmacy, over and above the amount that the government is able to give, because those program costs are so high.
MR. SAMSON: I'm curious, do you have any sense, for example, someone who is walking out after the three-year law program, what they're looking at as student debt?
MR. LEFORTE: The largest number I've heard, and this is anecdotally, from a student, was about $80,000. That was between credit card debt, loans taken from banks and student loans as well.
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MR. SAMSON: Is it safe to say that for most students where there is high need, the student loan system in itself is not sufficient to pay their cost of going to university?
MR. LEFORTE: It's hard to say in most situations what is true for the cost for those students. However, the student loan program assesses the need that a student has. One component of that is when I applied to get a student loan, for example, being under the age of 22 or not four years out of high school, I'm assessed to be a dependant student, for example. However, at the time I was assessed for that, I was not living at home with my parents. They couldn't support anything for my post-secondary education but also I was paying rent, paying for food costs, those types of things. So for me, it wasn't enough to be able to access post-secondary education. For me it was enough to pay tuition, it wasn't enough to pay books, it wasn't enough to pay for lodging, it wasn't enough to pay for groceries so I ended up taking on three part-time jobs. That's an example of what a lot of students face.
[10:15 a.m.]
MR. SAMSON: I certainly appreciate that and that was certainly an issue even back when I went to university but still, at the time, the student loans were a lot closer to the actual cost because the actual cost of tuition was much lower. I can tell you that when I graduated in 1997, having gotten the maximum assistance, after three undergrad and three years law school, my total loans were $35,000, which at the time was considered a significant amount of money. Just to give you a sense of how much it was, at the time when I did get elected and then went to Cabinet, I would often point out to my colleagues that my student loan payments were higher than my mortgage payment, to give them an example of what impact there is.
I fully agree with you, our only hope in Nova Scotia to grow our economy is not on our retirees, it is on those coming out of university to buy homes, buy cars, buy land, go on vacations, buy TVs and everything else to help grow our economy. What government has to realize is that someone who is carrying $43,000 debt after four years is not going to buy a house, it's just not going to happen. They're not going to buy a vehicle and they're not going to spend money and generate economic opportunities for our province to grow.
I'm just curious, I guess putting my political hat on, having been here for 12 years, for many years the NDP advocated for free tuition here in this province. I'm just curious, in your discussions with the new government, has there been any indication that they're still pursuing that goal?
MR. LEFORTE: From our discussions I haven't heard anything like that, but it's something we would be in favour of.
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MR. SAMSON: I have no doubt and I can tell you, I guess, again being a bit political, that we often felt that they may have a different opinion once they actually got to government, of the realities of that.
The second thing is that for years both the NDP, and I know student groups, kept reminding us that it wasn't a matter of making more money available for student debt, it was a matter of making the cost of going to university less expensive for students, not only to allow more to participate but to carry a smaller debt load at the end of the day.
Dr. O'Neill's report and the sense that I'm getting is that the government seems to be moving towards making more debt available to students, rather than trying to keep the cost of tuition down so that our students, when they do finish, are carrying that much less financial burden and are able to actually create economic growth for our province.
I'm just curious what your sense is. After Dr. O'Neill's report and your discussions with the government, do you see that they are looking at limiting the cost of tuition or even lowering it, or does it appear to be that the government is moving towards trying to make more student debt available to students going to university?
MR. LEFORTE: So far there has been no discussion of reductions of tuition. One of the things I would say about Dr. O'Neill's report is that in the report the recommendations for student financial assistance and the increase of the grant portion that is available to students were not specific enough to actually say whether or not the amount that students will end up owing is going to be greater at the end of the day or not, than what it currently is.
My anticipation is that with the amount of money that is available to government right now to spend in areas, including student loans and student grants, that the opportunity won't be there to make that amount lower so I do think that the debt will probably increase if students still stay in the province to study. That's the consideration that I think about. Also, one of the problems with that is that a student who wants to go to another province to study can take a Nova Scotia student loan and take that money that comes from the federal government to our provincial government and go elsewhere with it to study.
It is something that I think we can be doing a little bit more, as a province, to say to the federal government it is time to give us more, so that our per student dollars can match up to what the rest of the country is able to provide because we don't have those revenues coming in from the feds.
One thing I will say is that I agree with the point you made, and it is a very important point, about economic expansion, and Stats Can would agree as well. They have found that a student who carries student debt 10 years after graduation is less likely than one who doesn't, to own a house or own a car, as an individual or as a family. That is something that won't help, over the long term, especially with recovery.
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MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I would like to interrupt at this point. Your 10 minutes has elapsed so before we proceed with anything further, I'd like to see if there are any other questions. Perhaps by the sounds of it, Mr. Samson may have a few more but if there are any others - no? We'll proceed.
MR. SAMSON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. So I just want to confirm, your response was that there have not been any discussions about either lowering tuition or freezing tuition at the current level, that hasn't been part of the discussion up to now?
MR. LEFORTE: Lowering tuitions has not been part of our discussions with the government or with anyone from the governing Party, but keeping tuitions the same has been part of the discussion that we brought forth. So that's something that we have brought forward to the government.
MR. SAMSON: Okay, and you haven't received a response on that, obviously.
MR. LEFORTE: Not yet.
MR. SAMSON: Madam Chairman, I guess my final comment is to just encourage you to continue to lobby on behalf of students. Governing is about priorities, it's not easy and I think the current government is learning that. If it was easy, somebody else would have done it before them. So it is not easy, it is a challenge but all of the demographic information that we have for our province is that our population is going in one direction and that it's getting older, it's not getting younger. If our province is going to be self-sustaining and able to deal with that reality, it's going to be based on what both you and Chris and so many others are going to be able to do to create economic activity in this province, stay in this province, work in this province and invest in this province. That's simply not going to happen if you're walking out owing $80,000 or more, after an undergrad degree and a professional degree.
I certainly encourage you to continue your lobbying efforts. Yes, it's important to keep in mind the economic reality of our province currently but I think you guys have to keep reminding them of the economic reality tomorrow, if changes and investments are not made today.
You know them, we know them because we're living through them. When you say that an undergraduate degree is $43,000 after four years, just in 1997, which wasn't that long ago, I did six years for $35,000. Those numbers are startling and it's just not going to get any better unless we make some significant investments in this province.
Keep up your efforts, not only for your current membership but for those to come after you. They certainly need you to continue to be strong advocates for students and for affordable post-secondary education in this province. Thank you.
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MADAM CHAIRMAN: I understand there are no further questions. I'd like to offer you an opportunity to wrap up your presentation.
MR. LEFORTE: Absolutely. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come, we very much appreciate it. Thank you for the good questions. I had a lot of points to make, but they've all been covered because everyone was so good at asking the relevant issues. It is something that is a top priority for us, to deal with the challenges that address the system, but also that address challenges in this province.
One of the things that we hope we provided a bit to you all was that universities and students themselves are part of the solution and are part of the problem that exists and it's hopefully something that we can invest in so that in the future we don't have to have as many questions about the problems of universities and the problems that students face.
If you have any other questions for us, we'd be happy to take them after the fact or get you more information on any of the issues that we've covered today. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: At this point I'd like to just certainly offer, on behalf of the committee, a tremendous thank you for attending. I can tell you that with a son in the university program now and many, many moons ago having been there myself, I'm very impressed and I think that the members would be, too - I think I can speak for them - on your level of knowledge of the issues that you bring forward on behalf of the many students that you do represent. I think if they had an opportunity to hear you they would be very pleased with the representation that you offer. Eighty per cent of 35,000 students, that is a heavy load to carry and I think you're doing a tremendous job at that and I thank you.
As my colleague, Mr. Samson, has mentioned and no doubt the other members of this committee, we do certainly encourage you to continue that dialogue. Our government is certainly open to that, your valued, very relevant and pertinent information that you can share with them, so we encourage you with that. Keep up the great work and thank you very much for attending today. (Applause)
With that we will proceed with Committee Business - very short at this stage, just our December meeting, members. We would normally meet near the end of the month but, of course, that's the Christmas holidays. We are suggesting that December 14th would be our December meeting. Do we have any objections to rescheduling that December meeting to the 14th?
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AN HON. MEMBER: What day of the week is that?
MADAM CHAIRMAN: It's a Tuesday. Hearing none, we'll proceed with that and the other is our next meeting date which would be November 30th. At that point we'll have agencies, boards and commissions.
The meeting is adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 10:26 a.m.]
