Will the student debt interest relief offered during the pandemic – and which is about to expire – 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 Autumn Financial Statement, the Federal Government announced that it intended to permanently remove interest on all student and apprenticeship loans it administers, including those that are being repaid. — a way to renew the aid measure offered to students during the pandemic, which is due to end on March 31.
However, currently Quebec students are not affected by the measure because Quebec administers its own financial aid program.
However, things can change if the two levels of government agree, as they have done in recent years. “Education is a jurisdiction in Quebec. We are exploring the possibility of harmonizing our loan and scholarship program,” the Quebec finance minister’s office said.
If the province follows in the federal government’s footsteps, Ottawa will pay the financial compensation, the amount of which is not yet known. “We have given money, but we are in negotiations with the Quebec government,” said the person in charge of the case, Rachel Bendayan, Member of Parliament for Outremont and president of the Quebec caucus of the Liberal Party of Canada. “We’re sticking to it. We really want to offer that to Quebec students and [aux étudiantes] Quebecers. It is 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 student loan interest.
The measure proposed by the federal government would cost Ottawa about $2.7 billion over five years and $556.3 million thereafter, the financial statement says.
