HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. Keith Colwell (Chairman)

Hon. Carolyn Bolivar-Getson

Mr. Alfred MacLeod

Mr. Chuck Porter

Mr. Charles Parker

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon

Ms. Diana Whalen

Mr. Leo Glavine

[Mr. Alfred MacLeod was replaced by Mr. Keith Bain.]

[Mr. Charles Parker was replaced by Mr. Leonard Preyra.]

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

WITNESSES

Department of Education

Mr. Dennis Cochrane, Deputy Minister

Mr. Kevin Chapman, Director, Student Assistance Office

Mr. Wayne Doggett, Senior Executive Director, Higher Education

Department of Finance

Mr. Byron Rafuse, Controller

Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations

Mr. Spencer Keys

Canadian Federation of Students

Mr. Chris Parsons

Ms. Danielle Sampson

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2006

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Keith Colwell

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to bring the meeting to order. Just before we start, there was a request by committee members to bring in someone from the federal government. There's nobody here in Halifax, at this point. I'll just read the e-mail that was sent to Mrs. Henry and then it will be up to your pleasure as to what you want to do after this.

"Ms. Henry, further to our discussion earlier this morning, I would like to confirm that we do not feel it would be appropriate to participate in a meeting of the Nova Scotia legislature's Standing Committee on Human Resources to discuss the use of funding under C-48.

As we discussed, the Government of Canada used the authority of Bill C-48, An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments, to provide provinces and territories with $3.3 billion in funding to support investments in post-secondary education, public transit and affordable housing. The funding has been provided to provinces and territories, which are now responsible for all decisions with respect to allocation of the funding, assessing priorities and criteria, project selection, etc.

Should you wish to discuss this further, or if you do receive specific questions from the Committee that you feel are appropriately answered by the Government of Canada, please don't hesitate to contact me."

I'll just put that in the record for now, and maybe after the meeting we can discuss that and see what action the committee wants to take.

With that, I'd like to bring the committee to order. We're going to start off with an around-the-table introduction, and after that we'll follow with a precisely five-minute presentation from each organization, because we have so many. Maybe we could start.

[The committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: With that, I would ask, in no particular order, who would like to make a presentation first? I'm going to hold you to exactly five minutes. Who would like to start, maybe Mr. Cochrane? You're very familiar with this organization.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: I'm quite familiar with it, unfortunately. Thank you for the invitation, despite what I just said. (Laughter)

I am pleased to have a chance to be here this morning and to be joined by two members of the staff and some members of our Communications staff. I think the topic is really C-48 and Bill No. 207. As a result of an adaptation of C-48, the federal government gave $1 billion into a trust fund which they called infrastructure trust. Nova Scotia's share of that was based on the population of Nova Scotia, which gave us $14.4 million a year for two years.

We have constantly been making the comment to the federal government that we think our post-secondary money should be associated with the number of students in post-secondary as opposed to the population of Nova Scotia. However, repeatedly, that has not been the method by which the federal government has allocated the money. So, as a result, we had two allocations of $14.4 million: one for 2006-07 and one for 2007-08. Cabinet decided to dispense the money in the following manner. As a result of 2007, and a letter that was signed between Minister Baker and Mr. Samson, there was an agreement that we spend in three areas; first of all would be tuition reduction, needs-based grants, and finally with regard to apprenticeship.

As a result, the money was allocated; $10.3 million of the $14.4 million in 2006-07 would be assigned to tuition for Nova Scotia students in Nova Scotia universities effective January 2007. The other amount of money, $3.1 million from this year and another $3 million from next year, was going to go into needs-based grants, which were going to be assigned in September 2007 to second-, third- and fourth-year students, because of the fact that first-year students were receiving money under an agreement between the Millennium Foundation and the Province of Nova Scotia, by which they spend $6 million over a four-year period to provide up to $2,500 for first-year students.

We felt that second-year, third-year and fourth-year students should also get that consideration. There was also an agreement that at the end of the Millennium allocation for needs-based grants, first-year students then would be eligible for the $6.1 million trust fund which will be expended over a six-year period.

The last amount of money was money given to apprenticeship - $1 million this year and $1 million next which is going to go into a bursary program for students and apprentices in the Province of Nova Scotia for the first time. Then we also have some new adaptations with regard to Web site applications, the full journey and some other applications with regard to apprenticeship.

That was the decision with regard to the $14.4 million this year. The allocation next year so far has been, as I mentioned with regard to apprenticeship, the $3 million and the $2.6 million. No decision has been made on exactly how we would allocate the money associated with the tuition reduction due to the fact that next year is the first year - actually it's the second year of a five-year commitment the government has made with regard to reducing tuition in Nova Scotia universities to the national average over a five-year period. The first year has gone by, so next year is the second year, which is really the first year that the allocation is made available and that will be brought down over a four-year period.

So those are the decisions that were made with regard to the $14.4 million and obviously with the commitment that has been made with regard to tuition in Nova Scotia universities over the next four years in that five-year period.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Cochrane. Mr. Keys.

MR. SPENCER KEYS: Thank you. I would like to begin by thanking the members of the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of ANSSA, as representatives of 75 per cent of Nova Scotia's university students. We're happy to offer you whatever counsel you would see as appropriate in your discussions here today.

I've been asked to focus my comments on student debt and the $28.8 million that's coming from the infrastructure trust. Ideally, this money would have gone primarily into low- income grants and debt reduction, focusing scarce resources on those that absolutely require them. This weekend I met a passionate woman who was insulted by my analysis of this, telling me that she and her daughter worked hard to make sure the daughter could graduate debt-free and how she, in fact, deserved some relief too.

This is a common, understandable and wholly appropriate reaction. I would simply point out two responses: one - and this is simply because there are a lot of myths about this - there is no empirical evidence that students who graduate with high debt

loads are lazier than students who graduate debt-free; two - and more importantly - there's a demographic crunch in Nova Scotia, and the rest of Canada as well, and higher education systems will need to focus efforts on attracting non-traditional youth to keep enrolment up in light of decreasing numbers of traditional students.

Low-income students are a primary concern as a part of that non-traditional group, and there should be a priority on targeted funding to attract them into the system be it university, college or trade schools. This demographic crunch is of significant concern and a substantial reason why a targeted date is so important.

So getting back to the question of student debt and how best to reduce it, let's look at the statistics. As the often-ignored flip side to the staggering statistics that 48 per cent of Nova Scotian students will graduate with an average debt of $28,000, that 52 per cent of students will not graduate with debt - while that is an appallingly low number, it does mean that 52 cents of every dollar of tuition reduction, or approximately $10.7 million over two years if the current year's distribution stays constant, would go to students who do not urgently need it.

Beyond that, basic concepts of financial management show that the prevention of debt prevents future costs in the long term. According to the Department of Education, the department pays about 40 cents on the dollar to service its student loan program. By taking $440 away from the 52 per cent that do not need it and giving it to the 48 per cent that do, not only would you be preventing those students from incurring an additional $477 of debt each, but you would also be preventing the Department of Education from needing to spend $191 on debt servicing.

By giving the money to students who would otherwise pay for their education through increased debt managed by the department, you can actually cause $10.3 million to have the effect of $14.4 million - and I can certainly get into the math of that later, if you would like.

Furthermore, universal tuition reduction is disproportionately in favour of, say, urban students who continue to live with their parents as opposed to rural students who have to move to attend school. Average tuition is $6,571 and, for the sake of argument, let's assume the cost of living for eight months is approximately the same - $440 translates to a 6.7 per cent decrease in costs for a student who lives at home and has a strong family support network already and is just paying tuition. But that same amount is only a 3.35 per cent reduction in cost for a student living away from home who pays tuition as well as food and housing and all the other necessities of living.

This may just seem like a trick of the numbers, but the students' education costs are proportionately higher by the necessity of where they are born and raised - should we not try to account for that within our funding models?

I say again that this is ANSSA's preferred approach, but we're fine with the government's proposal for two reasons: one, there is a strong political appetite for tuition reductions in this province, despite the somewhat unfocused shotgun policy approach that they exemplify - and anything to diffuse that pressure in the public eye is a positive; and two, it is a two-year program, so we aren't embedding future costs that could be more smartly allocated - but beyond that we also think that there may be a certain benefit to this distribution as it stands right now.

There is a question of whether money should be going to just in-province students or students from all provinces. I would say this, the Government of Canada has been distributing money on a per capital basis for years and, with Nova Scotia's net importing of students, that means we're educating a little over 4,000 more students than we have funding for, and this means we're currently absorbing $21.8 million more in annual education costs than we are equipped to fund. So perhaps a move such as this one, that is short term but dramatic, is necessary to applying pressure to the federal government to change the funding model in Canada. At the very least, it's worth seeing if we can effectively leverage this opportunity.

Those are the beginning of my remarks, and certainly I have responses to almost anything that you could throw at me later on today, so I think I'll just leave it at that. Thank you for your time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Keys. Mr. Parsons.

MR. CHRIS PARSONS: Good morning. My name is Chris Parsons and I'm the Nova Scotia representative of the Canadian Federation of Students. With me as well is Danielle Sampson who, I'm sure most of you by now know, is the Maritime's organizer for the Canadian Federation of Students. She's over there, and she can also assist with any questions. I've also been asked to make a number of remarks on behalf of our partners in the post-secondary education coalition, which includes the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers, the NSGEU, and CUPE, No. 3912, who represent part-time faculty and teaching assistants.

So I would like to focus my remarks on the recent tuition fee reduction and the need to continue to reduce the costs of attending university in Nova Scotia through continued tuition fee reductions and a system of needs-based grants.

Just a few weeks ago the Nova Scotia Government announced tuition fee reductions starting next semester - a move that finally signals this government's acknowledgment that our skyrocketing tuition fees have caused a university or college education to be out of reach for many low- and modest-income families. Starting next semester, Nova Scotian students will save $440 in the tuition fee bills. Unfortunately the government has decided to take a narrow view of who, among our students, should and

should not get support. Nova Scotia should not take such a closed-minded approach to access to post-secondary education - we are part of what should be a national system of post-secondary education, and every Canadian should have the right to attend the university of their choice, without financial penalties for the province of birth.

At a time when tuition fees are the highest in Canadian history, the number of Nova Scotia high school graduates is down and universities have seen the largest drop in enrolment in the past five years. Nova Scotia is in no position to be rolling up the welcome mat to out-of-province students. We should be encouraging all students to study and live in Nova Scotia regardless of where they originally call home because, after just a few short years, most of them will come to call Nova Scotia home.

[9:15 a.m.]

This is definitely a first step in the right direction, but is just that - a first step. We must continue down this path and reduce tuition fees for all students studying in Nova Scotia. We should also look at this one-time transfer as a stepping stone to further investment in post-secondary education.

We've heard the provincial government blame the current funding formula for the introduction of differential tuition fees. Currently, post-secondary education funding is distributed on a per capita basis and not a per student basis, as others have talked about. Because we are a net importer of students, we do not receive adequate funding. If the provincial government wants to receive funding on a per student basis, the provincial government must join students in their call for a dedicated post-secondary education transfer, the only mechanism for delivering funding on a per student basis. We propose that the standing committee recommend that the Nova Scotia Government call for a dedicated post-secondary education transfer delivered on a per student basis.

The expansion of the low-income grant program is also an excellent beginning to make post-secondary education more affordable to our needier students. We must remember this grant will only continue until 2010-11, and that the government must begin to fund a needs-based grants program that will go beyond five years. In addition we also have to remember that every dollar of tuition fee increases eats away at every single dollar that's invested in needs-based grants, and any system needs-based grant has to be coupled with a tuition fee reduction in order to ensure that it's most effective.

So thank you again for allowing us to present some of our concerns, and more in-depth information has been provided to you in the handouts that we provided everyone. I will gladly answer any questions that you might have.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parsons, thank you very much.

Mr. Rafuse, do you have any brief comments?

MR. BYRON RAFUSE: I don't have any opening remarks other than to say that, as the Department of Finance representative here today, I will be able to answer questions on the nature of the federal trust, the nature of trust in general, how revenue flows from the federal government to the province and about any subsequent trusts that could be established here in Nova Scotia in relation to this initiative.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We're going to start the first round with 10 minutes each. Mr. Preyra from the NDP.

MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome the panellists today, especially to welcome the deputy minister. I know he has been here often and I don't know how many ministers he has broken in over the years, but I thank him for being here today. I have a number of questions for him later. I would also like to welcome the students, I know both ANSSA and CFS, and the representatives here today who have done a wonderful job over the years of making sure that student issues remain front and centre and that pressure is brought to bear where pressure needs to be brought to address the issues that they raise. So I welcome Spencer, Chris and Danielle here today on behalf of their respective organizations.

I would also like to compliment the department on what I think are two really big steps that have been taken over the last couple of weeks. One is the pilot program on Employment Support and Income Assistance. We've been calling on that for a long time and certainly we would like to see that expanded. We would like to see more people included, you know, we would like to see a lot more, but we believe that the pilot program will work and that the department will - I know the Department of Education is not the lead department in this but through you to the other minister, I thank you for at least opening that door and also on the tuition fee reduction. I think it does respond to what Bill No. 207 called for and what Bill C-48 called for. We hope to see this program expanded past the two years.

That being said, I have a number of questions, really more to the department than anything else, and it really asks more about the future in terms of where the department sees itself going. On tuition fees, we know that the government has made a commitment to reducing tuition fees to the national level in the medium term and most of what we've seen over the last few months since the campaign has been focused around this Bill C-48 money, but I'm wondering where we are in terms of new provincial money that's going to be dedicated to meeting that platform commitment and where we are in terms of the issue of dedicated funding per student, because I know that student groups have been calling for this for awhile, but it appears to be a non-starter at the federal level. I'm wondering, Mr. Cochrane, would you be free to comment on that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before Mr. Cochrane answers, I would ask you to keep your answers to the point because there are a lot of questions we would like to ask everybody.

MR. PREYRA: And I'll keep my questions shorter, too.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes and no, you figure it out. Certainly Nova Scotia is in favour of a dedicated transfer for post-secondary education. Our minister recently met with the federal minister, Diane Finley, and made a very clear point that that's something we're certainly in support of and, as you know, we would like to see them restored to the 1994 levels plus inflation which is a significant amount of money.

With regard to the provincial budget, we're now in the beginning stages of preparing the budget submissions. We're following through on the government's commitment over the next four years to bring the tuition to the national average. We had to make some assumptions in the calculation of that. One of the assumptions was that the national average would go up by about 3.9 per cent. We picked our number from the MOU. If it's wrong, we'll take a period at the end to look at what kind of adjustment needs to be made, but we'll be taking a presentation, our minister will take a presentation to Cabinet with regard to beginning to bring the tuition of Nova Scotia universities - and that's all the tuition, not just Nova Scotia students - and begin that downward slope.

The first thing we have to do is offset the last 3.9 per cent in the third year of the MOU and then obviously start to bring it down. So it's a significant commitment that we'll be asking the Cabinet to consider. Obviously, we don't know at this point the outcome of those deliberations. They have to look at the revenues and all the other issues that are facing it, but it's our intention to bring forward numbers that would enable the government to meet the commitment that they've made over the four-year period.

MR. PREYRA: Are there specific timelines and commitments in terms of funding, because I know you're talking about hoping that the national average itself would rise so that the 2000 gap would be closed for that, but that's not really a strategy, that's just a hope. Is there anything there that says, you know, in this year we're going to dedicate this amount of money and it's going to meet this target? Because I agree with you, 3.9 per cent is a high threshold to cross because we have to go to 3.9 per cent plus get ourselves to the national average.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right. We'll be bringing it forward in four instalments, basically, if we bring our tuition to the national average over the four-year period. It's about $356 a student per year for the 37,000 FTE students who are in Nova Scotia. Obviously Cabinet has to take a look at what kind of pressures there are. That could be front-end loaded, back-end loaded, and we would make the final adjustment at the end.

We track national tuitions and we take a look at the situation. Both British Columbia and Ontario have a bit of an artificial situation so we don't know how long that will take and what they will do, but we have kind of made the assumption of 3.9 per cent and then we expect at the last year to do the adjustment to bring us to that national average, but we're really looking at it in a three-year period.

One of the comments in one of the platforms talked about over $1,000 and it obviously works out to well over $1,000 over the next three years.

MR. PREYRA: I have a question also about debt relief. I agree with what the student groups have been saying about needs-based grants, we have been calling for that for quite a long time. Is there any plan to move beyond the allocation of federal money that's coming to establishing something that, in fact, is based on an institution that can survive over the long term, with principles that can be used? It seems cruel in a way to establish something and then to lose it two years later, the same with the tuition fees.

Is there anything being done right now to establish a genuine needs-based grant program outside of Bill C-48 money?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, obviously we're always concerned with regard to our student debt and the student loan system. Everyone in the needs-based grant category is eligible for a student loan, or they wouldn't be able to be determined as the needs-based. So certainly our back-end loading debt reduction and so on assists that. Obviously we're working with Millennium. We have a real concern, of course, about Millennium and its future. As you know, 2009, our $6 million, which is $1.5 million over four years, is a positive thing. That's a relationship between Nova Scotia and Millennium. Our concern really was wow, you give a needs-based grant in the first year and then it's gone for the second, third and fourth. We don't have any statistical information as to what kind of retention we get as a result of needs-based grants in the first year from Millennium.

So we've made it year two, three and four and then designed it to pick it up. Hopefully, that will give us a six-year period and during that period of time we'll continue to look at what kind of success we have with regard to the dedicated transfer, what kind of success we have with regard to looking at our student loan program and some of the changes that we might be considering there.

MR. PREYRA: But beyond Millennium and beyond Bill C-48 and beyond getting a dedicated transfer, those are pretty big what-ifs. Is there something being planned beyond those what-ifs?

MR. COCHRANE: No.

MR. PREYRA: That is a problem. In talking with colleagues at Saint Mary's earlier and they were saying that the biggest problem they've had with enrolment this year is in returning students and it's quite possible that Millennium is to blame for some of that. You know if you give someone a grant in one year and then you say adios in the second year, you are essentially drowning them. You're taking them out into deep water and saying now, swim, so they're leaving.

MR. COCHRANE: We certainly went out on a bit of a limb with regard to how we use the $14.4 million, as you know, there was a lot of talk of it being infrastructure. Certainly the student organizations had an opinion and the university presidents had an opinion. We decided that rather than expend it all in a two-year period, to create the trust which will give a pretty significant contribution to another 650 students, I think, in years two, three and four, and then eventually pick up the 350 that are covered by Millennium.

It will be a start. It's not enough and we recognize that and we'll continue to monitor that along with the other things that are happening in the meantime, one of which, of course, depending on the dedicated transfer, we may have a significant amount of opportunity there as well.

MR. PREYRA: I am disappointed that you don't really have a needs-based grant program and that's something that the department needs to give serious consideration to because we know that almost 45 per cent of the students who don't go to university cite high tuitions and debt aversion. It means that you aren't going to be throwing them any kind of a life jacket or anything like that once this program ends, and in particular rural students.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Preyra, your time has expired. Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and certainly a welcome to the panel today and for the opening comments, to give us some additional information to ask questions about and to react to. I guess the first comment I would make today is that perhaps this year is a bit of a watershed year in Nova Scotia, where truly our backs are against the wall to do something and to move forward, away from the stigma, but the reality of the highest tuitions in the country and the highest burden of debt at the end.

When we have 850 of our students migrating to one university alone outside of Nova Scotia, that is absolutely so telling, when those students can go there to have two round-trip air fares and still have $2,000 in their pockets. I know in some of the high schools there has been a real exodus to New Brunswick and to Newfoundland and Labrador. I firmly believe that $440 is just not going to cut it in terms of now changing the mindsets of parents and students in terms of making a Nova Scotia university number one again in terms of desirability to attend. It truly is about the tuitions.

We're talking about dedicated transfers, needs-based grants and so on. I would like a comment from the deputy minister in terms of how he sees a long-range plan to reverse a trend that I believe we need to. I mean, we'll always have students that will go to other universities across the country, as we all have students who come here to Nova Scotia from different parts of the globe, really. This out-migration now for education is certainly of immense proportions. I'm wondering if the department is working on something even more substantive than the plan of getting to the national average. I almost think there needs to be an education program in our schools. I'm wondering what the deputy has to offer in that area.

MR. COCHRANE: We've always had a number of students leave the province. The world is getting smaller, and our students are getting much more global in their approach. I for one don't think we can pen them in to Nova Scotia. However, I think we have to work to keep our tuitions affordable. Our student loan system, I think, has to be aggressive in attempting to deal with the problems students have facing post-secondary. I think we're making significant gains with regard to the community college, and we can't lose sight of the fact that it's also part of our post-secondary system, and $123 million over the number of years, plus the tuition in the average middle of the pack is a significant measure, I think, of a commitment by Nova Scotia.

[9:30 a.m.]

I think certainly the quality of our universities is important, and we're concerned about that. In the MOU, we did recognize $23 million in cost pressures that universities have that were probably never really recognized in the calculations before. So I think all those things coming together, along with the allocation of this bit of money, and I agree, $433 - it's interesting though, $433 doesn't seem to be much when you reduce it, but there was hell to pay when the 3.9 per cent, which is $245, was assigned in September. There is a bit of relativity here.

It's a start. It's an effort by Nova Scotia to contribute the federal money to what we need. We also have to take a look at some of the other issues that universities are bringing forward to us, making sure that we are able to attract faculty and help them in that regard. The infrastructure issues associated with university are significant.

So we are concerned about the quality issues, we're concerned about tuition, we're concerned about student loan, and there's no doubt we have to do a better job and make sure our universities and our community college are front and centre in the days that students are being bombarded with application processes and so on for universities. We have to start earlier.

One of the things that we have to do a better job of is to make sure the people understand what kind of financial assistance is available. Students are reluctant to jump

up in Grade 12 and say, well, I'm going to go to university and indebt my parents to this amount of money. We have some very good programs, and we just have to make sure the people understand these early enough so that students will make the decision to go in concert with their parents, and their discussion, knowing what kinds of programs are available and what kind of support is there. It's a concentrated effort that we all have to do.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. One of the programs that certainly students who had debt felt was very successful in Nova Scotia, up to 1999 about $10 million a year was put into the program for student relief. We know that went absent for four years during the introduction of the Millennium Scholarships. It was reintroduced around 2003. I'm just wondering now, on a yearly basis, and perhaps Mr. Rafuse can speak to this, in terms of, how much on an annual basis is now going into debt relief after graduation?

MR. KEVIN CHAPMAN: The budget for the Debt Reduction Program specifically for Nova Scotia for the current year is $7.6 million.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I wonder if you would step up to a mic, to make sure we get it on our record, and state your name, please.

MR. CHAPMAN: I'm Kevin Chapman, Director of the Nova Scotia Student Assistance Office. The budget for the 2006-07 fiscal year for the Debt Reduction Program in Nova Scotia is $7.6 million. We get $8.624 million from the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, plus we have a component of the Millennium Access Grant that goes to remission, as well as a provincial access grant. So this year in Nova Scotia there is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $16 million to $17 million in remission payments made to the students in Nova Scotia.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. While you're there, Mr. Chapman, we've chatted many times regarding student loans, and there still does not seem a relatively simple, straightforward process for students. If you were to make one recommendation for us, now in minority government, for all MLAs to work towards some degree of, I guess, simplification, what would it be?

MR. CHAPMAN: That's a great question, Mr. Glavine. I think, as the deputy mentioned, student assistance is an incredibly complex program. Awareness and knowledge of the program is key, and I think we need to get out there earlier, as I believe you had mentioned, and others have mentioned. I think we all believe that what we need to do is work with our partners in the federal government and other jurisdictions to simplify the program. Inherent in a needs-based program is trying to define need, and there's always a balance between defining needs so specifically that it takes forever to process an application, and having checks and balances.

I think we have to ensure that we remember the student at the end of the day, and make sure that the balance doesn't swing too far to one side; so simplification. I think there are a number of quick fixes that we can do there that we had looked to do with our federal, provincial and territorial colleagues.

MR. GLAVINE: Would you go so far as to say, however, that perhaps in terms of meeting the very, very high-needs student, the very, very low income, that our tuition and then the lack of support through needs-based grants and loans is a crippling point for students who are considering university? You've dealt with a lot of students, how would you summarize that, Mr. Chapman?

MR. CHAPMAN: There's no question that the issue of high costs is a concern to students, and there's no question that I think we've seen that has started to have an effect, even though enrolment rates have gone up, almost counter-intuitive to tuition costs, I think we're starting to see that enrolments have decreased. I think, as Chris identified, we are trying to look at specific under-represented groups, such as students from low-income families, students with permanent disabilities, to ensure that those students who are most in need get the assistance.

The grant the deputy talked about earlier, our belief is that students from low-income families don't have access to other sources of income perhaps that middle and other families might have, such as lines of credit and so on. So unmet need to those students can be a real inhibitor, and that's why this grant is targeted at those specific students, where liquidity is an issue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired.

HON. CAROLYN BOLIVAR-GETSON: Thank you. I would like to thank the presenters for coming in here this morning. It definitely was informative to listen to the students speak on tuition. I know that it may not be the end-all, but I hope that it is a step in the right direction. My first question I'm going to direct to the deputy minister. What is the justification for using the $28.8 million the province will receive through the federal infrastructure trust fund to enact tuition reductions, grants and fund apprenticeships, rather than spending these monies on where it was originally intended to go, towards infrastructure repairs?

MR. COCHRANE: Bill No. 207, which was the will of the Nova Scotia Legislature, said the three areas they wanted to put it in. I think the government at the time indicated that if the feds didn't say we couldn't do that, we would do it. Byron's here, and we've researched it, and the feds didn't say we couldn't put it all into the three categories that were in Bill No. 207. We felt that was the greatest need. We do know there's an infrastructure need.

It was an odd structure. Bill C-48 had some criteria, and then it had a title and criteria that didn't look like it matched. It was called the infrastructure trust fund. We said, well, in spite of the fact that they're calling it that, the feds didn't tell us we couldn't do what the Legislature said. So our justification was, obviously, the Members of the Legislative Assembly got together and decided that's where they wanted to put it. Obviously, that's what Cabinet decided to do. I can't think of a better justification than the elected members of Nova Scotia deciding what they want to do.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: On Bill C-48, we didn't use the money for infrastructure, so what measures are being taken to address the problems now of aging post-secondary facilities in Nova Scotia?

MR. COCHRANE: One of the things in the MOU that talked about infrastructure was that we would continue to try to work to get the federal government to come to the table on our infrastructure problem. We've had a very good assessment in Atlantic Canada of the infrastructure deferred maintenance question. Our first request was $500 million of the federal government, and we wanted to do it on an Atlantic basis by which provincial governments, universities and contributors would bring up $500 million to start to attack the problem of the declining and decaying infrastructure at universities.

In the MOU, we indicated that if we didn't get any success with regard to talking to the federal government, we would have a negotiation and discussion with the universities about how we're going to deal with infrastructure in the third year. That discussion will take place in the next couple of months, and we've indicated that the student groups will have representation. We'll take a look at that. We haven't worked out exactly what is to be done. We have looked at some proposals. The Deputy Minister of Finance and I have both gone through some issues.

We are still talking to the federal government. Our ministers, the Atlantic Canadian Ministers of Education approached the federal caucuses - "cauci" - as well as the ministers about a program for Atlantic Canada. We're still hopeful, because it's a huge economic tool because of the employment and the work it does. We have one of the oldest infrastructures, in fact Nova Scotia probably has the oldest infrastructure in the country.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Why was the tuition reduction that resulted from C-48 directed towards Nova Scotia students studying in Nova Scotia rather than all students studying in Nova Scotia? Maybe you could go into some of those figures.

MR. COCHRANE: Well, the debate took place, and we did all the assessments of it. What it worked out to be is if we did it for everyone - and remember, we're talking January, and people have made their decisions, they're here, and that was an issue, as well. We looked at January and we recognized it was $433 or $264, if we went to every

person in a Nova Scotia university. I think the government tried to emphasize to the federal government that we've been saying over and over - and I think both the student groups have echoed that - that there should be some consideration of our unique situation. There's only one other province in the country that has an influx of students, when you look at the net gain.

We kept making that point, and making that point, and obviously we didn't get anywhere with either government, the last one or this one. It was a way to try to provide the most amount of assistance, because - and I think as the member for Kings West, I believe said - we are concerned about Nova Scotia students staying in Nova Scotia. We're concerned about other students coming here, as well. That was a decision Cabinet made. They thought they could provide the greatest amount of money to the Nova Scotia students, because the money was allocated based on Nova Scotia's population.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: A Nova Scotian student taking a full course load in a Nova Scotia institution will receive an approximately $440 reduction this year. How does this tuition reduction affect the government's plan to reduce tuition in Nova Scotia to the national average?

MR. COCHRANE: This gave us a six-month jump on the provincial program. The provincial program, whatever is decided by Cabinet, will be effective September 2007. This is a premature reduction, which is a good thing. It's not meant to take the place of what the provincial commitment will be. We do have some money left at the second year of this fund, which will also be layered on top of whatever Cabinet decides to put the provincial allocation toward tuition.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: To Mr. Keys, as the voice of university students in Nova Scotia, what measures would you feel are necessary to help encourage students to stay in Nova Scotia after they graduate?

MR. KEYS: That's a very difficult question, obviously, and certainly one that has some very significant questions of economic development, and you should probably have both those ministries working together to try to solve that problem. We would certainly say, though, that student debt, primarily, would be a reason to leave. When you have substantial student debt, you need to pay off that debt. You have to have a stable job, a well-paying job. For the most part, we're talking about now, university-educated people, and so they also want to have an intellectually-challenging job. So the question is, are those jobs here? We would say that at this particular moment in time that perhaps it makes more sense to go to Ontario, to go to Alberta and to find those jobs elsewhere.

Dealing with the student debt question, I think, is a very important aspect to keeping those students here, because then they have more options. They can take riskier moves, they can perhaps try to start a small business, get together with some friends from

the engineering department and work on that invention someone created, work on a business process, whatever. They can do that here because they no longer are saddled with, in some cases, $40,000 of debt or more; 24 per cent of the students who have debt in Nova Scotia have that much. I certainly believe that creates a culture of risk aversion amongst those students and definitely drives them to go elsewhere.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Also, how do student associations feel about the overall tuition reduction plan? Would the associations have any alternative proposals on making post-secondary education more accessible?

MR. KEYS: We certainly are in favour of something being done. It is incredibly important for tuition to be regulated, to be reasonable, to be predictable. As I said in my presentation, if we're talking about scarce resources, I would certainly emphasize that a greater amount be put into those students who actually have exhibited need. Those are the ones who are graduating with debt. It is more efficient. By preventing those students in need from going into debt, you actually end up saving more in the long term, both for the student and for government. So it would definitely seem that would be the preference for us.

[9:45 a.m.]

That said, most students are obviously quite happy to be receiving tuition reductions, and we certainly recognize that there is a very large appetite for that. From a public policy perspective, you'd have to emphasize that needs-based grants provide the most benefit.

MR. PARSONS: I'd also like to respond to that. The Canadian Federation of Students, Nova Scotia, represents five student unions in Nova Scotia. The feeling of the Canadian Federation of Students is definitely that tuition fee reductions are the most effective way to increase access to education. We also feel - it has been proven, study after study, that tuition fee reductions are the number one barrier to access to education. In addition to that, I think that some people tend to underestimate the ability of a progressive taxation system to redistribute wealth. Those who are most wealthy already pay more into the education system, based on the fact that they pay progressive income taxes.

A really good report to look at is actually Hugh Mackenzie's The Tuition Trap, who is an Ontario economist. He proved the fact that it is actually not a reverse subsidy, as some people have suggested, and the most effective way is tuition fees. As well, we have to start recognizing that access to education is becoming increasingly more difficult for people from families that are middle class. It's not as simple as just helping those who we would normally classify as low income, because, increasingly, even middle class

is having a problem accessing education. Tuition fees are the easiest, most effective way to deal with that problem.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I guess that's a lot of what we hear, too, the working class definitely struggle with university tuitions for their children. How do you feel the cost of university education should be shared between students, families and government?

MR. KEYS: I'll just simply say that while our official policy is that students should be paying, at some point in the future - we're a long way off - 20 per cent of the total cost of education. If you're to talk to administrators across the country you would see that a lot of them kind of hover around the 30 per cent mark, is what students and families should be paying, and government should be paying the rest. That said, in Nova Scotia the current amount is, I believe, about 42 per cent of the cost of education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will have to cut you off with that. Maybe Ms. Bolivar-Getson can come back and you can finish that answer.

Ms. Massey.

MS. JOAN MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank everybody for coming in this morning, especially the student reps. Listening to you speak, what you're saying is - in the little bit of information you gave us here in print - you're not only just looking out for yourself, you're really extending that helpfulness to other students. What I hear you talking about is, even though you feel a lot of students are in need, you're really pointing us in a direction of really trying to make the best use of the money that is there for students who are the most needy. I think we're hearing that loud and clear. So I really think that's very admirable. It's great that you can do that, it's really touching to hear people speak like that.

I would like to hear more from you, Spencer, when you talked, in your little opening remarks, about urban versus rural students. I know students in the province struggle working 17 hours a week now, on average. We hear of students going to the food bank. In 2001, we had student reps in here from NSCAD talking about how the food bank program works on their campus. I really would like to hear more about your feelings on what we are going to do to address out-migration. I believe rural students are really facing a bigger struggle than our urban students. Even though I am an urban MLA, I think a lot of things talked about this morning revolve around that issue.

[9:49 a.m. Mr. Chuck Porter took the Chair.]

MR. KEYS: Thank you for the question. I think we do have to recognize that if we're talking about a rural student, it is just as easy for them to go somewhere outside

the province as it is to go to Halifax, or go to Antigonish, or Wolfville, or any of the other number of fine institutions we have in the province.

That said, those students are already facing very high cost pressures, simply from the fact that they have to move and support themselves within these new environments. We do have to realize that then the cost of tuition certainly has some bearing on where they end up. We definitely think that trying to somehow - well, we do somehow address some of those costs. Obviously, those students have higher needs when we deal with the student loan assessment, but when we're talking about the actual reduction of those costs or grants to recognize those costs, we would say that somehow that should definitely be included in the model.

That's one of the issues that I take with a universal approach to funding, as we have here, is that this funding model does not recognize those very important and very significant differences. So, yes, we're having the same amount of money going to a student, be they rural or urban or what have you, but we're not necessarily seeing the same proportional reduction in their costs.

MS. MASSEY: Is there a model somewhere that you can point to and say this is something that works better?

MR. KEYS: The needs-assessment model does deal with those. Putting in money that is guided via that needs-assessment process would be the easiest way to deal with that discrepancy.

MR. PARSONS: I also think it's important we talk about the model that we're looking at is that we can't pit tuition fee reductions against needs-based funding. That's not a choice that we should be forced to make, and it's cynical policy-making to pit the two against each other. The provincial government, on the heels of saying that it didn't have enough money to decrease tuition fees for everyone, just weeks before had announced a $228 million surplus.

They said they were paying down the debt, but you can't say you're paying down the debt when you're doing so on the backs of students - that's not actually reducing Nova Scotia debt, it's just transferring it to individuals. The money is there to be spent on this. Tuition fees, increase in education funding was cut very quickly; unfortunately the government has been less quick when it comes to actually restoring that funding, despite finally running a surplus. So I think that it's a situation where you can reduce tuition fees, which helps everyone including rural and urban students, and also put in a system of needs-based grants that helps the neediest students, be they from the city, be they from towns, or be they from the country. There isn't a choice between the two; there is money there to do both.

MS. MASSEY: I'm just wondering if maybe, Chris, you can update me on what's going on - yourself or one of your colleagues who is with you today - on the campuses with students and accessing the food banks. We haven't heard from anyone about that for awhile and some of the figures were really disturbing from the last time people were in. At NSCAD, for example, there were 400 students per month accessing the food banks there.

I know students are really struggling with paying off their student loans. It's extending their graduation date - some people are taking seven to eight years to graduate because they don't want to carry that burden as they move along. And I'm hearing what you're saying, Spencer - people, when they do graduate, want to maybe buy a home, have a car, start a family, these sorts of things, and it's putting all these things off which is really not helping the economy in any way. So I think money spent up front is going to make us all money at the end, but in the meantime we don't often hear of the daily struggles that students are going through. We hear them as MLAs in our offices, but I think a lot of the general public don't realize that, they think maybe students are all out there having fun and partying all the time. I would like to hear you talk about some of those issues.

MR. PARSONS: I think I'm actually going to ask Danielle Sampson, who is the organizer for the federation in the Maritimes, to speak on that, just because she was the former president of the student union at NSCAD, which is one of the student unions that has done the best job, I think, in dealing with that.

MS. DANIELLE SAMPSON: Yes, I was in the student union at NSCAD for a number of years and first-hand with lifting the tons and tons of food that got delivered to NSCAD every week. What we saw, I think, that was most alarming was the uptake of food bank usage at exactly the time when tuition fees were due. We saw dramatic rises, and still do, in how many students have to use the food bank in October and in February when tuition fees are due and when the bills are really piling up. On a regular basis we see anywhere from 200 to 400 students use the food bank every month. In the last three years we've had to go from getting monthly deliveries to biweekly deliveries to, now, weekly deliveries of the food bank which has now taken over an entire office space in NSCAD as opposed to being one shelving unit just five years ago.

So we definitely see a dramatic increase in students who are forced to live in poverty in order to pursue a university education in Nova Scotia - and I think when we're talking about debt aversion, we not only have to talk about what happens when students graduate, but what happens to students, like you mentioned, while they're in university. As you mentioned, more and more students are having to take on part-time jobs - and I use the term "part-time" very loosely. Many students are working 30 and 40 hours a week while taking full-time classes, basically working a 70- or 80-hour work week, every week. Many students, like you mentioned, are taking summer classes or extending their

degrees over five or six years because they simply can't afford to take full-time courses throughout the year.

I think that's what's most startling - when we see the dramatic decrease in students who are returning to university. That's why, it's because students are forced to work 80-hour weeks while using campus food banks in order to go to university. That's not a choice that students should make. Students should not be forced to live in poverty in order to go to university in Nova Scotia, and unfortunately that's the choice that we force students to make right now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Sampson. The time for the NDP caucus has expired.

Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Thank you to all of our guests this morning. It's certainly a very broad topic. There's an awful lot to look at around this. I had a couple of specific questions. I know we've had earlier questions that have looked at the overall nature of the program that has been brought in place. I wanted to talk a bit about one of the under-represented groups, I would say, in education. I certainly learned about this more as an MLA, in talking to constituents who come in. Perhaps I'll direct this to Mr. Cochrane to start with; it relates to the student loan policies.

For mature students who have been out for a number of years, and then they want to go back, they recognize the need for education. When they go and apply for student loans, they are, almost inevitably, not eligible, because they've earned a low income for that year. The policy seems to assume that if they've earned anything at all, that they were saving for university. What I see is a policy that is very old-fashioned. It assumes that the students are living at home with their mom and dad, and going to university directly. That's how we base the amount that's available for students to go.

If they've been independent for a period of time and have been managing to pay their rent, get to and from work and just pay their basic costs, usually in the cases I've had they've not been high income earners by any means. They want to return to university and they're not eligible for any student assistance. That usually means they won't go that year, and they may never get there. What are we doing to look at that category of student?

MR. COCHRANE: I'll get Kevin to speak to the specifics. We take into consideration a certain amount of income that a student, or a mature student, might make in a particular year. Then there's a calculation based upon them being independent students; no parental contribution is expected by someone who's coming back to

university after they've been out of home for so long or after they've been in university so long. That gives them an opportunity.

But we do take into consideration some of their income. If there are a set of circumstances that are extenuating, there are two appeal processes in the student loan system. One is the lower board, which is made up of seniors' staff, and then the other one, of course, is there's a citizens' committee that comes forward and does the appeals. We look at all kinds of extenuating circumstances that might be there, if someone had been out working for a period of time and made a certain amount of income and had certain expenses that were associated with that, these are all looked at in the process.

[10:00 a.m.]

MS. WHALEN: Perhaps Mr. Chapman could give us the figures of what a student could earn, or what a potential student could earn, prospective, if they had been working for a year and then they come in and ask for a student loan. At what point would they be cut off, unable to access any student loans? I think you know that, perhaps you know that right off, I'm hoping.

MR. CHAPMAN: Unfortunately, Ms. Whalen, there's not a specific answer in terms of at what point they would be cut off. As the deputy mentioned, we do take a look for all students. There is an expectation that for any student, they or their families would be the primary source of responsibility for post-secondary education and student assistance would then supplement those resources.

As the deputy mentioned, though, for the majority of mature students, they would be independent, so there would be no parental contribution involved. We assess them on what we call a pre-study contribution, which is ostensibly the summer earnings. I believe it's about $50 per week. It isn't dollar for dollar. There are allowances that are made. It depends, also, on where you worked during the summer, if you worked away from home. Then there's a study period.

MS. WHALEN: Well, we're talking about independent students, so they're living on their own. We're already assuming they're away from home.

MR. CHAPMAN: That's correct. Again, if you've worked in British Columbia planting trees, we'll make allowances for those kinds of things. There is an expectation, I think, during the pre-study and study period income that not every dollar you make will support your post-secondary education. There are a lot of allowances that are put in.

MS. WHALEN: That's not very clear. If they earn minimum wage for the summer, are they going to be eligible for a student loan?

MR. CHAPMAN: I would expect they would, yes. We've also introduced . . .

MS. WHALEN: The lowest level of student loan, probably?

MR. CHAPMAN: No, a lot of these folks would be very high-need. As Chris and Spencer talked, it is a needs-based system, so a lot of these individuals would, I expect, if their incomes were significantly low, be eligible for the maximum assistance that we would provide for them.

MS. WHALEN: I've had several people in my office who have gotten nothing, simply because all of their money was going towards maintaining their life, just living, and they are not eligible. So I think the formula is pretty obscure, really. It has a lot of variables, let me put it that way. It's full of variables that make it really hard for you to even give me an answer as to what point is cut off.

MR. CHAPMAN: Absolutely.

MS. WHALEN: And the same goes for parental contribution - at what point would your parents' income preclude you from receiving a loan?

I'm not saying it's deliberately obscure, but it's really difficult for anybody to understand exactly whether they are going to be accepted or not. I think it's frustrating for the applicants as well, as well as for others who are trying to help them on that behalf and it's very difficult to change a policy when you can't quite get a handle on it.

So I feel that it has been a discouraging aspect for people who are working when they come back in and when they want that help. They don't have the thousands of dollars they need to make the first tuition payment, and they often come in with the understanding or the expectation that there will be help to do that and it isn't there when they need it, and it's really difficult. I think Danielle said it very well about if they do make the tuition payment, they still have to survive and they're working more than one part-time job or a full-time job equivalent, trying to put the money together.

So we know that students are struggling an awful lot and that student loans are just not sufficient to help them make it. I know that to talk about student loans is a bit of a double-edged sword because student representatives don't want to see us increasing debt on students, I know that. But at the same point, when you have . . .

MR. CHAPMAN: Absolutely.

MS. WHALEN: . . . students at whatever age who are anxious to get education and willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to do that, we need to help them get

there even if they do incur loans along the way. So access again is a big, big point. I think, Chris, you have some . . .

MR. PARSONS: I just want to quickly comment on that. I think that's an important thing to realize, that the province has probably done the best job over the last couple of years in dealing with bringing students in who are traditionally excluded - mature students, people who have been out of the education system for 10 or 15 years, working minimum wage. It was Newfoundland through their tuition fee reduction, because we saw the remarkable fact that the year immediately after their tuition fee reduction, enrolment spiked even though Newfoundland, much like Nova Scotia, is having increasingly lowering levels of high school graduates.

The reason is that there has been a huge demographic shift in who is attending university in Newfoundland, and that is mature students because, with the 25 per cent tuition fee reduction, you immediately see a situation where that student loan suddenly goes further because the government can't control the cost of rent, necessarily. I mean that's a different question - whether it should - but it can't control the cost of groceries. It can control the cost of tuition fees. So that's one area where they can actually reduce it and, in that way, every dollar you take off tuition fees is a dollar that can be spent on groceries and is a dollar that you don't have to loan someone.

So I think that any system - and I do agree that there have to be reforms to the system of both loans and grants - but any system has to be coupled with tuition fee reduction to make it most effective.

MS. WHALEN: Yes, that's good. Just one more question, if I could, for Mr. Chapman. Have we looked at parental loans? Particularly in the United States, parents take out loans and those loans are sheltered from interest until the time that your child graduates. So, in effect, they are similar to a student loan.

Right now we know that many of those students who are struggling to get by are taking out lines of credit where they have to pay immediately. Right from day one, they are paying interest payments on that, and that's either the student or their parents who are taking that out. What about looking at parental loans? I think that would help an awful lot of families to be able to help more.

MR. CHAPMAN: We haven't specifically, Ms. Whalen, looked at parental loans but I think we've certainly tried within the last two years, both federally and provincially, to shift some of the burden away from families to governments by changing the parental contribution formula. I think there is an understanding that student loans, because of the interest subsidy in some of the remission programs available, are a better vehicle perhaps than third party credit.

So there have been significant reductions - and I'm sure that depending on who you talk to significance can be a relative term - but there have been significant reductions in the amounts that parents have been expected to contribute to their children's education over the last two years, particularly two years ago brought in by the federal government and then this year, through the provincial reduction of 25 per cent in the Nova Scotia parental reduction formula. So those have, in essence, over the last two years, transferred about $4,000 in funding that would have traditionally been borne by families, over to governments. Clearly there's still a lot that needs to be done and other students . . .

MS. WHALEN: Even in that formula, if a student gets the maximum loan available . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Whalen, the time has expired. Mr. Bain.

MR. KEITH BAIN: Mr. Chairman, I don't know if my colleague would like to continue her question.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I would like to go back to the question that I was asking Mr. Keys, how do you think the cost of university education should be shared between students, families and government? Before you continue, you made a comment on 20 per cent and I would like to know where that 20 per cent figure comes from, if you could.

MR. KEYS: Okay. The 20 per cent figure is basically based on the national average of the share of the cost of education that was being borne by students in the early 1990s, prior to significant cuts by the federal government. Currently, the national average share of the cost of education borne by students and their families is 30 per cent, and in Nova Scotia it's closer to 42 per cent right now. So 20 per cent is certainly the ideal and we'll continue to push for that, but definitely there needs to be some way to try to re-balance that cost-share, as it stands right now. If only because it means that students are paying substantially more in Nova Scotia and, at least on dollar value, not getting back nearly as much as their counterparts in other provinces.

MR. PARSONS: I'd just like to quickly say that, in general, I agree with the notion that the burden should definitely be shifting away from students having to pay and put on government as education being seen as public good. I think it's important to recognize in these discussions that moving to students paying a lesser percentage for the cost of education is not an end unto itself, and can't be seen as such. It has to be seen as a means as making education more accessible and increasing government funding. So just changing the funding formula isn't enough. It has to be coupled with actual increases in the funding that's given to universities by the province and the federal government.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Okay, and a post-secondary education is an investment that produces countless benefits that we all realize. What do you think is an appropriate cost for this investment, for university?

MR. KEYS: In what terms? What is the total amount that should be paid . . .

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: What do you think is an appropriate cost for the investment in an education, in a degree?

MR. KEYS: I am not even close to equipped to answer that question, I don't think. It's obviously going to change with time and it's definitely going to change depending on the way that the economy is refocused over the course of the next few years. We're going to see that Canada has to really aggressively move into more of a knowledge economy or creative economy, because manufacturing and a lot of the staples of our economy today are more easily and more cheaply done in places like India and China. We're also seeing that significant pressure from them in terms of increased engineering students and doctoral students; they're showing that they're also trying to take the knowledge economy part of the equation.

So I think that we need to make sure that we keep costs low so that people are, in fact, going into these areas and going into research and going into engineering and all of these very important things, and I would say that as long as - the primary goal should just be keeping the participation rates going up. Can I give you an exact number? Sorry, I can't.

MR. PARSONS: I have two responses to that. One of them is, to compare it to secondary education, which is, secondary education wasn't always free to everybody, but it was seen as being economically necessary, first and foremost, and that's why the cost of receiving a high school education hasn't actually gone up in the last 50 years. But we're still told that it's necessary that university education go up, but high school education has always been seen as being necessary for a job. Statistics Canada estimates that 70 per cent of all new jobs require at least two years of post-secondary education. Increasingly it's economically necessary to have a post-secondary education degree, and we have to start treating it the same way that we've traditionally treated secondary education.

In addition to that, both post-secondary education and secondary education are traditionally seen and should be seen as, not just means to an economic ends, but rather also a way of producing good citizens, a way of producing social benefits that can't just be measured in economic metrics. There are social benefits to education and everybody should share in those social benefits, no matter what their economic situation is going into the system.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Just to come back with that, how do you feel then about the total cost of post-secondary education - how do you think it's relative to the cost of first-year earnings of an individual coming out? Total cost that is beared for a university education compared to those first-year earnings.

MR. PARSONS: I think one of the big myths out there is that there is a huge jump in earnings for university students. There is, obviously, an increase in the earnings of a university graduate compared to someone without a post-secondary education, but that is not normally met until 10 years out. It's more of a long-term gain, particularly of people who only receive bachelor degrees. It's traditionally about 10 years out before they start seeing any significant increase over people who start work immediately out of high school or take up a trade.

So I think when we see that coupled with people trying to service $500 a month debt payments, you see a situation where it's not necessarily as beneficial as people make it out to be. I think it's at that point that you have to look at the other intangible benefits of a post-secondary education that you see in the first 10 years, which is kind of the role they play socially as citizens and as benefiting a social good as well as purely economic.

MR. COCHRANE: Maybe some statistics - I don't quite agree with that last statement, by the way. In Nova Scotia in 2000, a high school graduate would have made about $20,000, was what was determined to be the survey results of that. If you had a university degree, it was $41,000, so a significant amount of money. That's what we're pushing toward.

Certainly the college certificate or the diploma also significantly has an increase - not only is it more money, but it's also more stability. When you look at the number of students who may have a high school diploma trying to keep a job, it's a significant problem compared to someone who might have a diploma or university degree.

One of the things that's interesting is - there was a survey done on a five-year graduate survey from 1999 and inside the Maritimes, back in 2001 - two years after graduation - a university graduate was making about $33,000. Three years after that, it was up to $48,000. So there's a significant amount of growth opportunity as a result of having a degree and certainly one with regard to a diploma.

[10:15 a.m.]

We've actually closed the gap between inside the Maritimes and outside the Maritimes. At one time, after two years we were about 75 per cent, was the ratio, and after the five years we were up to 84 per cent. So a significant change with regard to the Maritimes and opportunities for university graduates.

One thing we shouldn't lose sight of is the whole college system in Nova Scotia. We have to do a better job of making sure the people understand their opportunities. We have an imbalance in Nova Scotia, compared to the country. About 80 per cent of post-secondary students in Nova Scotia are at university and about 20 per cent are at the college, and nationally it's between 65/35 or 60/40. I think the contribution to the college and the aggressive nature of the college is going to have a significant impact.

However, it's also going to have an affect upon the number of people going to university. With 2,500 less students every year and the college being more aggressive in attracting more students and having greater capacity, we know there's going to be an adjustment. The real key in the long term for Nova Scotia is to get people through high school, get them into university and college. What we have to do a better job on is to make sure the universities recognize credit for what's done at college in a much more aggressive nature and manner.

Two years is two years. It shouldn't count credit for credit perhaps, but there should be a greater recognition of that so that you can go through high school, go to college and start to work, and then continue to upgrade as you go along.

So we have to look at the whole picture, but for someone to jump up and say the university enrolments are dropping, there are a whole bunch of reasons - one of which is tuition, one of which is cost, but another one, of course, is the aggressive nature of our college. Our success there, you can't attribute that to the lack of success at university, but that balance has to be worked. As we move the shift, we're going to hear more of that from the university sector.

We should have about 13,000 seats in the next five years in our college system. We're about 9,500 now - that's going to have an impact. The key is getting mature people back to university or college. The other key, of course, is getting our high school graduates beyond high school. Part of the O2 program and the attractiveness of that is an automatic entry into the community college system, a perfect system. We're no longer accepting that our standard is high school graduation. That's not Nova Scotia's goal. Nova Scotia's goal has to be college and university so they can go out and make that $48,000 a year and a bigger percentage of what the national income might be, being in Nova Scotia compared to elsewhere in the country. So it's an intricate system, and there's no simple answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Cochrane. I'll now recognize Mr. MacKinnon.

MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the folks who have come here today, the students and the department

people. I have a series of questions, so I'll try to be relatively quick. However, I would like to first look at the student loan division, itself. I am hearing from students and parents that there has to be some kind of a revamping to take place. It has to become more user-friendly and, in some cases, just more friendly from a PR perspective.

I know we talk about checks and balances, but we have to do something to expedite applications and to do it in the most friendly way to students. We're talking about losing students to Memorial University, and so on. I think if our system were somewhat better - we talk about it being an extremely complex process, to quote Mr. Chapman, and that they are looking at some quick fixes, I think we have to shake the very foundation of the student loan system in this province. I would like to hear from the students what you are hearing about the system, and then perhaps a quick response from the department?

MR. COCHRANE: No such thing.

MR. PARSONS: There are a huge number of problems, obviously. One thing that I deal with as external vice-president of the student union at Kings, where I'm also a student, is that I often have to deal with helping people through student loan issues, and one of the major problems is that it assumes that every parent is capable of devoting a huge amount of income, is one issue. I have friends whose parents have had to liquidate retirement savings because they counted that against income, that sort of thing. I think the general feeling is - there has been a feeling of disappointment that all people have access to, as well, is loans.

There are people whose parents are often already in debt, at the very least, mortgages. At the most, there are people whose parents have debt in order to have had to go back to school themselves because maybe the industry they previously worked in collapsed, or something like that. So there are people whose parents already have debt, and instead of being told that you're going to have access to a grants program, they said all you have is loans.

Students are, I think, in many cases, willing to take on some debt in some cases, but there's a feeling like they're being forced, that that's the only way. Even when there are announcements that loan limits are being increased, there's a feeling that, well, that's all we get? Well, I can borrow more? They'll often look at that as, how much is this going to cost me in the end? So there has been a feeling, as well as there's a feeling that tuition fees keep increasing and that the scholarship they have from the university that's $2,000 doesn't increase with it. So it's eaten away. I'm still only getting, you know, $12,000 from student loans even though tuition fees have increased $700 since I got to university.

So that's basically what I'm hearing on the ground as a representative at Kings, as well as a student. These are things people tell me in class or in the campus pub. They're just frustrated that no matter what help comes, it gets eaten away every time by increased tuition fees, increased rent, and costs that just keep going up that aren't met, as well.

MR. MACKINNON: Sort of the problems with the process is what I'm . . .

MR. PARSONS: More specifically with the process, is just that often they don't know whether they're getting a student loan until after they've already had to register for class. This is something particular in coming out of high school. I went to Dartmouth High, which is a school that isn't situated in the wealthiest neighborhood, and there are people who legitimately didn't know, they registered, paid their registration deposit, and sat around wondering whether or not they were going to be able to afford to do it, and when the only way you're going to be able to afford to go to university is a student loan, that's a problem. So I think that people have to know earlier but, in addition, I think we have to get away from the fact that the only way some people can afford to go to university is through a student loan, because you're rolling the dice as to whether or not you're going to be able to afford it.

MR. KEYS: The two things that I would add, one, I think one of the practices in the United States that's particularly effective and useful is that pretty much across the board, when you get accepted to a university you're often told how much your student financial aid package is going to be, or at the very least it's quite quick thereafter.

So a system that basically gets this information to students substantially quicker would be of great benefit because, yes, a lot of students certainly don't know what help they are actually going to get; in fact, many of them don't even know what help they're going to get until very late in the summer. So that's definitely a concern.

I would also say that eligibility for the loans would probably need to be expanded somewhat, if only for the fact that we have private lending institutions very aggressively targeting these students. I will just note that I am a full-time student at Dalhousie right now - I'm also working full-time and I currently carry $13,500 of private student debt that I have to service every month - granted, I am from British Columbia, so it's not the Nova Scotia program - but that's entirely because my parents, despite having a crippling mortgage, have a small, two-and-a-half-acre piece of rural property, so I was determined to not be in need whatsoever. So something that's sooner and something that expands eligibility.

MR. COCHRANE: You're from B.C. I guess we're not the only one that has a student loan program that doesn't seem to recognize what everybody wants.

We process about 10,000 student loans for Nova Scotians a year; we also process all the federal ones. So there is an arrangement between the federal government and our student loan division. If someone applies on the Web and has all their information in, it's within four weeks that they get their award - that's not bad. The problem is getting all your information. If you don't get your income tax statements from your parents, your earnings statements, then there is a glitch, but you don't expect us to jump out and give out money to people who don't give us the information. So four weeks is not a bad process in turnaround time, when you look at 10,000 student loans that we process.

We are going to take a look at our student loan system, and I read some press release last week where somebody was being critical of where it was - and you should have asked, but . . .

MR. KEYS: I did.

MR. COCHRANE: . . . we're looking at, one of the things we do about, if you have maximum loan - and with the Millennium Scholarship and with the provincial system and your loan is maximum and you stay in Nova Scotia and you pay back your loan, you get about 51 per cent of your Nova Scotia student loan forgiven.

I don't know whether we get much credit for that because it is back-end loaded, but it is meant to be an incentive. We want you to finish your education, we want you to stay here, we want you to repay it - and there are rewards for that.

We are going to take a look at that to see if that's the best way to do it. I will tell you one of the problems we have in this country is the disjoint between the federal system and the provincial system. We have some students who owe three lenders in the student loan system from way back. It is difficult, but it isn't as user-friendly as we might like.

MR. MACKINNON: Very quickly, I think part of the process is slowed down by things being needed, but sometimes what is needed isn't asked for very quickly and things go on and on.

Anyhow, very, very quickly, because I know my time is running out and I had a series of questions - there is apparently a two-year extension of the loan agreement with the Royal Bank. The government promised that it would move towards direct lending and this seems to be breaking that promise. What's the story there?

MR. COCHRANE: We did extend until July 31, 2008. We are going to go into direct lend in Nova Scotia, which just makes sense in that we borrow the money and guarantee it - and we can borrow the money, as a province, cheaper than the students can borrow it from the Royal Bank.

We have an agreement with the Royal Bank until 2008, but we also have an agreement that we can exit that agreement sooner. We've had negotiations and it's a question now of when we're ready. They seem to be willing to move forward and change the relationship.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Time has expired. Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of things to finish off and then I'll share my time with my colleague. As the deputy minister indicated, the first steps in preparing the next budget are beginning now. Spencer and Chris, you've spoken very well this morning, very direct, and that's the voice we need as MLAs - what are the students thinking, feeling and their perspectives? If each of you have one recommendation that needs to go forward right now towards the Spring and what should be in the budget, because so far we have federal dollars in Nova Scotia - this government, to date, has not taken the decisive steps to change the pattern substantially in terms of student affordability - what would you have to say?

MR. KEYS: Well, we're going to be seeing soon enough that the memorandum of understanding is being renegotiated. So I would definitely say that a primary concern would be making sure that there is substantial money to make sure that agreement, you know, if it is successfully renegotiated, does not require such substantial increases of tuition from students and that there also be enough money so that grants - well, primarily grants - would increase proportionally to the tuition increases in this province, because I think there needs to be that very clear relationship between the two.

MR. PARSONS: One thing, it would be tuition fee reductions coupled with assistance needs-based grants. I think we have to talk about both together, but the number one way to increase access to education is tuition fee reductions and those tuition fee reductions obviously, as we've always said, have to be fully funded to ensure that the universities continue to be funded adequately. I think we also have to start looking at tuition fee issues as, when tuition fees are high, it also affects the quality of education. If someone is working 40 hours a week, they're not going to be able to devote as much time to their classes. One of my professors has talked about how one of his best students, whom he thought was going to go to graduate school, dropped out in third year; he said he just couldn't afford it. Like, there's a direct correlation between tuition fees and quality as well as accessibility.

MR. GLAVINE: Are you worried perhaps that that 3.9 per cent increase in the first MOU is now a benchmark and that's just going to be an automatic per year? Are you worried about that?

MR. PARSONS: I think it's dangerous that there has been an assumption made that 3.9 per cent tuition fee increases are the norm. I also think that there's a major problem where we start seeing tuition fee increases are 3.9 per cent; therefore, they ought to be 3.9 per cent. I mean everybody knows that "is never" implies an "ought". So I think there is a worry, but I think that the Department of Education has promised, as well as the government has promised, that tuition fees will be reduced. Now, it comes down to a question of how much and I think that's where the effort should be concentrated, getting the largest tuition fee reduction that's possible to allow as many students as possible to access education.

[10:30 a.m.]

MR. GLAVINE: Just one final question and it's really wrapped around, I guess, perhaps what I experienced just a short time ago in the school system. In nine of my last 10 years I worked directly with Grade 12 students and, you know, I loved going to school every day but there were days in the last number of years when I got pretty depressed when I heard a Grade 12 student of capability who said, you know, they had assessed everything and for their family they could not go to university. That was the bottom line.

I'm wondering, deputy minister, are you committed to the concept of access for all, because I think the solution to declining enrolment is within our province. We have students who do not go, who go outside, and I think that while even demographic shifts are going on, you know, access to Nova Scotia universities is the central problem. Our enrolment doesn't have to decline. I would just like a final comment from you, Mr. Deputy.

MR. COCHRANE: Well, certainly I don't agree with access to all, by the way. A number of students won't be of the academic ability to be successful at university, I'm sorry.

[10:31 a.m. Mr. Keith Colwell resumed the Chair.]

MR. GLAVINE: No, no, that's correct, I preclude them.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. We have to drive our education system in the public school system that much better and demand more of our students, expect them to do better - O2 is a good example, there's a place to go, because post-secondary, as I mentioned, is college as well, but certainly students shouldn't be denied an opportunity to go to university or college because of cost. There should be supports available to help those who need it the most, and our needs-based allocation is a start at that.

Reducing tuition for everybody helps the accessability question. We have to make sure that our student loan system is responsive, and I think it is, and make sure that it

does meet the needs of our students in this province, so those are things that we have to work towards.

We are still making up for a significant reduction in the post-secondary envelope, remember, from the late 1990s and trying to get back up to a reasonable contribution. We are trying to make up for the changes in the dedicated transfers that came in the mid-1990s as well. But everyone has to look at the ability of people to pay and obviously students should make a contribution and parents should make a contribution if they are able. Everyone agrees to that. What we are looking for now is the right balance and I think we are moving toward the right balance with additional support for student assistance, debt reduction, needs-based grants, reduced tuition, all those things are very significant contributions to that balance that we have to find in our province.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. Just a couple of questions, if I could, from Mr. Rafuse because I'm not sure that we fully understand how this is structured, so I thought it would be good for our future questioning and knowledge. You indicated that it's a trust, so have the funds come yet and is there a trust established, or is it simply going into a general pot of money somewhere?

MR. RAFUSE: The way this is established under C-48 is, a trust was established actually in September - when the federal government realized what their final figures were for the fiscal year 2005 or 2006 that they could meet their commitments under C-48. The monies were then transferred for each province, that are sitting in the trust now. We haven't drawn out the trust but given the disclosure we gave in our budget, saying that once a spending plan was approved and that we would withdraw those monies, we'll bring them into the province probably within a very short time frame and we'll set them up as deferred revenue and recognizing it was revenue over the life of the agreements, in this case it would be two years.

MS. WHALEN: So you'll receive the two-year amount at once, or . . .

MR. RAFUSE: Yes, we'll receive the two-year amounts at once. We'll spend the $14.4 this year; the other amount will be set up in deferred revenue and invested through our liability management section.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, I'm a little surprised they would transfer two years at once, only because it's predicated on the size of the surpluses that the federal government has.

MR. RAFUSE: Yes, but the nature of a trust is that they transfer - based on the agreement, they transferred the full amounts in each one of the trusts that were indicated

in that legislation, all five of them. By nature of a trust, the federal government relinquishes control so they put the full amounts in.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, thank you very much. I wonder if either - perhaps it's Mr. Cochrane's question, but I'm wondering that given the fact that this is based on surpluses and that the federal government has enjoyed large surpluses, do you see any potential that they might continue? Clearly, it would be attractive.

MR. COCHRANE: It would be very nice. We are hoping that the first priority will be to increase the dedicated transfers to post-secondary and therefore, it's not fluctuating by surpluses, it's base allocation to Nova Scotia that the province can then allocate into the post-secondary system. That would be our first preference.

The second one, we do hear some discussion about the potential of another contribution at some point, similar to the way that it was just done this time. We don't know that, we've made it clear that our priority is, again, the dedicated transfer, but we would be quite happy to receive whatever comes forward and then transfer it obviously into the sector.

MS. WHALEN: I certainly agree with you there, that having long-term, stable funding is better if you know that it's built into their budget, rather than predicated on the possibility of a large surplus, but we have had a number of years now of significant surpluses federally, so it might be something to continue to look for, even if it gave us a bit more time to continue to support students as much as we can.

I'd like to ask you a little bit about the infrastructure problem you have alluded to, Mr. Cochrane. The President of Acadia University wrote an opinion piece in the paper and she was not pleased that nothing is in there for infrastructure. I realize that our most pressing concern - and it's a political concern, also - is students. I have a student myself in university this year, a child, so therefore I certainly appreciate that it has to be hard for everybody. But at the same time, we know the universities have been first-class in Canada. We are still rating high in the Maclean's studies, but we have to maintain our competitive edge and our infrastructure is part of that. So what plans have you got? In the meantime students are being charged, I know at Saint Mary's University, $60 a course going towards infrastructure or maintenance. So what are we going to do in your plan?

MR. COCHRANE: The good news about the MOU, we got to the rest of them before they charged the $60 per course, like Saint Mary's did. So we were able to turn that around. We're concerned about it. We've identified probably $1 billion in Atlantic Canada and the first piece is the $500 that we've had the discussions with ACOA and with the federal government about. We're hopeful that there will be a federal contribution.

We've created some criteria by which we would look at infrastructure and what needs to be done. One of the things we have to look at, and I've sent over to the universities, there seem to be a fair number of new buildings that burst out but no one - you know, I know there's an attractiveness of so and so's memorial building, not much attractiveness about a memorial roof. So we're working at that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Cochrane, your time has expired, sorry about that. Ms. Bolivar-Getson.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Yes, I would like just a point of clarification from Mr. Parsons. In one of your answers, did you suggest that there should be little or no charge for a post-secondary education?

MR. PARSONS: I believe that it's a public good and I believe that the charge is made through a progressive taxation system. Realistically, I mean I'm not suggesting that next year we necessarily have zero tuition fees, but I think that in the long term goal we should be adopting the model of many European states that have been successful. I think Ireland is probably the newest example of it, but I do believe that funding should essentially come - well, the federation essentially believes that funding should come through the taxation system as education is a public good, the same way that we pay for secondary education or health care.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: And just to follow up on that, maybe Mr. Cochrane or our controller could answer this question. What percentage of the provincial budget goes towards education now and what would that mean if we were to totally fund?

MR. COCHRANE: We're the second largest allocation in the province after Health. We call it the great honking thing, but at the same time we have made gains. Our post-secondary envelope now, I think this year the actual amount, depending on when we paid it, was about $246 million - over half of which goes to Dal, interestingly enough - and we had a lull back in the mid-1990s of $175 million. So we're trying to get back up.

We're about 42 per cent of the post-secondary envelope I think, as Spencer said. I think our Education budget is in the area of 23 per cent or 24 per cent of the provincial. I'm just not sure. (Interruption) We're $1.4 billion, $246 million just in the university envelope. That's not counting the student loan envelope nor the community college envelope. So it's a significant amount of money. Obviously, if we're paying 42 per cent and you were going to go up to 100 per cent, then you're probably looking at something in the area of about $600 million, which obviously would be extremely difficult for the taxpayer to absorb in any kind of a rational way in the next couple of years.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: And I guess that was my question to the controller - $600 million, what does that mean to the taxpayer if they were to absorb?

MR. RAFUSE: Well, if you look at it in the context of the overall budget, we have a program expenditure budget of about $6 billion in total. The total expenditure is about $7 billion. So that would have to come from some other program. There's not a revenue source to offset that that I'm aware of.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: No.

MR. RAFUSE: So it would have to be from an expense of another program.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: And back to Mr. Keys. Some students despite family and government support find it necessary to find employment while they attend post-secondary education. Do you feel that this affects the quality of education received and some students chose to work, not because they have to financially?

MR. KEYS: Yes, unquestionably, I certainly believe it reduces your ability to learn. There hasn't been, at least I haven't seen too many studies about the effect on the quality of learning at the post-secondary level, but there have certainly been studies at the secondary school level about that same topic and you certainly see an overall sort of reduction in capacity to learn. Certainly you see a reduction in grades of those students who do end up working significantly outside of their school time. So I think that's pretty much a no-brainer, yes.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Bain.

MR. BAIN: Thank you all for being here this morning. It's important that the interests of a broad range of students are addressed and interactions both with the government and with the universities. I would like to know what proportion of the membership consists of first-year Nova Scotia students. Would you be able to tell me how many first-year Nova Scotia students are part of the membership of your organization?

MR. KEYS: I couldn't tell you specifically which ones are from Nova Scotia. I would probably - gosh, now you're going to make me do math.

MR. BAIN: This is your test for today.

MR. KEYS: I would probably say you're looking at - at least for the students that we represent at Dal, Saint Mary's, Acadia and St. F.X. - 10,000 or so. You usually have - there are more in the first-year classes than there are in the following years, so you can't simply just divide by four.

MR. PARSONS: I wouldn't hazard a guess. I think it also fluctuates wildly between institutions. For example CBU, which is a member institution of the Canadian Federation of Students, as well as Sainte-Anne, both have very high percentages of Nova Scotian students, but I wouldn't hazard to guess a number because it would definitely be incorrect.

MR. BAIN: I'm going to ask you both to look into your crystal balls and tell me where you see post-secondary education in Nova Scotia in 10 years, 20 years.

MR. KEYS: Well, first of all, I'd be excited if the parties and the government got together and got their own crystal ball and had an exercise to actually determine that on their own, and we would definitely support such a process.

I think we have to recognize that universities, colleges, the people of Nova Scotia are probably the best comparative advantage this province has. Trying to establish an economy based on the production of knowledge, based on high-tech tertiary services - we're seeing things like call centres and that sort of thing come in, so we're working in that direction.

I think we could really see a high-quality, high-tech hub here in Nova Scotia. I would point to something like, say, Austin, Texas, and specifically the University of Texas in Austin, which in 30 years has become one of the most significant high-tech hubs in the world, largely due to the influence of the University of Texas there, and it has created 100,000 jobs within that region, based on the researchers who are there and the spinoff companies that have resulted from that university. I think that's definitely a direction that could really help Nova Scotia and help in its desire to be an Atlantic gateway, a gateway to the rest of the world.

MR. PARSONS: I think that question, ultimately where post-secondary education is going to end up, is probably in the hands of the people sitting around the U-shaped table before us. So we're hoping that you'll come through for us, I guess, and if you don't we'll make sure you pay. (Laughter)

[10:45 a.m.]

Aside from that, I think that the vision would be ideally a system that is accessible to everybody and that every part of the system is accessible to everybody, that everybody can enter community college or university if they so choose, but people who enter community college don't enter it because they want to go to university but can't afford to go. I think that's important to realize that, while we should encourage people to go to community college, it shouldn't be out of economic necessity that we're forcing them in, because that's not an equitable system by any means. I shouldn't have the choice when someone who has lower income because of their family doesn't.

I think it would have to be a system that, as Spencer mentioned, benefits the province economically and it's a system that everybody would reap the rewards from, a system where those jobs that are in the high-tech sector, those jobs that are in a knowledge economy, those jobs that hover and invigorate traditional industries in Nova Scotia are not just accessible by the few who can afford the high cost of education, but instead accessible by everybody from low incomes as well as the middle class, and then everybody has the ability to access these systems.

A post-secondary education system is a system which is essentially, I think, about social justice and allowing everybody to have access to a program that everybody pays into through a system of progressive taxation. I think that with the political will, that's something that is easily acquirable - it's just a matter of whether or not there is the political will in Nova Scotia. I think there is on the street level, with people you will encounter on the street, it's just a question of whether or not the government and Opposition benches are willing to push for this as well.

MR. KEYS: I would just quickly add in that I think this province is going to develop on the backbone of great graduates, which I define as being brilliant, civic-minded, entrepreneurial and debt-free. I think if we think about how we can create more of those graduates, we're going to do really well.

MR. COCHRANE: I guess we all look to a system that's accessible and affordable. I think what we're looking for is a system that's going to produce people in these ranks who are going to take your place in 10 years, quite frankly, I'm confident that we'll do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You've got 30 seconds left.

MR. BAIN: I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHUCK PORTER: I just have one if I could and it's for Mr. Keys. I thank you guys for coming in. There has been some very good discussion today and my question is, you said you were from B.C.?

MR. KEYS: Originally, yes.

MR. PORTER: What brings you to a Nova Scotia university?

MR. KEYS: The reasons I'm out here are a few things. One is I was invited to come to work with ANSSA and that was definitely a very significant part but, more importantly, why I entertained the idea in the first place is I wanted to come to a place that was substantially different from where I was raised. I wanted to come to a place that

had a lot of students and a very young environment, and I think that's something it has offered to me in Halifax. I definitely wanted to experience the East Coast hospitality that I had so often been told about.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. I'm going to ask each one of the witnesses today to take maybe two minutes to wrap up and after we finish that, there's some committee business we have to attend to. So I'm going to start backwards this time, I'm going to start with Mr. Parsons. He was the last one last time and I'm going to make him the first one this time.

MR. PARSONS: I just wanted to thank the committee for allowing the federation to testify today. I think that these kinds of discussions are fruitful, but what's more important is that this Legislative Assembly in the coming session take action on these issues. In particular, I think that we always have to keep in mind that we can't allow ourselves to fall into the trap of pitting various social programs more generally but also, more importantly, various parts of the education system against each other. It's not a question about whether we can have one of infrastructure tuition fees relief or grants. The provincial government ran a $228 million surplus by transferring that debt onto the backs of students and onto the backs of universities that they're asking to take out further mortgages on buildings and that sort of thing.

So I think we have to stop creating a situation where we pit these various interests against each other. I'm from Nova Scotia and I want to be here the rest of my life. If the economic situation is going to turn itself around and my friends are going to stop moving to Ontario and Alberta, the only way to do that is to invest in education as a public good. To do that you can't take a cynical stance and make cynical policy-making that says you're either going to get tuition fee reductions or needs-based grants and that we're either going to help everybody or we're going to really help a few people. You have to take a stance that allows everybody equal access to the system.

I think that there's definitely at least the will among citizens of Nova Scotia, as has been demonstrated time and time again, for this to happen and now it's just a question of whether or not the Legislative Assembly can follow through on the will of Nova Scotians, which is to create a system of post-secondary education that's accessible to everyone - high quality - and that Nova Scotians can be proud of it and that's really going to allow Nova Scotia to continue to thrive as a province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Keys.

MR. KEYS: Once again, I want to thank you all for the discussion today. It has been very interesting. It has been obviously also two hours long. There are a lot of different policy tools to meet different goals that government has. Certainly there are - you know, we express preferences from time to time, but all of these tools definitely

provide some level of good. The question is, obviously, you know, which goods are you trying to satisfy in any given moment, which people are you trying to get into the system, draw into the system, or keep in the system. There are a variety of ways that you can deal with all of those.

So I would certainly like to say that ANSSA, as an organization, extends an invitation to all of you to discuss with us further some of these different goals and how we can try to come up with different policy tools to meet them, but I definitely want to say that I think Chris is definitely right when it comes to the long-term goal. I think that there is a way for us to meet all of these needs in the long term.

We certainly expressed a preference for low-income grants and I would say that when we're talking about a scarce resource such as specifically $28.8 million, that it's definitely quite prudent to be looking at that in the most targeted way that we can. We also need to have for such a large system in this province - I mean there are 11 political units when you're talking about the different institutions. For a number of students, that's the same as UBC. We need to be having some sort of a long-term vision for where we're going to go. We need to be looking at how we are managing these different institutions and how we can make sure that everyone is working together to actually meet these goals. I would be very excited to hear a government come forward with that in mind, and definitely I would like to continue talking to you all about all of these many, many issues. So thank you once again for your time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Rafuse.

MR. RAFUSE: Just one comment. There have been a couple of suggestions that the size of the surplus would provide an opportunity for spending on this type of initiative. I just want to remind folks that while it may indicate a level of flexibility, that money cannot be used for spending - our accounting standards do not allow that. Those are the same standards that all provinces adhere to. It does mean, well, I would just ask people to look at the reasons why we have a surplus. There were a significant amount of one-time events last year that would indicate that's not an ongoing reality that will allow program spending to be adjusted by that sizeable amount.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Cochrane.

MR. COCHRANE: Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here again. I think one of the key things in this whole process is the focus it puts on post-secondary education in Nova Scotia. The key is that we have to have an opportunity for our young people to become educated and that's really going to involve a balance, and that balance is a constant effort. It's a balance between federal and provincial. It's a balance between community college and university. It's a balance between the individual contribution and

government contribution. It's a balance between a loan and a grant, and that balance has to constantly be talked about.

Our goal is to make sure that we achieve that balance in Nova Scotia and that's going to rely upon all of you in the public policy manner and input from our student organizations and our taxpayers, but those are the kinds of things that we all have to keep looking at. At the end of the day our goal is to make sure that Nova Scotians have the best quality of education right from Primary on through to post-secondary. It's going to take money, but it is going to take balance. It has to be done in such a way that people feel they can afford it, and we have to look at that. Every politician in every Party, and every bureaucrat and every student, has to look at that kind of balance in trying to find that magic arrangement.

I would like to think we're heading in the right direction. This kind of a forum, an opportunity for students and bureaucrats and politicians to comment on it, really will help us continue to achieve that goal and that balance that we need in our province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for coming and sharing your opinions with us today, and your comments are greatly appreciated.

Now, we just have a couple of things, committee members - I brought up first at the meeting was the federal government in Bill C-48. Is there a will to have someone come from Ottawa to talk to us about this or do you think you've got enough information today?

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I think the information that was provided here today by both associations and the Departments of Education and Finance should be adequate at this time. At a later date, if we want to move on that, then I think we have that opportunity, but I think there are other issues on the list that we should proceed with at this time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other comments?

MR. GLAVINE: No, that's in agreement.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, that's settled. Our next meeting is November 28^th. We simply have it set up for boards, commissions and appointments. We have no witness. Is it a wish to have a witness at that meeting? (Interruption) It's the 28^th of this month. We have a list of potential ones, make a motion. Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Mr. Chairman, I would be quite happy for us to have somebody come in December if we can arrange it because . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: This is November we're talking about. We're going to talk about December after that.

MS. WHALEN: I'm sorry, the end of November.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, November 28^th.

MS. WHALEN: I just see that we have a long list of items to come before us. This committee does deal with education which is probably, you know - well, we know it's the second largest department. It's also singularly our most important component for the future. I think it's a huge task before us.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like to make a motion?

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I think that every caucus has put items on that list and it should be shared around that everyone has equal opportunity.

MS. WHALEN: Yes, Ms. Massey brought her list from a previous meeting.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could I get a motion for a witness?

MS. MASSEY: There are all kinds of good topics on there. Just pick one. How about community access to schools?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Does everyone agree with that?

MS. WHALEN: I would like to go to a heavier topic if we could.

MS. MASSEY: Heavy duty before Christmas.

MS. WHALEN: I'm thinking the special needs and inclusion. We've got that on our list, but I think that's of interest to everybody. It's a huge subject.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I need a motion.

MS. WHALEN: Well, I'd like to make a motion that we invite witnesses to talk to us about - it's called the review of inclusion, but I believe that's relating specifically to inclusion of special needs students in our schools, Primary to Grade 12.

MR. MACKINNON: I would second that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

So that settles it for November 28^th. Now, December 19^th, what's your wish there? Do you want a witness there? We have none scheduled yet.

MS. BOLIVAR GETSON: No. (Interruptions)

MR. PORTER: Are we able to change the date, back it up at all?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Can we back the date up?

MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): Well, the departments need time to get the applications to Executive Council so it can go on through the Cabinet list and be signed off.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We could probably back it up a week. (Interruptions)

MRS. HENRY: Economic Development is meeting on December 12^th. Do you want to meet in the afternoon?

MR. CHAIRMAN: What's the wish of the committee? The afternoon of the 12^th?

MR. GLAVINE: I move that in December, the Human Resources Committee meet on the 12^th.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

December 12^th is the date.

Now the issue of witnesses?

MS. WHALEN: I feel that we only meet 10 times a year, we don't meet in the summer months. It's a once-a-month committee, and I really feel that there are an awful lot of issues to be explored, and we should . . .

MS. MASSEY: Also, if there are members from out of town, they do come a long way and the ABCs go fairly quickly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before we do a motion on this, it has been stated that each caucus has some priorities here. Is there a caucus that feels they don't have their priority on their list addressed yet?

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Can we set that at the next meeting?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd rather set it now, to give staff enough time to get people. (Interruptions) Do you want to have a couple of seconds to chat back and forth?

Ms. Bolivar-Getson, or Mr. Porter, if you have one there, we'll accept it. What's your wish?

[11:00 a.m.]

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Dexter's Construction Training Institute for Workers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do we have a seconder for that?

MR. GLAVINE: I'll second that. They're slowed down at that time of the year, they'll be able to get in.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any discussion?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

So we have the agenda set for there. When are going to meet in January?

MRS. HENRY: The last day of the month - no, sorry, the last Tuesday of January.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The last Tuesday in January, we'll set the date for that so we can be aware.

MR. BAIN: The last Tuesday in January would be the 30^th.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If you would like to revisit your witness list of who you would like as witnesses, maybe we could discuss it at the November 28^th meeting so we can give staff lots of time, especially with the Christmas break coming, to get the witnesses lined up for the January meeting.

If there's no other business, a motion to adjourn would be in order.

MR. BAIN: So moved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We stand adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 11:01 a.m.]