HANSARD

and

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. David Wilson, Glace Bay (Chairman)

Hon. David Morse

Hon. Christopher d'Entremont

Mr. Chuck Porter

Mr. Charles Parker

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Percy Paris

Mr. Michel Samson

Ms. Diana Whalen

[Mr. David Wilson, Glace Bay, was replaced by Mr. Keith Colwell.]

[Hon. Christopher d'Entremont was replaced by Mr. Patrick Dunn.]

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

[Ms. Diana Whalen was replaced by Mr. Leo Glavine.]

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Legislative Counsel

Mr. Graham Steele

MLA, Halifax Fairview

WITNESSES

Canadian Federation of Students

Ms. Kaley Kennedy - Nova Scotia National Executive Representative

Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers

Mr. Marc Lamoureux - President

Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union

Mr. Ian Johnson - Researcher

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2008

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. David Wilson (Glace Bay)

MR. CHUCK PORTER (Chairman): Okay, if we could call the meeting to order. We welcome everyone this morning, including our guests. We'll go around the table with introductions.

[The committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, it's great to have you here. We'll go to agency, board and commission appointments first, we just have a few. We'll start with the Department of Education, the Apprenticeship Board. Do we have a mover?

HON. DAVID MORSE: Thank you. I would be pleased to nominate Louis Joe Bernard and Robert Sampson, first as member at large and the second as member (training provider representative) for the Apprenticeship Board.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Next we have the Department of Justice, Police Commissioner of the Municipality of the Town of Kentville.

MR. MORSE: I'd be pleased to nominate David Kilcup as a member of the Police Commissioners for the Town of Kentville.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any discussion? Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

MR. GRAHAM STEELE: Mr. Chairman, if I may, Mr. Paris is here, so I've enjoyed your company but I'm going to absent myself now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Steele.

Moving on, we welcome our guests this morning and we are going to have a presentation by Mr. Lamoureux first. Go ahead, sir.

MR. MARC LAMOUREUX: Thank you for having us this morning. I'd like to apologize to the committee for the fact that I will be leaving early - at 9:30 a.m. - to lecture at 10:00 a.m., hopefully, at Saint Mary's - hopefully in the sense of getting there on time.

I'll be reading out of an executive summary which you don't have in the package, but all the supporting material is in the package. This will be an opportunity for me to get across my points early enough, perhaps, for questions before I leave. I'm the president of the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers, on behalf of ANSUT I'd like to thank the Standing Committee on Human Resources for having us this morning to speak on matters related to post-secondary education in Nova Scotia.

Post-secondary education is a vital part of a complex mechanism designed to ensure that the citizens of Nova Scotia have and maintain a prosperous future in a competitive world and to ensure its citizens are healthy, have the proper skills, and are presented with appropriate incentives to work and to save. ANSUT believes that affordable, accessible and high-quality post-secondary education is crucial to achieving these goals. Studies have repeatedly shown that those who complete post-secondary education have access to a greater variety of work opportunities, earn higher incomes and thus pay more taxes, and enjoy better health than those who have not, all of which are integral to our social and economic well-being.

So what I will do now is simply read a list of recommendations. I have six here to propose. These six recommendations are in your package, spread out through the first six pages of the submission.

First, ANSUT recommends that representatives of all stakeholders in post-secondary education be at the negotiation table of the next memorandum of understanding that will establish the funding parameters and rules of post-secondary education for the next three to five years. As you know, the memorandum of understanding that was negotiated in 2004 is up for renewal and, at this moment, stakeholders such as ANSUT and NSGEU, for example,

have not been invited to be a participant of those negotiations. So we believe that a better memorandum of understanding can be achieved by bringing all the stakeholders to the table.

Representatives from ANSUT, student associations - for example, the Canadian Federation of Students, Nova Scotia chapter - NSGEU, CUPE, which represents the part-time instructors, and the Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents, we think all of them together would constitute an appropriate delegation that represents the interests of PSE in Nova Scotia.

I would just like to make sure that the following point is understood. The Council of Nova Scotia University Presidents, which was the other party that signed with the Minister of Education in the 2004 memorandum of understanding, we would like to make sure that you understand that we do not feel they represent the interests of all stakeholders. They represent the interests of the university administrations which are, on many issues, different from those of Nova Scotia university teachers and also NSGEU and the student associations.

The second recommendation. ANSUT recommends a restoration of funding to the post-secondary education sector under the provision of a post-secondary education Act, as proposed by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, that would ensure accountability on the part of provincial governments and make possible improvements in both the quality and affordability of post-secondary education for all eligible Canadians. This would be like an Act that resembled the Medicare Act that was created a few decades ago. We believe that this is the time to have something similar that will provide a funding platform across Canada, provide sustained funding to all post-secondary education institutions. The particulars of that are given also in our submission.

The third recommendation is that ANSUT recommends that the education funding formula negotiated with the federal government be modified to reflect the fact - and this is very important - that Nova Scotia is educating a greater share of the Canadian student population. Very important. We get, at the moment, our weighted percentage of the Canadian population in terms of funding, yet we have a large student body that comes from outside the province and we receive no dollars for that. So I think that the provincial government must do something about that, must enter into negotiations with the federal government to review and adapt a better formula.

Fourth, ANSUT recommends that the Nova Scotia Government initiate discussions with the federal government to revisit the 21^st Century Research Chairs Program and that the administration of funding through the Canada Foundation for Innovation be reassessed to allow the problems of regional inequity to be addressed. Nova Scotia university teachers represent about 12 per cent of all Canadian university teachers and yet we receive something like in the order of 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent of all the funding. So there is a great inequity, imbalance in terms of funding allocated to university teachers in Nova Scotia. We think that

this needs to be re-evaluated and this would have to take place through negotiation, provincial-federal government negotiation.

ANSUT recommends the creation of a new provincial institution with the mandate of funding pure and applied research in post-secondary institutions.

There are a few provinces in Canada that have something like this already - Quebec has a body called FCAR, Alberta as well, and Ontario has something similar - where funding for research and development, for applied and pure research, is available at the provincial level. That helps to address issues that are very regional that are particular to a certain area of the country. Here, certainly, we think about fisheries, natural resources such as offshore gas projects, and so on. Having a body like that could help fund some very particular issues that are very particular to this region.

The Tri-Council, for example NSERC - the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada - they fund issues that are important to Canada-wide issues. There are issues that are important to the province specifically and these are left unfunded, not funded at the appropriate level. So having a provincial institution that would fund R&D here in Nova Scotia would help remediate some of the regional inequity imbalance that we see.

The final recommendation is that ANSUT recommends that the crisis created by the massive increase in student tuition fees over the past decade needs to be addressed. That's in fact what the memorandum of understanding for PSE is trying to do. What we recommend is that we need the restoration of core funding to levels that would allow tuition fees to be reduced and through the introduction of needs-based programs, to provide students with a level of financial support that will guarantee access to all qualified applicants, regardless of income level.

[9:15 a.m.]

We need to have core funding, we need to bring back the funding that we used to have in post-secondary education in the 1990s. A lot of that funding was lost through federal transfer cuts to the province. We need to find a way to bring this back up, otherwise the whole post-secondary education program in Nova Scotia will not be able to sustain the rhythm that it had in the past. Something will have to give.

These are the recommendations that ANSUT is putting forward to you. I'll now pass on to Kaley.

MS. KALEY KENNEDY: As a result of chronic government underfunding, students in Nova Scotia pay the highest tuition fees and compulsory fees in the country - those add up to about $6,700 a year. That's much higher for professional programs - medical, graduate

programs. High fees have placed a university and college education outside the reach of many low- and middle-income families in Nova Scotia.

Under pressure from the Canadian Federation of Students and its coalition partners, the Minister of Education announced the province's first tuition fee freeze in last year's budget. At the same time, the government announced a $500 tuition fee reduction. This long-awaited policy change was welcomed, but it does have a catch: only permanent residents of Nova Scotia are going to benefit from that tuition fee reduction or have benefited from that tuition fee reduction. So more than 14,000 of our province's university students are actually not going to receive the $500 tuition fee reduction.

The provincial government claims that because we receive funding on a per capita basis and not on a per student basis, this decision is justified. However, the government announced in the Fall of 2006 a $228 million surplus; only 10 per cent, I think, would be required in order to have given that tuition fee reduction to all students.

At a time when Nova Scotia universities have seen the largest single drop in five years in enrolment and there are fewer students graduating from Nova Scotia high schools, the government is in no position to further discourage out-of-province students from attending a Nova Scotia university. We should, instead, be encouraging all students to study and live in Nova Scotia, regardless of where they grew up.

Increasingly, students are choosing to go to provinces with lower tuition fees for their education. While enrolment is on the decline in Nova Scotia, it has been steadily increasing in Newfoundland and Manitoba; both provinces have seen freezes and reductions in recent years. During the tuition fee freeze and reduction in Manitoba, enrolment increased by 18 per cent while Newfoundland and Labrador saw a 9 per cent increase. The Newfoundland and Labrador increase is noteworthy because it's coming at a time when the school-age population is declining, so they're actually having less people graduate from high school and still their enrolments are increasing. Since 1999, when Newfoundland and Labrador first froze tuition fees, the number of Nova Scotia students attending university in Newfoundland and Labrador has increased by more than 800 per cent.

In the last provincial election, Rodney MacDonald promised all students that his government would reduce tuition fees to the national average, and the tuition fee freeze this year is simply not enough. Students have been struggling with the increase in tuition fees for decades and a freeze simply just doesn't stop that. The poll commissioned by this coalition this past summer agreed and revealed widespread support for a tuition fee reduction and widespread agreement that Rodney MacDonald broke his promise to students and their families; 89 per cent of Nova Scotians believe that tuition fees are too high and support a tuition fee reduction, and 81 per cent believe that Rodney MacDonald has not done what he said he would.

In it's Youth in Transition Survey, Statistics Canada and Human Resources and Social Development Canada found that of those who did not pursue post-secondary education, finances were the largest identified barrier to realizing their aspirations for higher learning. Our poll also found that 90 per cent of Nova Scotians said they were worried that young people in Nova Scotia would not be able to attend post-secondary education because of high tuition fees and inadequate financial aid.

These two things - high tuition fees and inadequate financial aid - have caused student debt in this province to skyrocket. Currently, the average Nova Scotia graduate graduates with $28,000 of student debt, an increase of $7,000 in just five years. Student debt continues to be on the rise with the number of students graduating with more than $30,000 of debt after their first degree, increasing from 12 per cent in 1996 to more than one-third in 2007. Contrary to suggestions by the minister last year, this is not because of student lifestyles but rather a result of high tuition fees, inadequate financial aid, a lack of affordable housing and low wages. Almost every campus in this province has a food bank and students are faced with a choice of rent or tuition, books or groceries.

High graduate debt loads should be a societal concern, because current debt loads lower the rate of return for society investing in higher education. For example, high debt upon graduation narrows the career options for graduates, and many students find themselves forced into more lucrative and corporate occupations to pay off their student loans as opposed to going into careers in social work, family law, rural medicine or international development. Many students with high debt loads are also forced to leave the province.

The most effective way of reducing student debt is to reduce tuition fees. By eliminating the up-front financial barriers of tuition fees, students borrow less and also eventually draw less on government debt-reduction programs. Students who graduate with lower debt loads are also more likely to buy homes, to invest in small businesses and to stay in Nova Scotia. A study released in June by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission found that more of our young people are leaving the province for more affordable education and higher-paying jobs. The Nova Scotia Government should follow the example of Newfoundland and Labrador and immediately reduce tuition fees to attract people to our province and to keep them here.

There is little disagreement that financial assistance is also necessary to bridge the gap between the cost of attending a post-secondary education institution and the resources that students have. Tuition fee reductions should be paired with a comprehensive system of needs-based grants. The current system of "study now, pay later" is socially regressive for those who enter the system and disastrous for those already shut out of the opportunities provided by post-secondary education.

A number of eligibility restrictions introduced in 1998 to the financial assistance program have had an adverse effect by reducing the number of students who qualify for student loans. As well, changes to the Employment Support and Income Assistance Act in 2000, preventing students from gaining access to social assistance, have meant that students with the highest needs, such as single-parent students and students with disabilities, have been shut out of post-secondary education.

With the elimination of the Nova Scotia Bursary Program in 1993, Nova Scotia's neediest students were without any form of up-front, non-repayable assistance until 2007. In 2007, the government announced a Nova Scotia Access grant. However, while this is a step in the right direction, it is simply not enough. The grant is short-sighted, because it focuses only on one demographic and will only continue until 2010-11.

The government must establish a needs-based grants program based solely on need that will ensure that even the neediest students have access to post-secondary education. By continuing to shut low- and middle-income students out of post-secondary education, the province is only perpetuating the cycle of poverty for the next generation.

The Government of Nova Scotia must reinvest in post-secondary education by increasing funding to colleges and universities. Increased funding must be accompanied by a strategy to reduce tuition fees for all post-secondary students in order to maximize both the affordability and quality of post-secondary education and to ensure our province has a prosperous future.

I will now turn it over to Ian.

MR. IAN JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. I'm Ian Johnson from NSGEU. First, I just want to express regrets from our president who was not able to attend due to other commitments in the province.

NSGEU is pleased to be here as part of the Post-Secondary Education Coalition. As you've heard, it's composed of our sister organizations: the Canadian Federation of Students, the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers and also Local 3912 from the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

With that, we cover and include full-time faculty, part-time faculty, teaching assistants, staff and students who are concerned both with limited funding and accessibility for post-secondary education. We've been in operation or existence since at least February 2005. We're really the newest partner in this. At that time, you may remember, we commissioned a poll of some 800 Nova Scotians for their views about issues relating to post-secondary education, accessibility and student debt. We've since then made submissions to federal and provincial legislative committees - including this committee in 2005 - we've met

with elected members and candidates from all Parties, and we've organized forums at various times, most notably during the last provincial election.

The NSGEU, just to clarify who we are, we're the single largest union in the province, representing almost 25,000 public- and private-sector employees and they work in a wide variety of workplaces, including the Civil Service, community agencies, correctional facilities and liquor stores. But we're also involved - and that's why we're part of the coalition - because we represent approximately 1,800 women and men who work mostly as support staff at six universities and with the Nova Scotia Community College. They work in a wide variety of facilities of universities and community colleges as library staff, technicians, clerical/administrative positions, in IT, and in the labs. Besides these staff we also represent faculty at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College.

Our members are especially concerned with the rising costs for the students they serve every day and for their family members who also participate in post-secondary education. What they see, day in and day out, is confirmed in our most recent poll, which was done in August 2007. It asked about the personal impact of tuition fees and other costs. In particular we asked at that point: In the past two years, have there been times when:

• Survey participants, or someone in their family, had to drop out of college or university because they couldn't afford the tuition and other costs; and

• It also asked about when they, or someone in their family, decided not to attend college or university because it would mean having to take on too much debt.

In response, 14 per cent said they, or someone in their family, had to drop out due to the high costs and 28 per cent said they, or someone in their family, decided not to attend due to having to take on too much debt. To our surprise, these figures are actually exactly the same for the same two questions that we asked in February 2005. What this means to us is that at least one-third of Nova Scotians or their family members are not able to participate in post-secondary education due to the high costs in the very recent past. This, unfortunately, has not changed in the last two years.

These results seem to confirm what the MPHEC - the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission - indicated on June 2007 when it publicly released its report entitled Surveying the Enrolment Landscape: Factors and Trends in Maritime University Enrolment 2000-2001 to 2006-2007. In that report, the commission noted that tuition fees are a major factor in explaining declining enrolment in Maritime universities over the last two years.

With these personal impact results in particular, again we say the government can't say they've made major gains in making post-secondary education more affordable, as Minister Casey has suggested on several occasions. They also call out for much more comprehensive support than the government has so far chosen to provide.

For our members who work as support staff, chronic underfunding has caused our universities and colleges to cut corners in ways that are often hidden from the public and from students. The same number or fewer staff are providing essential services to more students. This represents really a hidden loss of quality, often to the detriment of students' education. So we were pleased this last poll asked questions about the need to hire more staff, and almost three-quarters of participants said that additional funding should be provided to hire more support staff.

We urge you, the committee, to think of the vital work that is performed every day by support staff in our post-secondary educational institutions. They could not function without their services and yet it has been our experience that they are almost never considered whenever any changes are being made. For example, just last week, one of our members locally told me that two programs in her department were being expanded and, as a result, they were hiring two new management staff. However, there was no consideration at all, apparently, to even the idea of considering new support staff for that program.

To help determine how many staff should be in place, we have called for appropriate staff/student ratios to be established as indicators as to how many staff should be in place. I can't tell you exactly what that ratio or those ratios should be, but in our view they should be developed jointly and negotiated between staff and their representatives, us as the union, with senior management representatives at each institution.

In our view, the most recent poll results should have a major influence on both the tone and content of the new round of discussions that have started in December toward a new memorandum of understanding between the province and the universities. In particular, they should illustrate the importance and, in fact, the necessity of having all major stakeholders represented in the process. Unlike in 2004, we are pleased to know that student representatives are included in these discussions. However, as my colleague has already pointed out, the government has yet to accept the idea that faculty and staff should also be represented.

[9:30 a.m.]

When we met, as a coalition, with the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education in December, we put forward this idea of broader representation, including faculty and staff. We were told this was impossible, because the government doesn't deal directly with faculty and staff. In other words, it would be too complicated to have both groups represented. In response, we pointed out that such a position seems to imply that the government sees faculty

and staff as "second-rate stakeholders". We strongly disagree with that position and seek your support for broad and inclusive representation of all major stakeholder groups in the MOU discussions.

In our view, there is some urgency to having all stakeholders represented and to having our poll results being given serious consideration. It comes in part from the aging population and aging workforce.

I probably don't have to tell you a lot about this, but just to run through a few things. In fact, from the 2006 census, we have learned that Nova Scotia has the highest median age in the country. Similarly, we are witnessing a major shift within the next 25 years in our workforce, from 72 per cent being under 44 years of age to the same age group only representing 50 per cent of our workforce and the other half over 45 years of age. For the provincial government and other public-sector employers, the Public Service Superannuation Plan - our major pension plan in the province - is now saying that 55 per cent of plan members will reach their earliest, unreduced retirement date within the next 10 years. So it is significant; literally thousands of people will be in that situation.

Greatly increased accessibility is also crucial, because it has been estimated that two-thirds of all new jobs in Canada will require some type of post-secondary education by 2013. Already we know that several sectors - health care being one of the more prominent ones, but also energy, construction, engineering and technology - are having a difficult time finding skilled workers to fill the jobs. In our view, all of these demographic trends point to the urgency of making post-secondary education in all its forms as broadly accessible as possible to help meet further workforce gaps and needs. In our view, post-secondary education must also stop being mostly oriented to entry-level education and training for young people 18 to 24.

Lifelong learning must become an integral part of our post-secondary education system. If, as stated by UNESCO, lifelong learning is the key to the 21^st Century, it must be treated as just that important - and funded accordingly. Dedicated funding for lifelong learning, such as aid for part-time students and for non-credit courses, is essential. Barriers to the participation of persons on social assistance in post-secondary education must be removed. A provincial program of paid educational leave for all working people is long overdue.

At this point I am turning it back to my colleague, Kaley, to wrap up our presentation.

MS. KENNEDY: I'm just quickly going to go through the recommendations that we would like this committee to review and accept:

• [Page 11]
• That prior to any decision on tuition-relief measures or grant programs research projects undertaken by the Department of Education, or changes to government policies on education, full consultation be carried out with all interested parties, particularly student leadership, staff and faculty;
• That tuition fees be immediately reduced for all students, as part of a long-term vision for reducing student debt, that includes legislated tuition fee reductions;
• That the Government of Nova Scotia establish a needs-based grants program that provides up-front, non-repayable assistance to students;
• That Regulation 67 of the Employment Support and Income Assistance Act be repealed, giving students with high need access to social assistance; and
• That the Government of Nova Scotia increase core funding to universities and research funding, including covering the cost of indirect research.

Thank you. I will now accept questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your presentation. We'll start with 10 minutes in the first round of questions. Mr. Preyra.

MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Thank you for your presentation. There's a lot of new and useful data, albeit depressing data in your presentation. I want to start with Kaley and particularly a question on student debt.

As you know, the government is set this morning to announce that they're going to move to direct lending. It's something you've been calling for for a while, it's something we've been calling for for a while and it has been promised for a long time. I'm not surprised at the data you presented today, that the average is about $6,700 in tuition fees and the average debt is about $28,000.

I know you've presented data elsewhere, but there are also nuances in that student debt in terms of rural students having a much higher rate because they lack job opportunities, they have to pay for housing and all those other things. Could you tell us more about overall student debt, what component of student debt is financed by lines of credit and private borrowing, by federal student loans, by other contributions? I know this announcement is going to address provincial student loans, but I wanted to get a general sense from you, if you have any recent data on that.

MS. KENNEDY: In terms of data, there hasn't really been any new data come out in the last little while, as far as I know - usually data comes out as school years end. But in terms of what the overall picture for student debt looks like in this province especially, it's dire.

When we talk about student debt in terms of the $28,000 average or how many students are borrowing more than $30,000, that's government student debt. We're not talking about the students who are borrowing from banks or through student lines of credit. We're not talking about students who are getting money from their parents that they're eventually going to have to pay back. We're not talking about families who are cashing in life insurance policies. We're not talking about any of those possibilities, we're talking about what students are getting from the government through the Canada Student Loans Program and the Nova Scotia student loans. We are seeing students coming out of school with $50,000, $60,000 of student debt, even just on government loans. So the numbers are actually presenting a picture that's not as bad as it actually is.

In terms of the announcement that's going to happen about direct lending, while direct lending will help with interest payments and will reduce payments somewhat for graduates, it's not going to address the core issue, which is the fact that students have to borrow upwards of $12,000 in order to just get through a year of university in this province. The Department of Education estimates that it costs about $14,400 to go to school for a year in Nova Scotia. The student loan limit is $12,400, so students are definitely taking on those maximums, definitely using all that money.

Students who don't qualify for post-secondary education because of parental income limits and things like that, are going to banks and getting student lines of credit. The issue there is that high tuition fees don't just shut out the lowest income students, they shut out middle income - they're shutting out the middle class right now.

In terms of addressing student debt, the best way to go about that would be to reduce tuition fees for all students, and to introduce more up-front financial assistance and less back-end reduction programs.

MR. PREYRA: Thank you. I also have another question for you and maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, but you referred to the tuition fee bursary as a tuition reduction. As I understand it, it's a non-renewable bursary that will hopefully be announced - it will return again next year.

I'm wondering if you can comment on the overall needs-based grants issue, especially given that the Millennium Program is about to expire and we know that Stephen Harper is not about to renew a Chrétien legacy program. The bursary itself is a product of an agreement that we reached with the government in Ottawa. It was a very specific promise that was extracted from the government, under pressure, that allowed that program to develop, and

money for that bursary is coming from that fund. It's not there as part of a permanent reduction in tuition. I'm wondering if you could comment on the status of that bursary itself.

MS. KENNEDY: Yes, so there are two components to that. The money that was drawn for the $440 bursary that was announced in October 2006 is drawn from that money, but the tuition fee reduction for September, my understanding, was given from provincial funds in the budget and it was announced when the government bought out the 3.9 per cent increase that was supposed to happen in the 2007-08 year. They also increased funding to be distributed to Nova Scotia students at $250 per term. So it's actually not a reduction in that students who received their $440 bursary in winter 2007 only received a $250 rebate in the Fall of 2007. So they actually did see their tuition fees go up from the term winter 2007 to Fall 2007, and then those numbers have been maintained for winter 2008. Our understanding is that the government is going to maintain those levels and hopefully reduce them further in the coming years.

There has been no indication, and you're right, there is no sustainable, progressive plan for tuition fee reductions right now. We've been told multiple times that the government wants to reduce tuition fees to the national average, but we haven't seen how that's going to take effect. What we're calling for is, if the government is serious about reducing tuition fees to the national average, then they should bring it into the House and they should legislate it and they should lay out a plan of how that's going to happen, because right now students have no idea what they're going to be paying in the Fall of 2008 or winter of 2008, or Fall of 2009 or winter of 2009.

The reality is that students can't plan their finances. Students can't make their decision on whether to stay in Nova Scotia or whether to go to school in Nova Scotia at all if they have no idea what tuitions are going to look like in this province over the next three to five years. The MOU is a place to do that, but the best way to do that is to put it in the Legislature and make it law.

MR. PREYRA: Thank you. One last question for this round for me anyway. I was looking at your data again and it confirms what we have been finding in previous studies. In a way, you and Kaley are dealing with two different sides of the equation; whereas the CFS data looks at student debt for students who are in the system, your data, I think the most telling part of it is students who don't get in the system and large numbers of people - I think it was 40 per cent in some cases - that effectively were shut out of a post-secondary education because they couldn't afford to get in, in the first place. What are you recommending in terms of targeted grants? Where are the problem areas and what kinds of initiatives are you recommending to deal with those problem areas?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I think in the poll we ask questions about tuition fee reduction and needs-based grants, so we have come up with a number of recommendations that build on that. I'm just trying to go back through the results for you but in that base, that covers, for

example, the need for the government to provide a scholarship program based on financial need; 85 per cent of the people said that was important.

As Kaley has already pointed out, the importance of tuition fee reduction and the clear need to clarify what exact format that is going to take and to lay it out, I think that's important. I think I'm going to ask Kaley to add to that, because she has actually done more work on that than I have.

MS. KENNEDY: I think one thing to keep in mind is that when we talk about the numbers of people who are being shut out of university, we're not just talking about low-income people who live below the poverty line. The statistic is, I think it's 30 per cent making under $40,000 a year, which is not anywhere really close to the poverty line and people are being effectively shut out.

I think that at this point the priority needs to be tuition fee reductions, because tuition fees have gotten to the point where students from fairly well-off backgrounds can't even afford to go to school because you can't work enough in the summer to make enough money to pay for your university education. If you're living in Halifax you are looking at really high rents, the cost of food isn't going down and things like that, so I think that needs to be the priority.

[9:45 a.m.]

In terms of grant money, grants should be based on need in terms of looking at the needs of individual students and not limiting that need to fit under this is how much we're going to provide for students. I think what those limits need to be in place for is for loans. So there should be a limit for how much loan a student can receive. I think that $12,000 is too high to limit for loans. So if you reduce that, say a student can't receive a loan over $4,000 and then whatever the gap is between their need and the loan amount is given in non-repayable grants, similar to how the grant system operates in Quebec where you have grants, there is a needs assessment, grants are doled out based on that and you get additional money for needs that are not for every student.

So things like child care, things like transportation if you have a disability, if you're a rural student and you have additional transportation costs, there are mechanisms in place to allow for more money to be given for students who have those needs, and generally those are the students who are going to be more and more rural students, students with disabilities, students with dependents, things like that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Thank you. Not to cut you off but, Mr. Glavine, I will allow you 10 minutes - until about 9:55 a.m.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for coming in this morning and sharing some new information and also perhaps some areas where we all need to be taking a look at.

I first want to duck back to the previous MOU. One of the concerns that I have seen over the last couple of years is that while auxiliary and ancillary fees were included in the MOU, do you think not just the spirit of the MOU but the actual agreement was broken by a 25 per cent increase, for example, this year in auxiliary fees at Kings College? I think you challenged the Department of Education on that. I wonder if you have any comment, please, about that.

MS. KENNEDY: Yes, the MOU is very vague when it comes to ancillary and auxiliary fees. For those who aren't intimately familiar with the document, it basically says that they can increase with increase in cost or increase in service. So basically what that means is that if the university can prove it has seen a direct increase in costs, it can pass that directly on to students, or if it can show that there's a new service being offered. There is a green office, or something, they can somehow bring that in and point to that as the reason for the introduction of a new ancillary cost. There's no need for student input.

For example, if you were to put in a new student services' office that allows for some additional service, the university could essentially argue that should constitute an equal increase in costs on the backs of the students. They don't have to go to students to ask if students want this service. They actually don't have to go to the department to ask, students actually have to figure this out on their own and challenge the university and then challenge the Department of Education.

There is no official review mechanism in place. In fact, the first time that it had been done was when students at the University of King's College challenged fee increases there. It actually revealed a lot of - there weren't very transparent mechanisms for fee approval and things like that and the department is looking into that. But it also revealed that the department doesn't have an on-hand record of ancillary fee increases, so there's no table of, like, this is how much ancillary fees were changed for these different fees at each of these institutions.

So it became very difficult for the department, it was actually - for a review of a fee increase of what amounted to something like $17 for the year, it was a three-month review process, at least. The students discovered it in July and there wasn't a decision brought down until well into October. It was definitely a three-month process and it's definitely a problem. We're pushing with the MOU that all tuition fees and user fees, including ancillary and auxiliary fees, be brought under control and reduced.

MR. GLAVINE: I brought that up for that very reason. Again, it's one of those little more of a silent, creeping kind of additional cost that students incur. It could be a mechanism whereby additional monies are quietly added on, if there is indeed a tuition freeze as we currently have.

Kaley, I just want you to react for a moment. Perhaps now, we're reaching a bit of a tipping point with the numbers of students not going to Nova Scotia universities - we're at 850 this year with less students graduating, with total uncertainty about next year's tuition at this point. Do you think with this whole culture of the highest intuitions that we're reaching a bit of a tipping point where we'll go over 1,000 Nova Scotia students less in our universities next year? Is that kind of a fear that you have? It's one that I'm hearing a little bit more at the school level of graduating students.

MS. KENNEDY: Yes, it's something we've been pushing for a number of years. Our organization has been saying that enrolments have been drastically affected by tuition fee increases and that this province was lucky during the double cohort that we had a number of students come in - more than we would have otherwise expected - so that's been disguised. I think the fact that there are 1,000 students from Nova Scotia at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador is a clear indication that students are leaving this province, because they simply can't afford to go to school here.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, you can get an education of the same quality for $2,500 where you're going to spend $6,700 here - there's just no question about why you would go there. Every province in this country has lower tuition fees than us. Even with the tuition fee freeze, we're still at the highest; even when you add in our ancillary fees, you haven't really seen very much in terms of tuition fee reductions.

What you were talking about in terms of ancillary fees, if you look at Stats Canada data, ancillary fees increased by 26 per cent this year. We know that universities sideswipe the tuition fee freeze by moving what was formerly tuition fees into ancillary fees, and the government hasn't taken a strong enough stance on that.

Students are at the point where they can't afford to go to school in this province. Students from out of province don't want to come to Nova Scotia if they're not going to know what their tuition fees are going to look like, if they're not sure they're going to be able to afford it. It also changes the demographics of who is coming to university. So who is in our Nova Scotia universities and what are we looking at in terms of standards? We know that across the board, the standards for getting into universities are being lowered because while some schools can stave off the enrolment crisis by allowing more students in, eventually those applications are going to run out and then we're just going to not have enough people applying to university, even if we let everyone in.

MR. GLAVINE: Just in case we don't get a second round here, one of the biggest concerns that I see right now is that if the MOU discussions get protractedly long and students don't know, and government doesn't make a definite decision about what will be in the budget to support reducing tuition fees, then, in fact, that whole doubt and uncertainty is also going to create a climate whereby students will not look as strongly, perhaps, at a Nova Scotia university. I worry a lot about that. I have heard from a few educators in the system in recent weeks about that very issue.

If I pick up a program of studies from Memorial or the University of Waterloo or Guelph, I have a firm figure for 2008-09. Right now, we can put a figure in the book for a Nova Scotia university, but there is no guarantee that come September that will, in fact, be our tuition. So I have a lot of concern around that and a very growing one, because this week Nova Scotia students finish first term. I talked to three students on the weekend who have already decided where they're going next year and we have all this doubt about where we are in Nova Scotia.

I think the discussions starting now are, personally, way too late and I'm just wondering what you think of that, as well, apart from maybe a certain partner is not at the table.

MR. JOHNSON: We absolutely agree with you. In fact, I think we were calling a year ago really to try to get the process underway, especially where we think it's important that the representation be broadened so you have to allow more time for that. I certainly take your point about the need to go through the discussions to provide some certainty to the whole system for that matter. It really is kind of johnny-come-lately at this point, although obviously we're hoping it will conclude as reasonably as possible. Nonetheless, there is an uncertainty right now about whether it will meet the deadlines you suggest of this year's budget.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Morse.

MR. MORSE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I suspect I'll be sharing my time with our colleague, the member for Pictou Centre, Pat Dunn.

Kaley, I appreciated your presentation. I appreciated all three presentations and I always like to see people who have a huge stake in the outcome of any program to have input and constructive input. One of the points I tried to make with our 18-year-old son when he was looking at where he should go to university last year was to look at the big picture. Get beyond just the tuition, because that's not the only cost of going to university and you have covered that over with your comments. I think you said $14,400. So we know that more than half of that is something other than tuition.

As we move to try to hit the national average by the academic year 2010-11, which is an enormous commitment, the Premier did not say that was going to happen in the first year. He said it would be bridged in over time. So I do want to just point that out, that the commitment was never to do it in one year. What do you see as the major costs of going to university? I have some thoughts, but I would like to hear your thoughts.

MS. KENNEDY: First, in terms of commenting, it was great that the Premier made that commitment. But the Premier has since said that they are halfway there, and I would say that they're nowhere close to reducing tuition fees to the national average over this number of years. Many students in Nova Scotia will not benefit from any reduction this year. Just getting a freeze is definitely not what they were expecting in the last budget.

In terms of what the costs are, tuition fees make up almost half of that, if you add in books and art supplies - if you're a fine arts student - that adds to almost half of that cost. I would suspect that much of that cost is to do with a lack of affordable housing in this province and the need for more affordable housing and more student-focused housing. As I say, those are the two main costs of education in this province. Most students are paying about $500 a month in rent over the year, add that to the $7,000 in tuition, $1,000 of books and you're up at about $14,400.

MR. MORSE: I'm going to give you another sobering thought this morning - $14,400 is not the cost of going to university. The opportunity cost that a student takes by foregoing the ability to take a job - be it an entry-level job because they're probably a recent high school graduate - in itself greatly adds to the investment that you and all the other students make by choosing to enhance their education.

[10:00 a.m.]

If you throw that in with tuition, room and board, books, ancillary fees and the opportunity cost - time spent in university - you have an enormous financial commitment. I would suggest to you that seven or eight months that you forego from being full-time in the workforce - I recognize you may be part-time in the workforce in addition to all the other things that you do on your academic calendar, there could be one or two part-time jobs - that has to be recognized as another part of the investment you make in your education. It's staggering.

The tuition is an important part of that and it all comes from your pocket, whether it be by student loans or any of the other means that you've previously spoken of. I would suggest that at least equals all the other outlays. Did you want to comment?

MS. KENNEDY: Well, I think in terms of opportunity costs, a large portion of our student population is working full-time while going to school. A lot of our student population, in terms of part-time students, if you review the MPHEC report on trends in enrolment, we've seen a move to more part-time studies.

You're right, in terms of opportunity costs, because those students are taking sometimes six, seven, eight years to complete their degree, they need to work full-time and go to school part-time or take on two or three part-time jobs in order to cover the costs. I think, in terms of - most students are not able to balance full-time school and full-time work.

However, the investment the government should be making in their education is that they'll be able to come out with a job that isn't a minimum-wage, entry-level job that they'll be able to come out with the ability to get much better employment and build in our economy - purchase homes, start up small businesses and things like that.

Right now, graduates in this province cannot do that because they end up spending the first 15 years out of school - 10 or 15 years, depending on how they negotiate their loans - paying off student debt. We're seeing students come out of school with $900 a month student loan payments on top of rent and other living expenses. They can't be expected to pay that on what they're making in this province. They need to leave and they need to often go to the U.S., Ontario or out West where there are more lucrative job opportunities. We're seeing that as a huge problem.

MR. JOHNSON: Can I just add, I reported earlier from our poll but I didn't give you a sense, there is a difference according to income and this is a question that I think what really is weighing on people, from what our poll results show, is the cost. It may be the direct cost of it. Forty per cent of respondents earning less than $30,000 compared to 27 per cent of those earning more said someone in their family had not gone on to pursue post-secondary education in the last two years, because it would mean having to take on too much debt. We are almost at 40 per cent or 50 per cent of people below a certain income level who are taking this into consideration. I'm sure there's an opportunity cost but there is a direct financial cost that people are saying, we can't do it, we're not going to go. So that has to be addressed and if there's anything, that has to be taken on right away.

MR. MORSE: Mr. Chairman, how much time do . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have about two minutes or so.

MR. MORSE: A couple of weeks ago I spoke at Dalhousie to the Conservative Campus Club and before I went there I got a briefing note of some of the things that the government has done recently. It runs into three pages, starting with the memorandum of understanding with Nova Scotia universities: the tuition reduction program, the tuition fees frozen and reduced, direct lend enhanced repayment assistance program, payment deferral

program, Canada-Nova Scotia access grants for students from low-income families, new student assistance production system, minister's review of student assistance, Canada-Nova Scotia student loans, Canada access grants for students with permanent disabilities, provincial access grants for students with permanent disabilities, Canada access grants for students from low-income families, Millennium access grant for students from low-income families, Millennium general bursaries, and then the reduction of parental contribution. I just wanted to point out that the government has been taking some initiatives.

Now the last thing that I'm going to ask you about, which I'm sure would take you well beyond two minutes, it has always fascinated me that when we get into labour negotiations on the university campuses, that the students are often split on this. Sometimes they're out there supporting whichever group is having trouble with the administration. Of course, right now we have St. Thomas University, which is a regrettable situation and the students are starting to speak out there. It seems to me that if the government was not picking up all of the increase in the cost of tuition, which was the case just a couple of years ago, that we know who would be paying for all of the increases in any negotiations.

That's not saying that there should not be increases, because you have to be competitive. If you're going to have good university professors, you are going to have good support employees, you have to be competitive. But in view of the recent Acadia strike, which is quite close to me as the representative for Kings South which includes Wolfville, and now St. Thomas, I would be curious as to your comments on the negotiations. If the cap was not in place, we know who would be paying in the increase, it would be the students. I'm just curious as to whether you're comfortable making a comment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Morse. Feel free to answer the question, but it is Mr. Paris' time. If he so chooses, we'll allow him that time. You have about 10 minutes, Percy. If you want to permit the question to be answered, please feel free.

MR. PERCY PARIS: I will so permit. (Laughter)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I assumed that you would.

MS. KENNEDY: We need to have quality institutions and one of the first indicators of quality is the number of tenured faculty, the staff to student ratios. Those are real indicators of quality that we need in our universities. We understand that the government needs to increase core funding and reduce tuition fees. It's a package. Our students don't want to go to universities that aren't quality institutions, but at the same time you can put money into infrastructure and faculty and then have no students to enter the school. So it's not a choice between having well-paid faculty and staff who have benefits, and students who can afford to go to education, it comes together.

We support faculty and staff in negotiations, because we feel that we know our students face every day their faculty and staff, and want to be sure their faculty and staff have the competitive wages, good benefits, proper discipline programs, proper representation on boards and things like that. The government has presented a number of times like this, well, students have to choose. No, the government has cut funding consistently for the past 15 years and they have to reinvest in post-secondary education for that.

MR. JOHNSON: Could I just add quickly, I think what you're actually . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm just going to interrupt you, because I know Mr. Paris has questions and we are on his time and he did permit some extra time. If we do have time, we'll come back. Mr. Paris, go ahead.

MR. PARIS: Thank you. Hopefully my questions will just have short answers because I notice in the presentation I was taken by the number of statistics that are in the presentation itself - whether they be a percentage or round numbers. I know early in the presentation, the comment was made about Nova Scotia educating a larger share of the Canadian population. So that's one side of the coin.

I would just like to flip that coin over and ask the question, do you know how many Nova Scotians are receiving post-secondary education and what percentage of those Nova Scotians are receiving education outside of the Province of Nova Scotia?

MS. KENNEDY: I'm not sure. I know there are 1,000 students right now in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that's just one university where students have gone. I'm not sure on the numbers, I don't have them off hand.

I would say that it should be the right of any student in the country to go to school where they feel they want to go. If we want to have a strong immigration strategy and a strong strategy for getting people to this province, then we need to make universities and post-secondary education a priority, because that's what will bring students here and that's what will keep them here. Something like two-thirds of the people who come to Nova Scotia for university stay in the province after graduation.

MR. PARIS: The provincial institution for R&D, it says the memorandum of understanding - the previous one - recognizes the importance and the economic benefits of R&D. Am I then to assume that the current MOU does not recognize that? There's a (b) part to that question - that's the (a) part. The (b) question is, when you talk about the provincial institution for R&D, how far have you gone with respect to research - what does that look like, where is it, what's the cost, those types of things?

MS. KENNEDY: A lot of the work has been done by the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers. Marc had to leave because he had to go teach a class. But in terms of

what the new MOU says, it's not clear yet what the new MOU looks like, we're just not that far into negotiations. In terms of what it says now, I'll turn it over to Ian.

MR. JOHNSON: From what it says now, it's pretty general, as I read it. Again, I think it's an argument why faculty and staff should be represented in the process, is to help round out those kinds of discussions. We feel it's not been given the emphasis it needs to be given. ANSUT, more so than me, could really help to round out that in the discussions and make sure that's part of the process.

I guess what we're looking for, what they've proposed, is a fairly specific recommendation in terms of how to advance research and development in the province at the university level.

MR. PARIS: Where's the stumbling block when it comes to all stakeholders getting to the table?

MR. JOHNSON: That's a good question. I guess at this point, as I've said, we proposed this directly to the minister and deputy minister in December. Maybe I'm unfairly representing, but they felt, for us, we weren't seen as "direct" people or groups that they would deal with, so we shouldn't be part of it. To me, the logic doesn't follow, but at this point it seems to be the department not being willing to have us there.

Again, that's why we're partly here, is to seek your support to put pressure on the government to ensure, for the overall good. We aren't saying we have all the answers, but we do have a stake - all of us - in trying to make sure that post-secondary education is organized and funded as best as possible and that we develop the kinds of directions that we are setting out for you today.

MR. PARIS: Grants are always of interest to me, especially when we start talking about students. Did I hear you say that when it comes to grants that it should be strictly based on needs? Does that mean that when we're trying to accommodate those needs of that student, any particular student, that the only criterion that should be considered should be one of needs? No other factors should enter the equation when it comes to determining what the grant would be.

MS. KENNEDY: I'm just wondering, in terms of your question, what you mean in terms of other. There is a detailed needs assessment that has gone through at the level of the department that decides what a student needs in comparison to what resources are available to them. Are you talking about those kinds of things or are you talking about in terms of targeting based on demographics?

MR. PARIS: All of the above and also maybe would be based on ability to pay.

MS. KENNEDY: Yes, and that's already worked into the student financial assistance program in terms of what resources are available to students versus what their costs are, and that's how their need is determined. I think there are some issues regarding that in terms of often the department doesn't have accurate figures for what is available to those students, based on parental contribution and things like that or even what the appropriate costs are. So sometimes things like living expenses can be low-balled and that doesn't really serve anyone.

[10:15 a.m.]

I think in terms of when we talked about needs-based grants, we talked about an assessed need and that grants should not be distributed outside of a needs assessment. The reason why we really push the needs-based grants is that we've seen a lot of public money going to merit-based grants and the problem with merit-based grants is that they often go to students who don't need them and that public money is often going to finance students going to school who wouldn't need that additional funding. In terms of an ideal needs-based grants system, it would take into account, as I was saying before, additional expenses incurred by students who would have higher needs like students with disabilities, students from rural areas and students with dependants.

We're at the point right now where those two things need to happen before we can talk about also targeting programming and things like that, which could help break down the additional barriers that people face, beyond just financial barriers.

MR. PARIS: When you make recommendations and you talk about immediate reduction in tuition and tuition relief measures, when those recommendations are being made, just for the sake of argument, 2007 as opposed to 2008, do you have set percentages or set figures in mind as to what the reduction should look like?

MS. KENNEDY: Well, we've been saying since the government promised to reduce tuition fees to the national average that we want them to follow through on that promise and I think that any reductions after that, we would welcome more progressive tuition fee reductions to continue to reduce tuition fees to a point where they're no longer a financial barrier.

It's a complex process in terms of talking about where funding goes for post-secondary education, but we think that the government's promise to reduce tuition fees to the national average was a good start and we would like to see that followed through and we are going to press until that's followed through. Then, after that . . .

MR. PARIS: And you only see that as a good start, because you also mentioned in your presentation about - somewhat you refer to the economic situation here in Nova Scotia compared to the rest of Canada, not only the economic conditions but also with the highest tuitions. Still, I think part of the presentation was around the faculty being one of the lowest paid, so when you talk about - that's only a starting point then to the national average.

MS. KENNEDY: It's only a starting point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Actually, I'm going to just shut it off there. I hope we'll have a chance to come back to you, Percy, for at least one more question as we go around.

I recognize Mr. Dunn until 10:27 a.m.

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you for the presentation. It's certainly always an interesting topic for me - tuition fees and so on. I want to follow up Mr. Morse's earlier comments. Kaley, in your opening comments you mentioned that the government failed to reduce the tuition fees to the national average. Like he said, you left it open-ended. It's 2010-11 that they said they would meet that particular mandate; prior to that, they would reduce in 2008-09, 2009-10.

I feel I'm quite familiar with university costs and student fees and so on. I have one youngster who has completed a couple of degrees in university and is working, and in 2006-07 and 2007-08 I have four university students attending over those years. So I have a pretty good idea of what the costs are and what the demands are and so on.

It is my understanding the province's 11 universities generate approximately $235 million in tuition revenue. The universities' route to eliminate tuition fees, the province would have to replace the tuition revenue with operating funds. That would be in addition to $270 million they have already provided in the 2007-08 operating grant.

When you look at the cost to the province as far as the freeze in tuition fees, I believe it was around $12.4 million or $12.5 million. It cost the province $11.6 million to reduce tuition fees by supplying that $500 to Nova Scotia students studying in universities in Nova Scotia. The question I have is, how do you propose the province raise $200 million, $250 million, $300 million to overcome some of the deficiencies you've been alluding to?

MS. KENNEDY: I think it's important to recognize that budgeting is about priorities and the Government of Nova Scotia has not made accessible, affordable, quality post-secondary education a priority. We've seen a real reduction of, I believe, $20 million from 1992. It's a little bit different because in 2007 there was a set of funds put on that were not expected, but between 2006 and 1992 there was a real reduction of about $20 million in post-secondary education funding.

Even with the additional programs in terms of provincial funding, we're not at the real level of funding we were in 1992. As costs have gone up and infrastructure has crumbled, students have been forced to face those realities in their university education.

In terms of where funding cuts should happen, or where the money should come from, we're talking about a progressive reduction in tuition fees that would be outlined over a number of years. You've said that the government did promise that, so we don't understand why the government is not willing to legislate that and say, okay, we want to reduce tuition fees to the national average by 2010-11 and this is what we think tuition fees will be then. So we're going to reduce them subsequently by this much and pass it through as a bill. I don't understand why that doesn't work as a way of fulfilling that promise and ensuring that students know what they're going to be paying in terms of tuition fees.

MR. JOHNSON: That's been done in other areas - in home care and in other fields where the government has laid out a systematic program of funding increases, so it's not as though it hasn't been done before.

MS. KENNEDY: Yes, I think that's what we would like to see and we would like to see post-secondary education take priority in budgeting.

MR. DUNN: I'm not so sure if you answered my question, and all three Parties here would agree that education is definitely one of the top priorities. There are certainly other priorities that are very important also in looking after the province.

One last question before I pass it on to my colleague to finish off. Just an opinion as far as students, what part should students pay as far as looking after the cost of their university degrees, just again in your opinion? Shouldn't they pay some of the debt load?

MS. KENNEDY: I don't think we're at the point where we can be asking how much should students pay, because students are paying far more than their fair share. I think we expect that when students get degrees and students are going to be employed at a higher level than those students who come out of secondary education, that they're going to be paying more into the tax system, that they're going to be investing more into this province and that we should be considering what those graduates can give back to the province when they graduate with no debt. So I think that instead of asking what students should be paying up front for their cost, I think we should be exploring what students will be giving back to their communities after they've graduated.

MR. JOHNSON: Could I just add to that? I tried to stress earlier the crisis, in a sense, coming with the aging of the workforce, the job shortages. We have potentially a serious problem that has to be addressed in terms of making education more accessible, if anything, and to looking at every possible way to do that. Your question of funding comes into that, because if we could move to a paid educational leave program, it would open the door for,

potentially - depending on how it is organized - an employer levy grant system. We have called for that in the labour movement for many years. That's a whole other way and we think we have to look at that and we have to look at what lifelong learning and recurrent education could offer. As I've tried to say, it's not a question of if or when, it really has to be done in the near future if we're going to address the gaps that we're already seeing and probably will be expanding.

MR. DUNN: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Morse, you have about two and a half minutes, sir.

MR. MORSE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did want to get on the record that I do not believe that the financial records of the province would corroborate the statement that was made about cutting university funding consistently for the past 15 years. In fact, I would suggest that the records will show that since there was a change in government in 1999, there have been significant increases each and every year under first the Hamm Government and now the MacDonald Government. I have asked for those numbers to compare where we were 15 years ago with where we are today, and my guess would be that there's an enormous increase and it has been consistent each and every year. It's growing almost exponentially.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, just so that Nova Scotians would have some perspective on the pressure that it puts on the government when we're struggling between priorities of health care, community services, infrastructure - roads and bridges and public buildings - the cost of the next step is about equivalent to the size of a mid-sized department - it's that large - such as the Department of Natural Resources, which is one that I have some familiarity with. So if we were to just eliminate the Department of Natural Resources, which is something that, for many practical reasons, could not be done, and it would also affect our revenue base, that's about what it would cost to meet the next step in the commitment from the campaign to bring university tuitions in line with the national average by 2010-11.

So I thought that might be helpful to realize the difficulty it has been for the government to make those annual increases to the post-secondary education budget. It has not been easy and as somebody who sat around the table during those discussions, I can tell you that there are other groups that probably would have taken a different direction.

Mr. Chairman, when those numbers come in, I would appreciate the opportunity to table them just for the record. I think it is of significance, the incremental resources that the successive governments, Hamm and MacDonald, have put into post-secondary education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Morse, and we will look to see if they come in. Hopefully, they will in time.

Ms. Massey, you have 10 minutes.

MS JOAN MASSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I would like to thank everybody for coming in today and to say that I think Kaley, specifically, you're doing a fabulous job. It's a tough crowd here, sometimes anyway. You're very informative and I really appreciate all of that.

I would like to, I guess I have to make a comment on a question that was just asked a couple of minutes ago in that the government, indeed, did promise to lower tuition fees and they did that in 2007 and they did it again in 2008. We just heard, actually, an MLA from the government side ask you how they were going to bring about the lowering of those tuition fees. I would have to question why he would have to ask you that question because if they made a promise, they should have had a plan in mind. So in other words, they have made a promise without having a plan. They have made the promise twice now. So I would just throw that back and it would really be something that they have to ask themselves later.

[10:30 a.m.]

Just to even reduce the tuition fees to the national average, I'm not sure on the exact cost of that but what you were just talking about in bringing the amount of money that we put into our post-secondary education system, if we went back to 1993, this government would have to inject probably, according to what we were handed here this morning, like $1.2 billion a year. So I'm assuming they knew all of these figures before they made these kinds of wide promises to the students of this province.

I'm at the age where I've got children who, if they wanted to go into post-secondary education, could. My friends have children in these same age groups and I have certainly heard stories in my community from these parents and from the kids themselves. I have one family that two of their children are in Newfoundland and Labrador getting their education there. If you just look at the 1,000 students who have gone from here to there who are now spending that money there, they're not spending it here, maybe some of them will meet somebody there, start a family there and not come back.

So, you know, we also have the students who are leaving here, as you said, to go out to other parts of Canada or the United States or, indeed, other countries. I have friends whose children have gone to Asian countries to teach because there are simply no jobs here. I have friends whose children go to post-secondary facilities here in Halifax who are having food security issues who simply, one the other day, I ran into her child and all they had to eat that whole day was half a chocolate bar, and they had gotten half of the chocolate bar from another student. This is what we're really talking about here today. This is what the needs-based grant system is talking about, looking at students as individuals, as real people, who are going to help us with our economy and drag us out of where we are now.

So I'm just wondering - I mean I can relate stories and I'm sure we all have these same stories but on a real, personal level, friends of yours or people you know who are trying to do the best they can, who are having to visit the food bank, make these hard decisions on whether they buy supplies for their program, books, I would like to hear if you have any examples of those types of real-life situations. I think that's what the public really needs to hear from us.

MS. KENNEDY: I think the first point you made about people going to Newfoundland and Labrador, like I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario and I've been in Halifax since 2005. I plan on staying here long after graduation. The reality is, it's not - there's anecdotal evidence in terms of we see students going to food banks all the time, and we know that our students are coming to the student unions and to their universities for emergency loans. There's an emergency loans program at the University of King's College that gives $500 to students basically on a snap, because students get faced with unexpected bills - they just don't have the money.

We've seen students make pacts not to put their heat on until January because of the high cost of fuel. We've seen students who have their utilities included taking in other students who can't afford to heat their homes or hot water. Those are all the realities we see every day. They just increase the magnitude which we fight for affordable, accessible post-secondary education. Those students can't afford those costs because they're paying tuition fees, ancillary fees and supply costs that are through the roof.

But more than that, it's about making sure that students never have to make those decisions. I can sit here and talk about a number of examples - my members and my friends who have experienced those kinds of things - but no one should ever have to make the decision between paying tuition fees and paying rent. No one should have to make the decision between buying a book and buying food for the week. The fact that we allow students to make those decisions is just completely irresponsible and disregards the fact that these are Nova Scotians that the government has a commitment to, and that the government is supposed to serve and is not serving right now.

MS. MASSEY: Thank you for putting it that way. I think definitely you were making the point earlier about when students have to pay these enormous debt loads off, then they have to make those decisions later on, too - the hard decisions where they leave their families and they move out of the province. But it really is doing us no good in that it's putting off our economic development here in the province by the loss of our students going somewhere else and buying homes, buying a car somewhere else. It's not really taking us down the road that we need to be going.

I think it's always better to - even if you're looking at the elementary grade levels, you always hear a dollar at the bottom saves you three dollars at the top - pay now or pay later. I think we're seeing that, we're paying later now. I thank you for coming in today and sharing your thoughts.

MS. KENNEDY: What that means when you study now, pay later is that essentially people with lower incomes are paying more for their education. Let's be clear on it - when you have to borrow $30,000 to go to school, then you're paying a lot more interest and you end up paying something like 20 per cent more for your education than someone who can pay up front.

By forcing students to take on huge amounts of debt in order to pay for their education, we're actually saying that people who can't afford it - people with lower incomes - shouldn't be paying more and taking on more of the burden than people who come from affluent backgrounds. What that means is that we reinforce that cycle of poverty, because one of the highest indicators of whether someone goes on to university is their parents' educational attainment which is also connected to their parents' income, right?

By not reducing the up-front financial barriers to post-secondary education, we're reinforcing a cycle of poverty in this province that is making sure that people who are poor, stay poor. That's not acceptable.

MR. JOHNSON: Can I just add, faculty and our members of staff see those things as well. It's day in and day out in terms of the serious problems students face, or even in our case, family members who are participating . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I'm sorry to cut you off. Mr. Colwell also has questions and I like to be fair and give everybody an opportunity.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: I found this very interesting. It's been a long-standing issue in Nova Scotia - the high tuitions we pay. As you said, it's the highest in the country. There's always a balance of what the government can afford to do based on all the other priorities they have and how we can make the economy go and how we can make sure the people have a proper education and a good education. I think education is power and the better educated our population is, the better off our province is.

What about if you had a program in place - there was some discussion suggested earlier that the $500 that the province now provides to Nova Scotia resident students wasn't acceptable, which would be for everybody. I think that is debatable. What about if there was a program that if a student stayed here after graduation and they stayed in Nova Scotia, because we have an awful drain on our well-educated young people, they leave the province for all kinds of other opportunities. What about if there was a program in place to forgive a

student debt if they stayed and worked here in Nova Scotia? Would something like that work?

MS. KENNEDY: I think the issue with back-end programs is that they don't address the up-front costs so there is still the issue of students who are looking at those financial barriers and really questioning it and also thinking about well, not knowing how much, in terms of debt they are going to have to take on, back-end debt remission programs aren't ideal to be able to deal with that. The current system in place in terms of keeping graduates in the province is a non-refundable graduate tax credit that's just simply not enough to keep people here because people aren't going to - the MPHEC report on students leaving the province talks about how people in Nova Scotia make 70 cents on the dollar in Canada; so on average people in Nova Scotia make 70 cents for every dollar everyone in Canada makes. People aren't going to forego those lost wages for a $1,000 or $2,000 graduate tax credit. That's the back-end debt relief that has been provided by the government.

In terms of a debt remission program, debt remission is better than the graduate tax credit but it still doesn't address the up-front costs, and that is what's preventing a lot of students from going to university. Instead of using back-end debt remission programs, I think we should be offering up-front needs-based grants. Then you end up saving money actually in the long run, because you pay less in-study interest; the government also saves on any kind of debt reduction programs that come in the back end anyway, things like that. Also, students then have - graduates especially - more disposable income to buy homes and get mortgages and contribute to the economy in that way.

MR. COLWELL: I'm aware of the programs the government has now, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a real elimination of debt over time for a student who stayed and worked in Nova Scotia. What you're saying about the student graduating and adding more to the economy, but if they move out of the province they add zero to the economy - absolutely zero. It would be good to have these bright, young people stay in the province and generate a new economy, which we desperately need here. I think we have to take steps toward that.

So I'm talking about a proper back-end load, or whatever you want to call it, remission program. That would really encourage young people to stay here, because that's what we need. That's what we need in this province. We see our bright, young people going to Alberta, to the U.S. and all over the world now. It's good for them to go get that experience and I think for someone who wants and decides to do that, I think it's a wonderful experience and has them move forward, but it doesn't help the Province of Nova Scotia.

We really have to work toward programs that help the Province of Nova Scotia because if you do that, then the issue you're talking about, the poverty will slowly go away and we'll see the universities prosper more and there will be more people be able to go to university because they have the income to do it. So do you think a program like that would

really work, because we have to stimulate the Nova Scotia economy, not just give money away and have no results here in Nova Scotia.

MS. KENNEDY: I think the flaw in what you're saying is that it assumes that people don't want to stay in Nova Scotia. It assumes that the students, people both who grew up and were born here and the students who come from away, don't actually want to stay in this province, and I don't agree with that. I think the reality right now is that students are graduating with huge debt loads and have no other choice but to leave, and if we address those huge debt loads through tuition fee reductions and through needs-based up-front grants, then students are going to be willing to stay here.

I think the other thing that's not being considered in that argument is that students, when they live here, are also injecting money into the economy and that one of Nova Scotia's greatest assets is its university and college system in that, what it should be doing is encouraging and building up that industry so that more people are moving here to go to school here and to staff and be faculty at our universities. Ian, did you want to add to that?

MR. JOHNSON: I think, in a way, I mean I appreciate the intent of what you're suggesting, but I think the question is kind of the cart before the horse. Why should people, or students in particular, have to accumulate large debt in order to participate? That's the question, I think. In other words, you're proposing a program that already assumes they're going to have to face the kinds of debt we're already seeing. Why can't we do something to prevent people having that in the first place? That's what we're trying to focus on in terms of the tuition reduction, needs-based grants in particular. So that's where we think the emphasis has to be paid. That will keep people in the province rather than allowing people to accumulate the kind of debt that forces them, really, to leave the province in many cases.

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. COLWELL: I think we're basically saying the same thing. You're talking about up-front funding and I'm talking about funding to encourage people to stay here. My belief is - and I ran a business for a long time, and if someone is going to leave the province, they're going to leave the province. It doesn't matter if they have a debt or not. That's the bottom line. They do it for all kinds of reasons. It might be a marital reason or it could be a career reason, it could be all kinds of reasons that people leave the province. What I would like to see is really a program put in place that would keep these bright, young people in Nova Scotia. That's our key to success in the future. With so many leaving the province, it's very difficult to get our economy really strong and vibrant.

If, tomorrow, we said we're going to give everyone a free education in Nova Scotia - which I would think would be a wonderful thing to have happen, if we could afford to do it - I would guess there would be the same number of people leave this province and go other places for their careers and I wouldn't want anything to stop them having that opportunity,

because I think that's important as well. So how are you going to stop this drain? If you just give people - I know it wouldn't be a free education, but basically moving in that direction, what incentive are we going to have to have people stay in Nova Scotia? Why would they stay here? What more so than if they had something, an encouragement to stay in the end, if they had a debt, to get that debt forgiven over time and then move on if they want to?

MS. KENNEDY: The MPHEC has released two studies in 2007 that showed that it is, in fact, the up-front cost of post-secondary education that's taking people out of this province and that's forcing them to leave. The MPHEC report showed that most graduates who do leave, do so for one reason and that is money. They can't afford to stay in this province, because they have huge debt loads and they need to go somewhere else to pay off those debt loads.

We've seen in the trends in enrolment study that tuition fees are correlated with the decline in enrolments, and that's because students are leaving the province to go work in Alberta, basically, where they can make enough money so that they can often return to go to post-secondary education or to do studies in a province where university is less expensive. We have seen an out-migration of students to Newfoundland and Labrador where they do have lower tuition fees and a tuition fee freeze and a government that has been committed to making that post-secondary education system accessible and affordable.

I think what keeps people here is that we have a great province in general and we have quality post-secondary education. But we're at a breaking point where students need relief and they need it sooner - by sooner, I mean now. I don't think we can start addressing the issues in terms of why people leave besides for financial reasons until we address those financial barriers. Any discussion of those other reasons will be skewed by the fact that most of the people surveyed in terms of the MPHEC say that it is money why they are leaving.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I know the clock is drawing near on our time, but I am - it did seem to go quickly, this is a good topic. I am going to grant one member of each caucus one question. It is to be kept short, as well as the answer. When I'm talking short, I'm saying two minutes - that is question and answer combined, please, because we do have one or two little, short pieces of business to conclude. I would start with the NDP.

MR. PREYRA: Thank you. Just a quick comment and a question. In answer to Mr. Morse's question about how much students pay, I know at Saint Mary's, the president has said that student tuition makes up 63 per cent of their operating money and that's up from about 30 per cent, or something like that, a little over a decade ago.

I have a quick question. I know you're a student at King's and I know the King's students were either suing the university or asking for some kind of clarification about the last MOU and ancillary fees and the fact is, ancillary fees are supposed to be set with the tuition fees, but they seem to have gone out of control, while tuition fees were being held within 3.9 per cent. Could you comment on that?

MS. KENNEDY: We talked about this a little bit earlier. Basically, the university presented their fees without having gone through the board of governors or any of those bodies and there was an increase. One of the things that wasn't brought up earlier was that there was a fee called the college fee that is neither an ancillary or auxiliary fee, as defined by the memorandum of understanding.

So there is a problem with ambiguities that we still haven't received information from the Department of Education regarding. What happens if a fee is neither an ancillary fee, which is supposed to address a non-academic service, or an auxiliary fee, which is a fee for materials?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: I thought this Fall there was a bit of a defining moment in Nova Scotia around access. It wasn't so much presented by the universities but rather by the Nova Scotia Community College when the president, Joan McArthur-Blair, went to Greece to engage in a swim to raise money for access to the community college system. I would offer that maybe this summer, the 10 university presidents should have a swim in the new, clean Halifax Harbour to raise awareness of access. (Laughter)

If there's anything this morning that we should learn from your study you did, is that almost 40 per cent of Nova Scotia families feel that their child cannot engage in a post-secondary education. I think that is a shameful moment that we have arrived at in this province. It's one that I've experienced as a teacher and administrator. I feel there's a whole culture in the province around that university is just too expensive to engage in.

How would you propose that we break this? Do we get rid of the tax credit dollars, put them up front? Where is it we do really need to go, Kaley?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Kaley, you have about 30 seconds. We're going to hold you to your time.

MS. KENNEDY: I think in terms of removing back-end assistance and moving it forward is a great start. I think the tax credit was supposedly projected to cost somewhere around $10 million and that would be a good start for a grants program.

MR. JOHNSON: And bring all the players into the MOU process. Seriously, if we're going to make a plan and a way ahead, this has to be done.

MS. KENNEDY: Long-term strategy.

MR. MORSE: First of all, I want to say to Leo that if the university presidents do take that swim in the Halifax Harbour, I hope he joins them. I'll be standing there on the shore cheering them all on. (Laughter)

MR. PREYRA: That's my constituency you're talking about.

MR. MORSE: Yes, I did get the numbers, Mr. Chairman, at least as it goes back to 1998-99. I guess there are some comparability challenges for 1992-93 but with reference to what has happened with post-secondary education funding since the change in government in 1998-99, the total envelope was $235 million and in 2007-08, it grew to $371 million, which is an increase of $136 million or 58 per cent. I think that shows a significant recognition on the part of the government that you do have a legitimate concern and that the Hamm and now the MacDonald Governments have made this a priority to try to address the affordability question.

MR. JOHNSON: You have to look at current dollars though, too, David, and that's just dollar for dollar. Excuse me for interrupting you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's okay, because actually I'm going to stop us as we are drawing very near. I will give Kaley and Mr. Johnson each one minute to wrap up with some closing comments, if you like.

MS. KENNEDY: I'm actually going to pack up, because I have to be at a press conference in 10 minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. We understand that and we certainly want to thank you for coming, as well as Mr. Lamoureux. Mr. Johnson, if you would like to close, that's fine. If not, we'll move on with business.

MR. JOHNSON: I think we've pretty well made our point in terms of the importance of what we're talking about in terms of up-front costs and the need for broad representation and discussions that are going on. We ask that you take our recommendations seriously into your consideration and where you can, to make appropriate recommendations. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for being here today to both of you - actually, to all three of you, for the record.

On the agenda we have left, folks, future witnesses and I will actually ask Darlene, as the clerk, just to speak to where we are with that. We have missed a couple along the way. Darlene, do you want to bring us up to date?

MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): Sure. From the witnesses that were selected, the Nova Scotia Federation of Home and School Associations would have been the last approved set of witnesses, but it has been stretched out due to the House sessions that we weren't meeting during that time and we had entertained some other requests. So that would be the next one to put in place for February.

We also had gotten a request from the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia, who would like to meet with the committee and we can book those guys in for March, so depending on the wish of the committee for these two witnesses.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Gordon just actually raised a good question there - he's just reading through it as well. Is it an individual who wants to meet with us or the actual association? I know the letter is in front of us (Interruptions)

Well, this gentleman is an engineer, but I guess maybe we'll need to clarify if it is the association or a group, or does it speak to - is the committee okay with the one we already approved for February? We could bring in the Federation of Nova Scotia Home and School Associations. If all are in agreement to that, we'll move forward with that. We have agreement. Thank you.

We will get some clarity, I guess, on the engineer request and a potential for March. Mr. Morse.

MR. MORSE: Mr. Chairman, as a non-partisan recognition of one of the recommendations from our friends in the Liberal caucus, I think that the integral role that the Nova Scotia Community College plays and will continue to play in the economic prosperity of this province is always something of interest - not only to me, and I'm sure to the committee, but also all Nova Scotians. There have been really bold initiatives undertaken with the community college and I would suggest that would be of great interest to Nova Scotians and I would be pushing to have that, perhaps, as the next topic following the Federation of Nova Scotia Home and School Associations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Morse. Perhaps we can look ahead, Darlene, to see if they may be available for March and at the same time we will get some clarity on what it is, whether it's one engineer, a group of engineers, et cetera, who want to come forward and they can clarify their proposal to this committee.

Is there any other business before the committee today? Darlene, do we have anything else? No.

The next date is February 26, 2008 and we will have ABCs and now potentially the Federation of Nova Scotia Home and School Associations.

Thank you very much. We are adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 10:58 a.m.]