Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to thank the Minister and, again, thanks for the increase. I think there is a lot of students out there in the Northwest Territories who will welcome the new ceiling. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. At this time, I would like to recognize Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Minister indicated earlier, this did not go through a public hearing process because all the Members, not only the Social Programs committee, but AOC, all 11 Members on this side of the floor felt this had to be done and it had to be done quickly. I know there is at least one constituent of mine who is sitting there waiting to see if this is going to go through. But I know there are lots of other students who would benefit from having more room to borrow. So I

just want to thank the Minister and the government for moving quickly on this and the Members for supporting it. I also want to state that having been a student myself, the SFA program in the North compares better than anything else in the country and it was back then when I was going to school and I believe it continues to be. I think we should celebrate what's good. I think we have to do our best to make sure it stays that way.

I also want to support what the Member from Kam Lake stated. The Minister has already agreed that this needs to constantly be reviewed so we can do the best we can to encourage and make it easier for our people to go and get the education that they would like that would be not only good for them but good for the economy we have here and address some of the shortages in the labour situation we have here. I just wanted to add my support for that.

I would just like to ask a question of clarification here. We aren't talking about grants. Some people are eligible for grants if they meet the criteria, but this is to increase the maximum limits of the repayable loan. We have what's called remissible loans where those who qualify could ask for remission when they come back. Is this loan a remissible loan for those who qualify or is that something separate?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The remissible loan program is something separate from the repayable loan program.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

So this is an amount of money that is available for someone to tap into after they have exhausted if they are eligible for grants and remissible loans. This is on top of the money already available?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's correct. It's not necessarily something that follows on after a student has used up all of their 12 semesters if they qualify for 12 semesters of remissible funding. There are many students who access needs assessed funding. This funding is all needs assessed. You have to apply for the money and demonstrate a need for it, but that can be available to you beginning in the first semester if you have a need for the extra funding. So this money is over and above the basic grant and the remissible loans, yes.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. To clarify further on that, it's possible for someone who went to school for their entire grade school, 1 to 12, and they get their grant and remissible loan to do a university degree and then they decide they want to do further graduate studies or professional degrees, they can start tapping into this money up to $47,000?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. Can I just get information on what the criteria requirements are? It's needs-based, but is it only on income and the need for money? Say if someone, what Mr. Ramsay was talking about, was going to law school, I know when I went to law school in '94, when I started, my tuition fee was like $1500, which probably nobody could believe now. When I was finishing three years later, it was $5,000. The last I heard it was about $12,000 a year to go to school. Could somebody borrow the entire $12,000 to pay for that even if they couldn't prove that they were really, really poor but having that $12,000 would help them with their loan? Do you know what I mean? Not really, really poor, but all students are poor because when you go to school you can't have much income. I guess what I am saying is the situation is so different for every student depending on what program they are taking, whether they have children or not. Some people have no children but they have had some money saved and they may have money in the bank, but their need for money is a lot higher because of the fact that they are going into a program that is costing more money than other programs, for example. So can you just apply to the SFA program and say I would really like to tap into the $60,000 to pay for the three years of my tuition at law school, med school, engineering school or any school you want to go to, even if you have some money and you have it stored away in your bank account?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I say, it's an application-based fund. So a student can fill out an application form and from that application form, it will be determined if they qualify for some of this repayable loan funding. The sort of factors that come into play are children and childcare costs, the cost of a program that is being taken and the Member talked about whether there is any money in the bank. There is an assumption with the SFA program that you will earn some money during the summer break. So that sort of expectation is factored into the calculations. It is a formula that is determined by the responses on the application form and that sets out how much money is available then to people from this fund.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

One question, Mr. Chairman. The bill is a good bill. I do support it. I don't think they call them starving students for nothing, Mr. Chair. This is good news and I applaud the Minister for listening to the people and doing some good work here.

We increased the loans for these students to pursue an education to look for a career they can work on and at the same time, they have to repay these loans. Are we doing well in that area? If we increase the loans, are we going to do a good job in terms of collecting these loans or are we going to be in a position where these loans are being looked at by the students in terms of repaying them? Are we going to starve them to get the money back? I guess it's more of a question I have for my people in the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do fairly well on collecting on debts. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment doesn't directly follow up with people who are having trouble making their payments. We hand them over to FMBS and that's the collection agency within government. So I can't speak to how well they resolve that. Judging from what we see in the write-off of debts bills, I don't think we are doing too badly, given the amount of money we are lending to students. We are always going to wind up with people who run into economic trouble and because of that, we are going to have some debts that go bad. But in general, this has proven to be a very worthwhile investment in northerners and in getting northerners educated. So we think it's a worthwhile investment.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Yakeleya. I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When the Minister talks about it being a good investment, I wouldn't argue that in any way. Has the department done any investment on their own to find out how long we keep some of these people that we provide student loans to? The reason I ask that is because I think it's fabulous to work at bringing everyone's education up and that works for society as a whole. I am just curious; once somebody takes out a student loan, they get their schooling paid for and they come back and get their years remissed, if it's three or four years, do they say see you later? Do we ever follow up about what type of investment or as they say, ROI, in industry? What type of longevity do we get out of students who we continue to offer one of the best student loan programs in the country if not the best?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.