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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201c[The federal government has] even released a costing note saying how much it would cost to eliminate interest on student loans; it really just feels like it\u2019s the next step,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you look at the amount of student debt that there is in Canada, it\u2019s clear that charging interest is not providing an incentive for people to pay back their loans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klassen says that relinquishing loans would be \u201ca drop in the bucket\u201d compared to the larger scope of student debt, which leads people to not be able to participate in the economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the least that the government could do for students at this time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Klassen says that she\u2019s worried about students having to quit school because of debt load, and, by extension, not being able to contribute as much to the economy in the long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not asking to eliminate student debt all together,\u201d she says. \u201cAs great as that would be, that\u2019s not what we\u2019re asking.\u201d<\/p>\n
With in-person campaigning all but gone because of COVID-19, Klassen says she isn\u2019t worried about trudging through the noise of social media, because students care about this issue.<\/p>\n
\u201c[We\u2019re] really focusing on the public presence of the campaign,\u201d she says, \u201crather than just focusing on getting support from students, because we know that students care about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the campaign, the Douglas College Students\u2019 Union put together an open video letter addressed to the federal government. Klassen says that in the video everyone from post-secondary students to middle-school teachers and parents call on the government to end interest on federal student loans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe video\u2019s gotten a lot of attention,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Klassen adds that, throughout the pandemic, students and young people have gotten much less than everybody else in the country, pointing to the Canada Emergency Student Benefit being less than the Canada Recovery Benefit. Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Quinn Cunningham echoes Klassen\u2019s sentiment, saying that in \u201ceconomically dire\u201d times, student debt impacts people even more and prevents the economy from being able to properly recover.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The federal government needs to] follow in the footsteps of not only our province eliminating interest on their portion of the student loans, but the other provinces, and implement that federally, because\u2026 it becomes a barrier in so many ways,\u201d says Cunningham. \u201cBut also when students graduate, they have to put off so many tremendous life decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those decisions\u2014like buying a house, a car, or starting a family\u2014put money back into our economy, says Cunningham.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about the average that students who borrowed have to pay [in interest], which is an average in Canada of $4,000, that\u2019s easily a semester of tuition they could have paid for,\u201d says Cunningham.<\/p>\n
Klassen says the whole point of student loans is to provide incentive to pay them back, but as debt loads approach unpayable for many, it starts to impact quality of life for Canadians for years and generations to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re asking for the removal of what is essentially a tax on people that can\u2019t pay for their education upfront,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n