1. Abolish post-secondary education tuition
● Free “Education For All” is estimated to cost approximately $10.2 billion annually. Universal education is not a far financial reach from the existing student aid and can sustain a system of universally accessible, post-secondary education.
● Universal post-secondary education would be partially financed by redirecting existing spending on tuition tax credits, saved costs of administering the student loan system, and the hundreds of millions of dollars of student loan defaults written off every year.
2. Cancel all federally held student loan debt
● This will help prevent half of students who earn a bachelor’s degree in Canada from graduating with more than $28,000 in debt.
3. Reintroduce a retroactive Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB)
● Ensure all those eligible for the CESB receive $2,000 per month – the same amount as the Canada Recovery Benefit for the period beginning May 1, and until the pandemic is over.
● Ensure that international and recently graduated students are eligible to receive this benefit.
4. Remove the two per cent cap on increases in education funding for Indigenous students
● Ensure all Indigenous youth have access to post-secondary education.
5. Improve funding in federal-provincial transfers to universities and colleges
● Provide more funding to universities and colleges with a measurable focus on student-professor contact, mentorship, policies of inclusion and tenure track hires.
● Reinvest in the system. Greens will allocate $10 billion to post-secondary and trade school supports.
6. Build a more flexible and accessible education
● Expand opportunities for reskilling and retraining, by increasing the Canada Training Benefit to support continuous learning, and support for post-secondary institutions to provide new, innovative academic offerings.
● Enhance access to graduate education, by tripling the number of Canada Graduate Scholarships available for master’s students and doubling the number available for PhD students.
● Position Canada as a destination of choice for international talent and support post-secondary institutions to welcome international students safely.