This website is a testimony to the problems Canadian Student Loan borrowers experienced from approximately 1996 to 2008 and until their loans were paid off.

The privatization of the Student Loans system by the Chretien and Martin Liberal governments broke the system and defaulted thousands of borrowers who were trying to pay their loans. There were even stories of suicide due to the harassment of borrowers.

Read the report that I prepared back in 2007 here. Canada Student Loans-The Need for Change Fortunately the new Conservative government at the time revamped the program and fixed the system for new borrowers, but borrowers under the previous program were left with ruined credit and continued harassment from debt collectors.

I call on the Canadian Government to apologize to the borrowers affected by this fiasco and make amends.

Unfortunately the Liberal government is again clobbering the Education system with their upcoming changes to International Student Visas. Yes, there's a problem, but instead of a well thought out plan, they have pulled the emergency brake on the train causing a derailment. This has introduced unprecedented instability for both private and public education institutions who serve both international and local students.

Universities can't plan. I've heard of courses being cut because the government has no process in place for universities to send the newly required acceptance letters to the government.

This means that students who have been accepted can not attend courses that start in the summer 2024 semester. With cut sections, current Canadian students will have trouble getting courses, and may have to switch to part-time which changes their enrollment status and might trigger repayment of their loans or ineligibility for funding. I've seen this before. It wreaks havoc on the student loan borrowers.

Again, the Liberal government has messed up the education environment. Will the new system needed in a rush for the acceptance letters be the new Arrivecan scandal?

I call on the government to implement a slower phased in approach and delay the requirement of the acceptance letters until a process is in place to submit these letters.


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miss3 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 15/September/2004 at 1:27pm

Many people, myself included, will have a little outburst when the pressure becomes too much and very often it is the people on Welfare/Assistance/Native Americans or any other minority who wind up at the opposite end of our steam.  I know that in most cases there is no real malicious intent.  My intention was not to put anyone down, but merely to present another perspective. 

Has anyone ever questioned the motive of someone choosing Welfare over work?  Again, I am referring to Ontario here, where minimum wage still pays more than Welfare, but it wasn't always the case.  I once walked a friend through the life of a welfare recipient.  Here's a short summary:

Due to an emergency you wind up on Welfare.  "Its temporary," you say to yourself.  You revamp your resumé but find there is no ink in your printer.  You borrow a few dollars from a friend to get the ink.  You discover that the Welfare office will print copies for you so you get 20 and pound the pavement.  You're forty and employers are looking for someone younger.  Or your 20 and employers are looking for experience.  But you are a fighter, you will stop at nothing to get a job.  You print up more resumés, this time you demote your skills, thinking it will open more doors.  It's been 3 months and still no luck.  Your car broke down but you can't afford to fix it so you take the bus to go job hunting (or if you live in a smaller town with vast geography, you taxi $$$)  Now it's been six months and your mouth is aching so the dentist says it's time to have your teeth removed.  No problem Welfare will pay for emergency dental care, but... not the dentures, "that's a luxury."  You have to choose between a painful mouth or going toothless.  The pain gets the better of you and you opt for number two.  After a week of recovery you pound the pavement again, except this time you wonder why you get funny faces at job interviews.  "Can't they see you have university education," you think?  You're walking home, depressed at the outcome of your latest interview, actually the secretary mistook you for someone else and didn't let you in and as you leave you catch a glimpse of yourself in a store-front window.  Your clothes is loose-fitting, your shoes have holes in them, and you are toothless.  And this is the turning point.  This is the fight or flight moment.  Will you fight, insist that you are employable, accept any job now, nothing is too menial, nothing is below your abilities/desires/skills?  Or will it be flight, escape into drugs, alcohol, depression? 

But I am sure that there are people who really set out to abuse the system - they intend to get there money's worth without a cost to themselves. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hunter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15/September/2004 at 12:26pm
I just need to clarify something to my fellow posters.

I did not intend for my post to sound as though those persons on welfare were losers or low class persons or anything like that.

I meant that I know of some people that deliberately and knowingly abuse the system by not working because they don't want to. And I know of some persons who would rather sit on welfare because the only job they can get is minimum wage. Hey, we all had to start somewhere.

I understand that sometimes one has to go on assistance, I too have been there, and I truly hated it.

So if anyone got the impression that I thought less of people who are on welfare, or that they are not working, this is not at all what I intended.

Please accept my apologies.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote miss3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15/September/2004 at 10:00am

A few years ago, while still in university, I made a strange discovery.  I was reading an older text with figures from the 70's of the costs of sending a child to school.  The chart showed the costs of tuition, books and room and board and furthermore included the income of parents.  Parents' income was divided into two classes the professionals and the blue-collars.  This was provided to demonstrate how it was more difficult for blue-collars to put their children in school.  With the figures of the 70's before me, I decided to reduce the costs to a percentage of the parents' income.  Of course, professionals paid a lower percentage than the blue-collars.  With that in mind I tried the same experiment with more recent figures, late 90's and was shocked!!!  The percentage was still lower for the professionals and still higher for the blue-collars, but the real shock was that the actual figure for the professional had dropped!  Meaning that professionals could send their children to school in the late 90's for less than what it cost them in the 70's.  And the reverse was true for blue-collars, that is, it cost them a much higher percentage in the late 90's than it did in the 70's.  I wish I had the figures close at hand, but I put all my university work in boxes in storage... for a long time, it seems. 

So where do you think the professionals are getting their break on education costs from? 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote looking*4*hope Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15/September/2004 at 8:18am
Originally posted by Java Man Java Man wrote:

No, they just make noises about eradicating poverty.

They need the poor to give the lower income families something to feel superior to and continue to support the upper classes

Amen! Tis' a wonderlife life eh?!?

Of course most of us never realize this "joke on you" until it's too late.

Bitter

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15/September/2004 at 8:10am

No, they just make noises about eradicating poverty.

They need the poor to give the lower income families something to feel superior to and continue to support the upper classes

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dazed&confused Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15/September/2004 at 7:54am
In my neighbourhood there is a Chinese grandmother I occasionally see going around collecting cans out of the garbage. Perhaps she is illegal, but no matter. I can see she works very hard, has all her life.  Doesn't sit around in the Coffee Time complaining. I would bet she's not on welfare.  Yet to the powers that be, if your income is equivalent to your house address number, you are considered a pestilence that needs to be eradicated.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote momof2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15/September/2004 at 7:21am

sigh

why is it that the government makes the system so screwed that we point fingers at others who have learned how to manipulate the system so effectively, yet makes it impossible for those who could actually benefit from the system to do so because of all the burocracy involved.

the working poor - why are they make to feel like the walking dead, slaving away with nothing to show for it, others with no real legal job and no education with disposable income to burn.  the inequalities are so obvious and so unjust and yet they continue.  ive said it before - i was better off before i pursued my 'higher education' working my crappy retail job, stuck in the mall with no sunlight.  yet here i sit with a useless degree and 30K in SL debt.  my husband leaves for work at 6am, gets home at 515 and for what ?  the bank owns our minivan, our house, and he misses out on watching our kids grow up.  he cant even take holidays because the way things are structured where he works he'd get no vacation pay ( they automatically give it twice a year, no exceptions).

im sorry.  im still feeling pretty lousy.  i guess im frustrated with the lack of accountablilty, the injustice, the overspending, the 'i dont give a sh!t' attitude of the government who facillitates these erruptions of anger towards the system that seems to do nothing but keep us down and keep us miserable. 

i had to use the food bank when i was in school.  we had one on campus, in the nurses office so that no one knew if you were going in for a shot or for food.   i lived on liverwurst and crackers and water for three weeks because i couldnt afford anything else.

i volunteered at the food bank and knew some families who were too proud to walk through the doors (and a few who couldnt afford bus fare to get there)- so i suggested that we make a point of delivering food to families who needed it - and am happy to report that program is still going on.

ive been on welfare - hated it.  but i had no choice at the time.  whenever i could, i volunteered, either at the food bank, the hospital, the retirement homes, the library.  its a humbling experience to read the newspaper to a man who is blind, to care for a parkinsons patient so dehabilitated by the disease that he cannot walk, cannot even hold a glass to have a drink.

i wish it was mandatory for politicians to have to experience how they make the poor live.  it might cause them to make some real changes to the system.  let them live on student loans and support a family of 4 on 36K.

sorry for rambling.  im off to draft yet another letter to dalton and the rest of the suits on the hill.  it wont change anything but it might get his attention for a few minutes.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14/September/2004 at 5:58pm

Divide and conquer.

The palpable inequities in the programs are deliberately intended to focus your attention on the small dollar abuses of inadequate anti-poverty programs while the big abuses that are off your radar screen go unnoticed.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hunter2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14/September/2004 at 1:22pm
I think the comparasion was originally intended to bring to light the plight of the working poor. Those who are out their flipping burgers only to find they have to use the food bank. Obviously they need to make working the more attractive option and there is a problem when its not.
I myself have had to use the food bank when I was on welfare, but I used it more while on sl's as I had less disposable income.
It likely is different in SK, we are afterall the home of medicare run by an NDP governemnt I think there "may" be more of a helping hand. However it enrages me to see it abused. I think some of this funding comes from the federal government because she is an employee....
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote looking*4*hope Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14/September/2004 at 12:13pm

Well put Miss3

I couldn't agree with you more.

Remember all... it's in their best interest for us to attack the poor and bitch and moan at the so-called "leeches" in our society. When statistically, those are few and far between. Look how someone like Mike Harris got into power in Ontario...he played on the fears of those (middle class) he would later make poor. Dangerous politics that have had a devestating effect and continue to eat away at us all.

Lets not attack the poor (as we can be included in that thanks to CSL), but focus on the real dead beats of our socity: those with copious amounts of money and power.   

Who do you hold reponsible?

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote miss3 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14/September/2004 at 12:04pm

This is proof that the government has you exactly where they want you!  When the poor are pitted against the poorer and the poorer against the poorest and the poorer go out and bash the poor and the poorest of them all just sits in the street.  While all this poor me, poor you war is going on, who do you think is really sitting on their big fat (expletives), driving their expensive cars, drinking expensive wine?  While we are focused on who is the poorest of them all, someone is getting away with it! 

I read once that our first experience with society/government is within our individual families.  With this in mind I have frequently observed the bigger picture.  When my family is so hungry that there is only three slices of bread left, and one of those is a crust, there is a sort of game that begins.  Who will have the most cause for the two slices?  Who will get the crust?  I step back and remind myself that there is no more bread after these three slices are gone.  And there is no money for bread until next paycheck, a few days away, so?  There are a few consistent scenarios: one will shout, "I am soooo hungry, I haven't eaten all day, I should get a sandwich."  Then there's the, "I worked all day, I'm the one who paid for the bread in the first place."  And finally there's the, "I'm the youngest," or "the oldest," or "the weakest," or whatever blank you can fill.  In the end each member is saying why one deserves more than the other when in the end, don't you think it would be best if we all got a slice - or piece of slice?  But then this escalates and we get crafty, when there are 5 slices left, one will surely become smart enough to hide the two slices for later.  There's also the frame-up, where one member will spy on the other and keep tabs as to how many slices each member has had in order to throw it in their face when the battle for the last slices arrives.  There are many more scenarios, but in the end, each member suffers and each deals with it differently.

Back to reality here: I don't know if you are all speaking about Saskatchewan, but it certainly isn't the case in Ontario.  My cousin is Native and is not getting a dime from any Native Program.  Her mother is on a disability and she worked all her life before doctors told her she had to stop, but she didn't stop, she slowed down and part of her income is subsidized by disability.  She thought she would help her daughter by saving up for an education scholarship but when disability found out they expected her to give it all back and to pay whatever she had paid into the program back to disability - which meant paying it back double and having nothing to show for her daughter's education.  She paid for the scholarship with the money she earned from working.  I urged her to appeal this, and she did, but it was months of penalties before she finally did get to keep the scholarship.  But what a waste - the scholarship only wound up paying less than $1000 per year.  Because my cousin was Native her mother tried to get her some Native funding, she got two scholarships, one for $700 and the other for $500, now she has exhausted all that she was allowed to claim.  So in all she got $1200 from Native Funding and $1000 from a scholarship, and she has three more years of study and is already over $10,000 in debt.  A debt, she will HAVE to pay back.  By the way, OSAP cut her funding this year because she is studying in her home town.  They say that she should go live with her mother.  Her mother's disability will be cut if her daughter stays with her because she is 19 now, and for her to pay the difference is more than what it costs her in rent. 

And finally I was on Welfare when I decided to turn my life around.  The instant I was accepted at university I was cut completely off of Welfare and they told me it was the same for disability.  (So I don't know about a woman on disability getting $1200 per month while in school?  And $1200 seems like is an inflated number unless she is caring for dependants?)  By the way, I got cut off of OSAP when they said that my job was interfering, but they never took into account that where I lived the power kept going out, causing me to be late with all my assignments.  I handed them in and got great marks, but because they were late they didn't make it to the OSAP people on time and they decided that I had wasted my time.  I appealed and showed them my excellent marks, by then my transcripts were up to date, but they never let me speak.  Now I sit 5 credits away from my degree.  I am now in a worst place than I was before. 

By the way, have any of you actually had to use a food bank?  It is very humiliating, degrading and depressing.  But we're away from the subject again, have any of those people who have the power to make appropriate changes to student loan programs and any other social programs, have they had to actually use a food bank?  I'm sure they are rare.  They may have visited and seen the facade, the brave front that repeat food bank users put on to enter these places, they may have also seen the few with shiny cars and mistaken them for the majority of poor in this country. 

I'm sorry, I felt like ranting too.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote momof2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13/September/2004 at 12:14pm

i try my best never to make assumptions or generalizations when i post.  i try to have first hand knowledge of something so that i know what im talking about.  and i know we are definately getting screwed over on a daily basis.

some more stuff to make you mad...

i had a roommate who was on osap and working - osap cut her off since her grades stank and she was flunking out.  she found out her great grandfather was indian, went and applied for her status card, got it, applied for a different program and at the suggestion of the financial aid office applied for native bursaries etc and got them too.  since they gave her money (well, the taxpayers did) she quit her job since she didnt have to work anymore, got drunk every weekend like a good little native, racked up consumer debt, stiffed me for three months rent and went to live in a nice subsidized apartment.

being on welfare sucks but if you get 1200 bucks on disability and live in a rent controlled building, have a drug plan etc why work ?  i say this because in my cousins case she had enough left over to save for a trip to jamaica for two weeks.

hunter - my neighbour is on disability because he has a bad back, yet i watched him split 10 cords of firewood last fall with his brand new wood splitter...he drives a brand new quadrunner, too

if we all yell argh at the same time, think anyone would hear our frustration ?

the local food bank does not require a referral from social services or any other agency - it is open to all.  you can always see people in beautiful new leather coats, driving new vehicles coming in and out of the food bank ( i make donations when i can - there are lots of people who are worse off then we are).  the same shiny new trucks are always at the liquor store and at bingo, too

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hunter2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13/September/2004 at 12:12pm
I was on welfare for 4 months after my daughter was born, it did suck but it sucked less than being on sl's as I actually had almost 100 more a month for groceries! Being on welfare sucked less than working a fulltime job and being slightly over the income needed to qualify for daycare assistance and therefore having to pay 500 out of pocket for childcare instead of 185(which brought my income to..you got it...less than I would have on welfare). I dislike the implication that we are hicks, losers, and and "racist" for pointing out the obvious inequity.


By the way being native is secondary to this particular woman's existence, she is not a native person living in poverty who needs help, she is a person who combined with her hubbies income makes over 100 000 a year....why does she or her children for that matter need perks to get ahead?

I happen to believe color to be secondary to our existence, its social circumstance that informs who we are not skin tone.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote zafire Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13/September/2004 at 10:33am

 

Why does it always seem to me that Canada is becoming more loke Alabama every day? Come on guys, if wee feel like loosers for not getting the 80 k job we thought we'd get, how do you think welfare people feel. Being on welfare sucks... What would you have these people do? Go out and dig holes in wheat fields? Whatever happened to Sask. compassion?

Also, I don't think someone "happens to be native" as if it were seconday to his or her existence. For all sorts of reasons that we should all be aware of, it seems right to me that collectively we as Canadians give Indians all the perks they need to get ahead.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hunter2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13/September/2004 at 7:11am
I agree completely. In certain situations the abuse of a system meant to help those truly down and out makes me sick. This country has created a system by which the working poor have far less than those who "choose" welfare.

My mother works for the federal government(in SK) and has a good friend at work who happens to be native. Her children, all 5 of them, get 800 a month to live on plus tuition and books to go to university or SIAST. Now some of these kids also work part time(why is their "assistance" not reduced as those on SL'S?), and one of them has no intention of actually getting a degree but needed the extra money "just fot this year"...it makes my blood boil that this little twit intends to pocket the money, waste the tuition, and walk away scott free next spring.

Not one penny of it is borrowed its all through a variety of native assistance programs. I recieved 900 a month for myself and 1 child for 5 years(VERY tough to live on when rent was 520!!!          and I owe it ALL back despite the "assistance", "debt reduction" and "bursaries" , ect ect that was suppose to be inherent in the system to help out.

VENT VENT VENT...that feels a bit better :)
Good day to you both !
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hunter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13/September/2004 at 6:30am
People like that too, make me sick.
I know the coffee shop that I frequent over the lunch hour, has so many people just sitting on their ass, waiting for their monthly welfare cheque, and have no intention of ever working.

The one woman is always whining that she can not get a job, because of her sore back,she is not able to sit for a long period of time...well if this is the case, how can she sit on your ass for 4 hours or more,yapping at the coffee shop if you can sit for this long, you can get a part time job.

Here in Saskatchewan, I think the welfare system is too lenient. When I was in social work, they had programs called work for welfare, and it is really sad that these programs ended (it infringed on the rights of the persons receiving assistance) YEAH RIGHT!!

What about my rights? Why should some people chose not to work, yet their rent, and utilities are paid, and they get clothing and food allowances. Welfare even pays for their cell phones.

I know of several persons who sit in the coffeeshop and literally count down the number of days until payday. And some talk as though they should be getting more money. It is funny how I overheard this one woman, say that when welfare pays all her bills and everything else she should get $ 700 for additional stuff. I never have that much left and I work full time. Why the hell should she.

Thanks for allowing me to vent again.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote momof2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11/September/2004 at 8:15am

i'm having a crappy day, mulling everything over in my head.  here's something i need to get off my chest and it might make some of you want to scream at the injustice of our lovely governmnet...

i have a cousin ( who i cant stand - shes LAZY) who is on disability because she has dyslexia.  big deal - Tom Cruise is dyslexic and he managed to teach himself to read etc.  she gets 1200 bucks a month to sit at home on her ass.

she went to school for hairdressing 20 years ago at the expense of the taxpayer.  decided she didnt like it - went back on disability.  did not even try to get a job.

when i started school she decided hey i should go to school too - and she got a full ride while still receiving her 1200 bucks a month.  paid her tuitiion, paid her bus pass, PAID FOR A NEW COMPUTER FOR HER.  she graduated adn - big surprise here - decided it really wasnt for her after all and is still sitting at home on her ass getting 1200 bucks a month, with no student loan to pay back.

sucks to live in canada, doesnt it ?

yet anyone who is diagnosed with a disability after graduation still has to pay back their loans.

makes me want to explode... 

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