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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krob View Drop Down
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    Posted: 21/April/2005 at 5:50am

I guess this shows how much the student loan department cares about its clients and their information.  I was so mad when I read this article.  I thought I would share it.

Privacy botched: Copies of OSAP documents land at dump

By Stephanie MacLellan - The Chronicle-Journal

April 21, 2005

The Ontario privacy commissioner’s office is investigating after confidential information from the Thunder Bay office that runs Ontario’s student loan program turned up in the John Street landfill Tuesday.

Some papers found in the landfill listed social insurance numbers, income information and home addresses for Ontario Student Assistance Program applicants.

Four boxes from the student support branch of the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, located in the Ontario government building on Red River Road, were discovered by a custodian Tuesday at about 3:30 p.m. They were stacked in front of a paper recycling bin at the landfill.

The boxes were labelled, “Material for shredding,” but the papers were intact. The boxes have been retrieved and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has launched an investigation, said office spokesman Bob Spence.

“We look into what did happen and make a series of recommendations,” he said Wednesday.

Charges won’t be laid unless it’s shown someone intentionally violated the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, he said.

The student support office runs the provincial student loan program, known as OSAP. Two boxes contained “garbage,” and the other two held filed copies of correspondence between staff and OSAP applicants that included personal information, ministry spokeswoman Linda Nicolson said.

“Those were not the original documents, but the working copies the staff works with,” she said.

Those copies were to be shredded before they were thrown out, she said.

She said it wasn’t clear what was included in the “garbage” boxes, or how long the boxes sat in the landfill.

Office staff notified the ministry after the boxes were found, and the ministry immediately contacted the privacy office, Nicolson said. The ministry has also launched its own investigation into the incident.

“We want to make sure that we’re following the best practices, in terms of the records that are kept in the OSAP office,” she said. “We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and that we do whatever we have to do to ensure that.”

Documents that arrive at the student support office are scanned into a computer imaging system, with the paper copies stored for six months, Nicolson said. After that, they are transferred to a government records storage facility, where they are stored for 20 years, then destroyed.

Reino Viitala, a custodian at a Thunder bay seniors’ home, discovered the boxes Tuesday afternoon when he made his weekly stop at the landfill. They drew his attention because they were sitting in front of a paper recycling bin, which was overflowing.

He was hoping to reuse the file boxes, until he realized they contained personal information.

“Social insurance numbers, addresses, names, financial statements, the whole bit,” he said. “I was concerned. . . . I know how sensitive that information is.”

He said one of the boxes was partially open and papers were escaping.

Viitala called the phone number on one of the forms and reached the student support office. He reported the boxes and waited at the landfill for over an hour until someone showed up to collect them, he said. He left after he helped her load the boxes into an SUV.

Spence said there is a danger of identity theft if this kind of information ends up in the wrong hands.

“Identity theft rarely happens, but it can happen, and that’s one of the reasons care has to be taken in the destruction of records,” he said.

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kwelmm View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kwelmm Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21/April/2005 at 6:09am

Amazing and disgusting!!! 

That is unreal.  Not enough is done to protect one's confidential information! 

 

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polyhymnia61 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote polyhymnia61 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22/April/2005 at 12:27am

The same yahoos who made me wait for my OSAP money an extra month two years in a row because of a "keypunching" error...

Poly
(Who, me? From Thunder Bay? *blink blink* Neeeever heard of the place...)

 

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polyhymnia61 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote polyhymnia61 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22/April/2005 at 8:26am

By the way...Check the evidence for yourself!!! It's the piccie-of-the-day on the Comical Urinal homepage!!! But only for today...

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/

Poly

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nago View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote nago Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26/April/2005 at 1:07pm
yep this country is a complete joke

go to university and go live on the streets
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