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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Forum LockedManaging Canadian Debts from Fortress Europe

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mr.sussex View Drop Down
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Joined: 21/March/2007
Location: Austria
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    Posted: 30/March/2007 at 4:37am
Or “A Captive of Global (im-)mobility, Flex-work and Usury.”

Born in June 1973, I am a Canadian citizen residing in Austria. I am considering a long distance bankruptcy as I haven’t the money for a trip to Canada and the interest payments on student loans, bank loans and a visa card are an exponential feedback loop as I cover these monthly amounts with the visa card via online payments.

Account / Total Amount / Monthly Payments
1. Visa Card (Bank NS) / 18 957.81 / 379
2. CSL (Bank NS) / 7 773.86 / 91
3. NBSL (CIBC) / 1 703.74 / 32.19
4. Royal Bank Loans (2) / 10 000.00 / 150
    (co-signed accounts)

This summary attempts to explain the “debts” and the circumstances under which they accumulated. However, I can only understand these financial debt in relation to the international political/economic realities in which I experience them and the personal and professional decisions I’ve made – which makes for a bit of a long story.

Between 1991 and 1999, I studied engineering, art history and architecture in three different universities in Canada - the time at which the student loan debt originates. You could say I am a privileged Western academic. During the architecture studies, I was encouraged to “think globally” about professional experience and completed work terms in Dresden, Vienna and Osaka. I never completed the masters program in architecture as the program –in the end– did not offer the flexibility I has discovered and desired.

Since 1999, I have worked – when legally permitted – as a self-employed artist/designer in Vienna, Rotterdam and Berlin making occasional brief trips to Canada to visit relatives and friends. This work is primarily in artistic and (non-profit) socio-cultural fields, an self-chosen existence funded by occasional art subsidies, flex-work sidejobs, borrowed money and often at my own cost.

Between 2001-2004, the Visa Card debt originated in Rotterdam. This money was used to pay food and rent and sustain student loan payments. The bureaucracy within the European Union regarding freedom of movement and the right to work also played a factor in otherwise being able to manage these monthly payments. The current laws privilege employees of multi-national companies not those who want to live from their own ideas and actually live the rhetoric of the “mobile global community”. The monthly interest payments on the Visa Card were then added to the existing monthly payments which I in turn paid with Visa. With the assistance of my parents cosigning two loans, the Visa bill was brought down temporarily but in time again reached the level which it is at now.    

From 2003 to 2005, I received CSL Interest Relief which was a bit tricky as conceptually one must be in Canada to receive IR. There is a line which does state that one can be on an international internship which was useful in arranging 5 6-month periods of IR. CIBC, given the same information, never accepted the application and also outsourced my file to an agency who harrassed me on the telephone in Holland occasionally.

In March 2004, as part of strategy to legalize and get insured in the EU for an urgent tumor operation, I married an Austrian citizen and with that received the permission to work legally in Austria. For the subsequent 5 years, we must prove monthly income to the amount of 1150 euros to the Austrian foreign police, a sum which, in addition to “actual income”, can include ie. the worth of our food and housing provided by my spouse’s mother. Both of us having the similar desire to work independent of tradition workplace hierarchies and more often in non-profit cultural and artistic fields, our collective yearly income would be regarded as minimum, borderline “poverty line”. However it is “just enough” (also for the strict foreign police regulations) when one compromises the other common costs of living: we have no mortgage payments on a house, no car payments, no children and essentially no property (outside of clothes and tools necessary for our profession). We also have debts on this side of the Atlantic but have developed a model of working together and autonomously which covers our fixed costs.

In summary, Canadian student loans helped in providing an (worldly) education which in practice has proven unsustainable (if not illegal) without other bank credit and unable to make monthly payments plus interest. This economic existence on two sides of the Atlantic has become increasingly unmanageable. It is enough bureaucracy for us working self-employed between 3 EU countries! Even if I had the regular monthly income in Europe (a radical change in work model which personally do not plan to make) to be able to contribute to these monthly payments in Canada, the international transfer costs would also be added.

I have no real future plans to return to Canada except as a visitor. The debts in Canada have become dangerously “virtual” in the sense that I go to a computer interface monthly to arrange that the Visa Card covers the “savings account” for the monthly interest payments. To date, I don’t see any other alternative. I am at the limit.

Strategy?

Visa Card: File for Bankruptcy
My plan is to apply for a long-distance bankruptcy meaning that I can not come to Canada to personally go through this process or be there for the corresponding “consultation phase”. I understand from my consultations with advocates that this is possible and would not be the first time. However this may only be a solution for Account 1 – Visa Card.

Student Loans: Bill C-55 would have helped…
The Bill which enables individuals to include student loans in their bankruptcy after 7 years leaving university has not been passed by Canadian Senate to my knowledge and may never be. This would be useful as I am now 7 years out of school as of December 2006. This would have been a solution for Accounts 2 +3.

Co-signed Accounts: one-time transfer
A one-time transfer from a European account to my parents account to avoid continuous interest payments which they make for me. My plan is to cover this amount through the sale of artistic works and possible commissions. Otherwise, through a private loan in Europe to cover this one-time transfer and finances can thereon be managed in Euros.

Questions

As I am no longer a resident of a Canadian province, can I file for (long-distance) bankruptcy over a (lawyer) in any Canadian province or must I look to the province where I was last a resident (New Brunswick)?

In how far will the banks look to a.) family in Canada and b.) family in Austria? Both parties have no considerable reserves nor would I want them to be confronted with my personal debts and decisions.

In how far can the authorities (the banks) control monthly international income in the period after filing for bankruptcy? Many banks are partners in “international alliances” or groups, but from my experience of legalizing residency and working in the EU, I have a hard time imagining the respective private and governmental organs in Canada and the EU having clear communications and keeping tabs on individual cases which aren’t INTERPOL caliber.

Given that the Bill C-55 has not been passed by Senate and I do not have the monthly income to continue monthly payment, are there any alternatives to dealing with the student loan payments? I have read on government websites of “Debt Reduction in Repayment” when the monthly payments exceed income. “Extended IR” seems unlikely (impossible in the case of the CIBC!) as I would also have to prove I am on an “extended international internship” which is really not the case. On the other hand, I have read of other cases where a “change of address” and/or “going abroad” is mentioned as a last-resort evasion strategy.

Additional Personal Opinions and Thoughts

Only after accumulating student loan debts in Canada, did I become aware that in other countries there are other forms of financing post-secondary education. In some European countries, education is a “free” social right for all. I favor this notion. A large percentage of the population in countries with student loan systems (with interest) are financially forced by the system to integrate into the “status-quo” 9-5 work world to repay these debts. This reduces the possibilities for the innovative minds leaving school to experiment with their knowledge and evolve existing systems and professions. Innovation is ultimately is desirable and profitable for a country - especially economically.

Canadians are global-minded citizens of the planet, like to travel, perhaps even reside and work in other countries. In my case, I naively followed my school’s encouragement to make international work terms without any practical advice on the rules and regulations regarding legal work permits and temporary residency. Comparable to trying to get a job in the US, one is confronted by a labyrinth of bureaucracy which you have to figure out. Especially since Bush’s Patriot Act and Foreign Policy, this bureaucracy has gotten thicker and more impossible (even worse in combination with the rising xenophobia and right-wing populist politic in EU countries). There is no freedom of movement. But we have to continue to work against this trend.
Regarding the student loan system, the fact that one can only request (or have a need for) student loan interest relief if residing in Canada is outdated and needs to be re-evaluated if the first line of this paragraph is true. I have met several student loan dodgers over here…

Charging interest is destroying the environment. Peter Russell, philosopher and author of “The Global Brain”, draws the connection for me in a powerful way in an interview with Richard Metzger.
[excerpt] “(Charging interest) is so much a part of our culture we never even question it. I think that’s one of the main things that is making our culture totally unsustainable. Something like 90% of the money in circulation is borrowed money, and the interest has to be paid back on that. Say it’s at 10%, that means each year 10% more wealth needs to be created to cover the interest. There’s two ways of doing that. You either have inflation, but that’s not good for the economy, or you have to keep increasing the real wealth of a country. That is why we are saddled with this idea of growth. We have to keep growing, and it’s growth that is killing the environment. The more we grow, the more we consume, the more we pollute. All those people who really look at the global situation say we have to move towards a zero growth economy, and yet you cannot really have zero growth so long as you are charging interest. Ultimately we have to go to an economic system which doesn’t charge interest. How we do that I have no idea because we are so immersed in the idea of charging interest.”
http://www.disinfo.com http://www.peterussell.com

Any thoughts on this rant are appreciated.

Peter Sussex
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