Question Period Note: Canada Student Loans Repayment Assistance

Can the Minister explain how the Government of Canada supports Canada Student Loans borrowers who are unable to afford their student loan payments?

• The Government is committed to ensuring that post-secondary education is affordable and student debt is manageable, even as the costs of education continue to rise.
• This includes supports to borrowers who have difficulty repaying their Canada Student Loans.

• We have already increased the minimum income a borrower has to make before they need to repay their loan to $25,000 per year, which helped over 326,000 borrowers last year.

• Our platform commitments will go even further to help low and middle income Canadians afford the growing costs of post-secondary education.

• The Canada Student Loans Program provides targeted grants and needs-based loans to help students access post-secondary education (PSE) and offers the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) to borrowers with financial difficulty.

• RAP ensures that Canada Student Loan borrowers do not have to make a payment until they earn over $25,000. This threshold applies to a single individual and is adjusted by family size. For those with higher incomes, monthly payments are limited to no more than 20 percent of a borrower’s gross family income.

• Under RAP the Government contributes to principal and interest payments such that borrowers do not have a repayment period greater than 15 years from leaving their studies.

• Borrowers with permanent disabilities (PD) benefit from RAP-PD, which takes into account disability related expenses, and ensures the loan is paid off in 10 years.

• Recent changes to the RAP include:
 Increased income thresholds to $25,000 for single borrowers and proportional increase for other family sizes.

 Removing the restriction on further funding for students with permanent disabilities who had used RAP-PD in the past; this will allow them to return to school and upgrade their skills. This is scheduled to take effect in August 2020.

 The Liberal Party Platform committed to changing the minimum annual individual income required to repay loans to $35,000 that will help borrowers with lower incomes.

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