The government boosted loans and grants during the pandemic. It should cancel existing student debts altogether.
Erika Shaker is the director of the national office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
When new grads aren’t able to land good jobs in their fields, they often end up in unrelated low-wage work. They serve tables or work in retail to make ends meet and pay down their student debt. And these are exactly the types of jobs that vanished when restaurants and shops were shut down two years ago. School-age Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 were also among the first to lose their jobs during the initial COVID lockdowns. Many young Canadians couldn’t get rehired and resume paying off their debts until employment returned to pre-COVID levels, which wasn’t until last fall.
The pandemic, and now record-high inflation, provided…
