Reality Check: Liberals Spent Years Profiting off Student Debt

Justin Trudeau’s government profited making billions of dollars off student debt, while young people struggled to get out from under crushing debt loads.

“Justin Trudeau spent four years raking in billions of dollars in interest from young people who were just starting out in life, even while they were making sacrifices to make student loans payments every month — living at home, working two jobs, even putting off starting a family,” said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. “Trudeau and the Liberals let young people down. He gave a lot of fancy speeches about the next generation of Canadians — but never stopped reaching into their bank accounts and taking money away from them. Making a profit off student loans is wrong.”

“Trudeau and the Liberals let young people down. He gave a lot of fancy speeches about the next generation of Canadians — but never stopped reaching into their bank accounts and taking money away from them. Making a profit off student loans is wrong.”

The Liberals’ record on student debt shows how badly they’ve let down young Canadians:

• Total federal student debt is close to $17 billion dollars, while the Trudeau government has collected nearly $3 billion in interest payments from students since 2015.[1]
• An internal government report called the student loan system “broken,” noting that the cost of education is growing faster than wages and higher costs of living are compounding the squeeze on young people.[2]
• The average student debt burden is $26,000, takes between nine and 15 years to pay off, and payments can take up to 13% of graduates’ wages.[3]
• The Parliamentary Budget Office estimates that nearly half of students will have financial needs at or above student loan limits while in school by 2021.[4]
• Four provinces have already eliminated their interest on their loans: British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. [5]