Earlier this year, your government in Ottawa took steps to increase accessibility and affordability of post-secondary education.
More than $10 billion annually is invested by your government in support of post-secondary education, including the Canada Student Loans and Canada Student Grants.
In the 2011-12 school years, about 450,000 post-secondary students received $2.4 billion in Canada Student Loans and more than 350,000 students received $647 million in Canada Student Grants.
The threshold for eligibility has been lowered for 2013-14, which will result in more students having access to follow their educational dreams.
The Canada Job Grant funding will help students who are pursuing an apprenticeship program or skills training program. This funding also includes funding for 5,000 interns in various careers choices.
Your government is focused on giving Canadians every opportunity to prepare themselves for the job market.
I believe that empowering citizens to take care of themselves is the role of government.
Canada has proven that we can compete with the world through innovation supported by a skilled labour force.
Today, we are leading the G7 in job creation and we are positioned financially to move to an even stronger more prosperous economy.
We need to ensure every Canadian has the opportunity to be part of this positive future.
This is good news to the grads of 2013.
Colin Mayes is the MP for Okanagan-Shuswap
