Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was going to stand up, like my colleague Mr. Abernethy, and say I’m completely stunned, but I am, I am stunned by this Student Financial Assistance Handbook. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to know why the SFA Student Handbook, the Form ‘A’ Travel Claim, the Student Handbook and the student travel reminders all contain conflicting information. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten me. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There are policies in place for a specific reason. What the Member is referring to, I can touch on. The student case officers need to track all expenditures, our sponsors, our subsidies to the students through the SFA program. Not only that, but there are also First Nations and other organizations that also sponsor students. We just want to be cautious about who is paying for what trips. If the First Nation claim is paying for a particular trip, then we need to be aware of it so there are no duplications. We just want to have accountability in place. That’s part of the reason why we have this policy in place where there is that transparency. We just want to keep track of expenditures.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister has gone to the second part of the question I was going to ask, and that is why, when a student returning from travel who provides an airplane ticket receipt with a credit card receipt stapled to it, why the department would want to see the name on the credit card and would like to see a copy of the credit card statement? I think that is excessive; however, what the Minister is saying here, I believe, is that there are other agencies who could possibly be paying for that and the government does not want to be reimbursing a student if, in fact, it is some other sponsoring agency that bought the ticket. Okay.
But that does not explain what my question actually was, Mr. Speaker. My question was: why is the information that students have to rely on through the Handbook and the travel claim and the newsletters so convoluted that it’s very difficult to reconcile it and to understand it? We should be making this easier for students.
I withdraw my comment about it doesn’t matter who pays for the ticket. The Minister has explained that portion of it. But I’d like to know what can we do to take the policies related to SFA and make it more concise and consistent from the different documents. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, this information specific to SFA subsidy programming, there is going to be a review. Maybe this is an area that we can definitely look at, what the Member is referring to, so it’s a simple task for students to go through the process. I hear the concern of the Member and it may not be only one concern. There are other concerns as well. That’s why we are conducting this review of the SFA programming, the subsidy programming and other areas. Mr. Speaker, we are doing what we can to resolve our issues at hand and this is an area that we will definitely look at. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
