Education Minister and Opposition Critic Argue over Graduate Tax Credits

The following is a conversation during QP at province house between the Minister and her critic:

Question Period – 3:15 PM October 1st 2009

Taken from hansard.

MS. KELLY REGAN: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education. During the recent election campaign your Party received a C grade for its post-secondary education promises from the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations. The NDP promise of a graduate tax credit was evaluated by ANSSA. The organization said they did not see this as: A responsible use of money earmarked for post-secondary education.

My question for the minister is, will responsibility for the implementation of the graduate tax credit fall under the Minister of Education, thus being considered money for post-secondary education?

HON. MARILYN MORE: Mr. Speaker, that rebate is as much of a worker recruitment and retention tool as it is to keep graduate students in the province. There are other ways to increase accessibility and affordability for university and post-secondary education. I just want to clarify that we see that as providing the well-trained workers in this province, so it’s more on a Labour and Workforce Development strategy than it is an access – to improve access or affordability of post-secondary education in the province. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Speaker, then might I respectfully suggest that that be considered under Labour and Workforce Development and not, in fact, post-secondary education. In fact, both ANSSA and the Canadian Federation of Students have made it clear that graduate tax credits do nothing to help students who cannot afford to attend one of our universities in the first place. A graduate tax credit will do little good if none of our students can afford to graduate. My question to the minister is, will the minister acknowledge that graduate tax credits are an ineffective tool for making our universities and colleges more accessible and affordable?

MS. MORE: I can only repeat what I said in answer to the first question, that this is a labour retention and recruitment strategy, and certainly the former government has done – and we support efforts that they have made to make university education more affordable, such as putting more of the student assistance up front as grants and providing additional funding to universities so that we can have a freeze on the tuition. I think there’s a little bit of confusion about the intent of the graduate rebate – retention rebate. Thank you.

MS. REGAN: Mr. Speaker, the problem is that not only do graduate tax credits not increase access to post-secondary education, but recent examples show they don’t even work as a retention tool. In an op-ed to the Chronicle Herald, the Executive Director of ANSSA stated that governments in Manitoba and in New Brunswick have invested $100 million in tax credits like this, but no changes in retention rates have been observed since the credits were implemented. These examples cause leading education expert Alex Usher to conclude that graduate tax credits provide, and I’m quoting here, “windfall gains to people doing exactly what they were going to do anyways”. My question to the minister is, will the minister acknowledge that graduate tax credits are not only ineffective as a tool to help gain access to post-secondary education, but they are also ineffective as a graduate retention tool.

MS. MORE: Well, as it turns out, we have considerable numbers of students from outside our province attending our post-secondary institutions. Currently about 20 per cent of them stay in the province. We feel that this graduate retention rebate will actually encourage those numbers to go up. Thank you.