Financing a post-secondary education with OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Plan) is hard enough, but if you are a recognized refugee, government financial aid isn’t even an option.

Recognized refugees are excluded from receiving governmental financial aid for post-secondary education.

The Canada Student Financial Assistance Act governs the rules and regulations that provincial and federal student loan plans must abide by. Currently, it states that in order to receive financial assistance, students must be citizens or permanent residents of Canada. This excludes those students who are recognized refugees.

In order to become a recognized refugee, one must be granted Protected Person status. Once this status has been granted, the refugee must wait, sometimes for years, for a hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board. The Board can then grant permanent residency.

Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ), a social action organization, is one of several groups who have been lobbying for amendments to the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act. They say that the addition of just two words to the act would solve this injustice. The costs would be relatively minimal, say CPJ. In their policy paper they claim that including recognized refugees in the legislation would create an increase in total expenditures of only 0.28 per cent.

CPJ and other lobbyists call the omission of recognized refugees from the act a human rights violation. In their paper “Student Loans for Recognized Refugees” they argue that access to education is “a core human right, protected by such international agreements as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” They also point out that, although not explicitly mentioned, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantee of equality guarantees equality of access to all—a condition that is not being met in the arena of Student Financial Aid.

In fact, the United Nations Council on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights denounced Canada’s exclusionary policy in a 1998 report, expressing “concern that loan programmes for post-secondary education are available only to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.” The Council also noted its distress regarding the dramatic increase in the cost of university education in Canada in recent years.

Members of Parliament, university administrators, and human rights advocates are all in agreement that denying refugees access to financial assistance seriously limits their opportunities for education. However, the changes necessary to the act require somewhat tedious governmental processes that are very slow and difficult to initiate.

The University of Toronto has worked with lobby groups to extend the act to refugees. David Sidebottom, manager of financial aid services for the department of Admissions and Awards at U of T, explained that the university endorses the extension of the act through the Canadian Association of Financial Aid Administrators.

Sidebottom also pointed out that there are other avenues for refugees to seek aid. One of these is the Maytree Foundation, a private Canadian charitable organization, which offers scholarships to refugees in need. Maytree is funding seven students at U of T this year.

The Department of Citizenship’s 2000 report found 8,381 recognized refugees residing in Canada. Of these, CPJ says approximately 3,000 were between the ages of 18 and 30 (university or college aged). CPJ estimates that approximately one third of these (1,000) would have sought post-secondary education, and thus were affected by the student loan inaccessibility.

It is difficult to estimate how many refugees actually attend U of T. Recognized refugees pay domestic tuition and must self-identify at their colleges.

Sidebottom said the latest lobbying effort last month was geared at the upcoming budget, where mention of student loans would take place.

“We’re hoping that when the next budget comes down that [student loans for recognized refugees] will be included.” Student loans were not mentioned in last week’s Speech from the Throne.