OTTAWA (CUP)—During her university days, “idealism was pretty awesome” and students thought they “could do and be anything.” But times have changed, said Sheila Copps, and she hopes to rekindle that optimism.

Copps, who seems poised to run for the federal Liberal leadership, said if she found herself at the helm, “post-secondary education would be a huge issue.”

“Beyond infancy, the most important time in a person’s life is between those ages (17-21),” Copps, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, explained from her office on the fifth floor of Parliament Hill. “That’s when the direction for your life is going to be set.”

Direction is exactly what Copps believes the post-secondary sector needs.

“Nobody seems to be engaged in where the country is going,” said Copps, who was an executive member of the University of Western Student Association in 1972.

“Most of us and every province have a whole bunch of issues. The reality is most of them are common problems.

“The opportunity for students to come together and talk about them is very minimal,” she added. “We need to empower students [and] national student associations should have input into the policy process.”

Copps also wants to explore a student-operated loan system with the help of student leaders.

“Canada student loans have not been increased since 1992,” she said. “It’s only going to happen if someone says, let’s bring together CASA, CFS and other interested parties to see if it’s doable.”

The number of borrowers has increased 49 per cent since 1990-91 and the amount each student obtains is also up 63 per cent from 1990. The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) reports the average student is graduating with a debt of $25,000 compared to $8,000 in the early nineties.

“In every province you make a deal with the province, or in certain instances we devolve over to the banks,” Copps said.

Copps also has some strong criticisms for the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), a current cash transfer of $19 billion to the provinces for health care, social services and post-secondary education, known to be heavily weighted toward health care.

“If you look at the whole genesis of the CHST, it was basically brought in at time when we were reducing transfers,” she says.

In 1996, the Liberal government created the CHST and cut billions of dollars from transfer payments.

“It [CHST] was a negotiated decision of the department of finance that was never discussed with anybody,” said Copps.

Paul Martin was the Minister of Finance when the decision was made.

“These sorts of things when they come out in a budget, if you vote against them you’re defeating the government,” Copps said, explaining her support for the merger. “So it’s the kind of thing that really should be debated and discussed.”

Copps claims that she wants to “create a system that decouples transfer payments.”

Currently, she says, “it’s become very difficult to figure out what is going where. That’s why it needs to be decoupled […] it [CHST] needs to be increased.

“It needs to have incentives built in. We actually have it the opposite. We’ve created a system that is actually encouraging tuition increases.”

Since 1990 tuition fees in Canada have increased 135 per cent.

“It is not enough for us to walk away and say this is a provincial decision. I think we have to be partners in making sure Canada remains a country that has an accessible post-secondary system,” she said. “We do run the risk of creating a country of elites.

“At the moment there is nothing in the system to encourage support of accessibility.

“So what we should do is interconnect with provincial governments to try and influence provincial public policy.”