Readers of the Saanich News were asked to post their questions for candidates on our Facebook site. Here are a few more of their the responses:
Renee Hetherington (Liberal, Saanich-Gulf Islands) – "Our students are shouldering an enormous student debt right now. The Liberal party has announced the Learning Passport and Canadian Learning Strategy, which will provide financial support for students to use towards post-secondary education. And most recently, Michael Ignatieff announced the Veterans' Learning Benefit, to allow veterans to go to university, and their tuition and accommodation and books would be covered for four years."
Patrick Hunt (Conservative, Victoria) – "The federal government has funded the provinces, and it's across the board funding, and we've been increasing it six per cent each and every year. We're coming up to when the baby boomers are starting to retire, and we'll have a tremendous need for trained people to replace them. So education is really important. We're really focussing on the economy so that we have that prosperity, which creates jobs, which creates taxpayers."
Edith Loring-Kuhanga (NDP, Saanich-Gulf Islands) – "One of the things the New Democrats have in our platform is we want to increase the transfer payments from the federal to provincial government. We want to increase them by about $800 million a year and lower tuition fees. We want to address high debt so it makes it more affordable for students to go to school. And we also want to increase the Canada Student Loan for the next four years."
Shaunna Salsman (Green, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca) – "We would like to see more funding for bursaries, we'd like to see tuitions being lowered and we'd like to see a financial boost to students through the Canada Student Loan program. And (we want to) improve research grants to institutions, which are focussed on supporting new technologies and renewable energy sources, and expand industry-based job training and apprenticeship programs."