Beginning July 2026, the Canada Student Financial Assistance (CSFA) program will return to its original annual maximum of $3,000 instead of the current $4,200 due to a lack of interest by the Canadian government to renew it. The non-profit post-secondary student advocacy organization, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), is petitioning for the federal government to keep the present amount. The Student Union Society’s (SUS) President Bilal Faisal Faheem shared with The Cascade more about their joint advocacy work with CASA.
What is the CSFA?
“Currently, how it stands is that students get $4,200 per year for the Canada Student Grant and $300 per week for the Canada Student Loans. If you have the Canada Student Grant supplements for students with dependents, then it would be $2,688 per year, per dependent, and $2,800 per year with the CSG supplements for students with disabilities. Those are the four categories that we have, and this is for full-time [domestic] students only. This is not for international students.
“The problem that we’re facing right now is that the budget 2025 that came in had [no] interest to continue the investment in the Canada Student grant at the $4,200 level. This means that currently, if no investment is made before July 2026, the level will go back to its permanent level of $3,000, and as a result, over 700,000 students all across Canada would be affected.”
How will SUS and CASA advocate to maintain the CSFA?
“Some things that we’ve done [are], we’re writing letters to our MPs, we’re reaching out to our campus newspapers, different media platforms, different university bodies, [and] to MLAs, just to make sure that we’re able to get this thing back up and running.
“We were able to get in contact with one of the MPs, their name is Leah Gazan. … she’s the member of Parliament from the NDP caucus from the Winnipeg Center in Manitoba. She was able to help us put this petition up on the House of Commons website … The petition went live on Jan. 20, 2026, and it’ll be live until Apr. 20, 2026 … what we’re targeting is as many signatures as we can get from students or residents of Canada. That’s what it requires. You need to be a citizen or a resident of Canada.
“If you’re able to support this petition and get more signatures, it makes our case super strong over there, and getting 10,000 signatures on a petition is a huge deal. Currently, we are at 8,249 signatures … [if] you get 10,000 signatures or more, [then] it gets to the next level.”
Why is it important to maintain this financial aid for students?
“In May 2024, CASA polled on poverty indicators for students, and what we found … was that in the most recent semester, at least 29 per cent of the domestic students had opted out of buying the textbooks due to financial struggles. There were 21 per cent that had skipped a class to work, 23 per cent had missed paying bills, 14 per cent had used a food bank, and 3 per cent students experienced homelessness. That’s a huge amount for a population where we have so many young Canadians that are just here to study and make sure that they’re able to excel in their career.
“We see the leaders on both the provincial and the federal front talking about these things that the youth is the future … but cutting the funding for the youth doesn’t reflect the same energy. Even with the current elevated levels in the student assistance that we have, more than a quarter of university and college students are thinking about dropping out of the school just due to the rise of the cost of tuition that we’re seeing, the cost of rent that’s going so high, [and] the cost of groceries.
“Right now we’re sitting at $4,200 for CST. If that doesn’t get approved or renewed, it goes back to the 2019 maximum value, which was $3,000 per year. Imagine all the inflation that you’ve seen from 2019 in the past seven years, all the tuition, rent, housing car insurance [and] transit fees that [have] gone up, all of those things just goes down the drain because the money is not there for the students that rely on this.”
How can people support this advocacy?
“If you go on the SUS executive Instagram account, you can find the QR code over there where students can scan it and then fill out their petition.”
Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
Rachel is working towards a BA with a concentration in English and Theatre. She has been employed at The Cascade since Fall 2021 as a Staff Writer and a Jr. News Editor. Currently, she is the sectional News Editor and enjoys meeting and interviewing people as well as taking long walks in nature. Rachel also likes to stay up to date on the latest trends and informs students through her fashion column entitled Campus Fashion.