Interest Charges: Loan and Repayment Period

interest charges: Eliminating interest charges and extending the repayment period as well as the period before the loan becomes repayable will give resettled refugees more time to focus on their integration, without needing to give immediate attention to loan repayments, the notice says, according to CTV. Those who currently have a loan would not accumulate any further interest but their repayment schedule would remain the same; recipients must begin paying back the loan 30 days after landing in Canada and have between one and six years to repay, depending on the amount. Instead, the government is proposing to eliminate interest charges on all new loans and give new borrowers more time to pay them back, according to a notice of the pending changes posted online by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The immigration loan program was set up in the aftermath of the Second World War to help immigrants from Europe who couldn't cover the costs of their travel to Canada. A 2015 evaluation of the loan program found the existing repayment terms were having a negative effect on the ability of refugees to settle in Canada and suggested the government find a better way to help cover their transportation and other costs. But today, 98 per cent of the program's users are refugees hand-picked by the government or private sponsors to settle in Canada. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.