I graduated in 1999 and my husband in 2000. We tried to work with OSAP to repay our loans but the way it was set up back then was this: Our payments were based on our net income, not taking into account taxation and all our other deductions. They also looked at our combined income for repayment, but did not take into account that we both had to pay loans. They wanted over $2000 from each of us! We would have been left with about $1000 a month for our rent, utilities, food, everything. We simply couldn't make the payment amounts they were asking for. I contacted my MP, called everyone I could think of, and they refused to work with us. After a year of phone calls, we actually left Canada. Basically, our student loans forced us out of our home.
We have been teaching overseas since 2001. We just disappeared, really. We had a short amount of time where, for circumstances beyond our control, we were forced to return to Canada for a few months and worked minimum wage jobs for six months, and then left as soon as we found new overseas jobs. Needless to say, we haven't paid taxes because we haven't lived there for a long time.
Now my children are graduating high school and heading back to Canada for university. Our son is currently attending a university in New Brunswick. We don't make enough money to pay for their education and need loans. My son is the application process right now, but they are asking for our SIN numbers and income tax statements. If we give our SINs, it will send a red flag up somewhere, and we have no income tax statements because we haven't paid income tax in Canada since we left. What do we do? What do we tell him to do? We can't tell our son that he needs to drop out of school because we defaulted on our student loans 11 and 12 years ago. Help!!
