The Dominion-Provincial Student Loan Program started in 1939 and developed out of the 1937 Dominion-Provincial Youth Program which was designed to provide vocational training to youth who had been denied access to training during the depression years.
The effectiveness of the program was questionable because it helped on average less than 3000 students per year, while university enrollment increased from just approximately 35,000 in 1939 to over 100,000 in 1960 (Fisher et al., 2005).
Additionally, it is estimated the federal government only spent $5 million total on the program (Canadian Encyclopedia, 2007).
The main impact of the program was that it firmly established the role of the federal government in the funding of higher education.
The controversy surrounding this is that in both the Canadian Constitution and its predecessor, the British North America Acts, education is the jurisdiction of the provinces.