by Jenna Amirault
Students across Canada will mobilize on Nov. 2 for the first National Day of Action against tuition fees since 2012. They are demanding free and accessible education for all through the reduction and elimination of tuition fees, conversion of student loans into non-repayable grants and the removal of interest rates on all existing student loans.
The Day of Action was called by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) at the National Annual Meeting on June 4 as a result of students recognizing the need to mobilize to defend their own interests. In Ottawa, students at Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and Saint Paul University are working together to make sure their voices are heard.
In Ontario, students continue to face the highest tuition fees in the country. As they prepare to take to the streets, students and organizers alike are confronting new challenges, including a provincial government that has not reduced or even frozen tuition fees but claims it will be providing “free education” to a number of students beginning in the 2017-2018 academic year through the Ontario Student Grants (OSG) program.
A closer look at the OSG (as seen in the adjoining article) suggests it is part of longstanding efforts to privatize and deregulate university education. It accelerates the trend of university funding coming out of the pockets of individuals as opposed to public funding. At Carleton, tuition fees now make up 58 per cent of the operating budget versus only 37 per cent coming from public funding. Carleton’s administration has not supported students’ efforts to reverse this trend.
Education Is a Right
Students in Canada are demanding free, accessible and emancipatory education. Neo-liberal funding cuts and “solutions” designed to further privatize and deregulate universities will not be accepted. Students affirm that education is a right that must be guaranteed in practice with the public control and social responsibility of a society providing a bright future for its youth.
That is the demand students are going all out for in the National Day of Action on Nov. 2.
