(The following article is from the November 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

People's Voice Editorial, Nov. 1-15, 2008

When students hit the streets on November 5th in cities across Canada demanding "Drop Tuition Fees," they will again receive 110% support from the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League (YCL).

     Now is the time to mobilize and make the call "education is a right." The new Harper Tory government is likely posed to strike hard at social programmes in response to the global tidal waves of the capitalist economic crisis hitting our shores.

     Tuition fees are soaring faster than inflation. Increasingly, students face a debt sentence. (Student loan debt was one of the many sources flaming the fires of the current spreading financial crisis). This debt load cuts working class youth, particularly students of colour, out of post-secondary opportunities. Aboriginal post-secondary education is a scandal, with funding still capped for treaty First Nations. And international students are used as cash-cows.

     The basic issue is who pays for education. Corporations depend on trained workers to make profits. But big business doesn't want to pay the bill, and drops the burden on the people. The goal is US-style education for the rich only.

     The drive to "corporatize" education has been coupled with attacks on academic free speech. During the last academic year, disturbing heavy-handed police responses at UQAM, UBC, and U of T united students in demands against restrictive "codes of conduct," while McMaster tried to ban the phrase Israeli apartheid.

     Education is not a business venture. The Communist Party and the YCL demand freezing, reducing, and eliminating tuition - and that ultimately students should receive a stipend for lost wages during school. Socialist Cuba does this, and so does capitalist Norway.

     We need to increase federal support for universal, quality public education at all levels. Funding and access to training and apprenticeship programs must be significantly raised as well. Not least, governments must shift from loans to grants for student assistance. On Nov. 5th - Drop Fees Now!