09) WINNIPEG RALLY SLAMS NDP FEE HIKES

(The following article is from the November 16-30, 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.)

About 1,000 students rallied at the provincial legislature in Winnipeg on Nov. 5 to protest the Manitoba NDP government's tuition hikes. The rally was part of the campaign by the Canadian Federation of Students to drop tuition fees and improve access for Aboriginal youth.

     The protest plans had included a sit-in at the Legislature, which is normally open around the clock to the public. But on this occasion, the sit-in was banned, most of the students were kept out, and 40 students were detained for hours without having done anything illegal.

     A statement circulated to by rally by the Manitoba Committees of the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League said in part that the "rallies and protests across Manitoba are a severe indictment of Premier Gary Doer's tuition hikes (which) are even more reprehensible because Doer broke his election campaign promise to keep tuition frozen.

     "Ignoring the plight of working class youth and students, Doer is bowing down to the wishes of Manitoba's wealthy corporate bosses. These people want to keep education as an elite institution for transferring privilege and wealth from one generation to the next, for molding a new corporate/management elite...

     "It is shameful that Canada's only social democratic NDP government is hiking tuition! Hiking tuition is a strategy that will prolong the agony of the economic crisis, by forcing working class youth to leave higher education and fight for a job in the growing pool of unemployed.

     "It is a strategy that will that will keep Manitoba a low-wage racist backwater, where working class youth are far less likely to obtain a higher education than the Canadian average, where Aboriginal peoples are being shut out of higher education by tuition fees and racist policies such as the two per cent federal cap on treaty First Nation education funding and the non-recognition of the Métis as an Aboriginal people.

     "It is a strategy that will de-industrialize Manitoba, gutting access to good paying jobs because without a highly trained and educated workforce these jobs will go elsewhere!

     "It is a strategy that will deepen global warming and environmental crises, because a green economy needs educated workers!

     "The NDP is promising to raise tuition fees exactly like Manitoba's Progressive Conservative party - by four to five per cent. There is not a whiff of socialism in the Manitoba NDP's tuition policy.

     "Doer is dealing a serious blow against the large majority of young people in Manitoba who will have to work even more part time jobs and longer hours while attending school, or be completely shut out of higher education. The tuition hike is another example of the Manitoba NDP betraying and alienating its supporters.

     "In policy after policy the Doer government is following the wishes of the corporate bosses - on Afghanistan, on cutting corporate taxes, on privatizing health care jobs, and now on education. The Manitoba Chamber of Commerce has a better policy than the Manitoba NDP on increasing social assistance benefits.

     "This is a guaranteed strategy to lose the next election and hand power to the next largest party, the Manitoba Tories who are even more openly voicing the interests of big business.

     "There is a way out of this mess. Students need to unite with their allies outside of the Legislature, with the organized labour movement and with groups representing Aboriginal peoples, women and everyone who is being harmed by the Manitoba NDP's policies. Such a united movement in Manitoba is needed to pressure the NDP and all parties in the Legislature to adopt "people's alternative" policies, policies that would curb the corporate bosses.

     "More than unity is needed, and the November 5 day of action points the way. Action is needed on a whole range of issues to block the corporate agenda. These include defeating the federal minority Harper government, fighting for the full national rights of Aboriginal peoples and Quebec, ending the occupation of Afghanistan, improving access to more good paying jobs, fighting racism, ending poverty, greening the economy, and expanding medicare.

     With unity and action, the tuition hikes can be stopped. The defensive struggles we are fighting today must be built up to a point where cuts can be reversed, where real advances can be made again. It is time to broaden the fightback, to unite the student movement with all groups suffering from tuition hikes, caps, cuts, privatizations, and rollbacks...."