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STUDENT ANTI-FEE PROTESTS DRAW THOUSANDS

(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.)

Students across Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan sent a loud message against sky-rocketing tuition fees on November 5, taking to the streets in thousands.

      "Although most Canadians voted against the Harper Conservatives, especially among youth and students, the new government is poised to strike hard at social programmes like post-secondary education, using the capitalist economic crisis as a pretext," the Young Communist League warned in a statement, demanding complete elimination of tuition fees and student debt, and a living stipend for students. "Now's the time to say `education is a right, not a privilege.'"

     "Since [the McGuinty Liberals] took office, tuition fees in Ontario have gone from fourth place to second highest in Canada," said Shelley Melanson, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario. "At a time when McGuinty is announcing an economic downturn in Ontario, he is allowing tuition fee increases to outpace inflation."

     In Manitoba, the Communist Party condemned Canada's only social democratic NDP government for hiking tuition. "The hikes are even more reprehensible because [Premier Gary] Doer broke his election campaign promise to keep tuition frozen," they said. This strategy will keep Manitoba "a low-wage racist backwater," 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."

     Recently, People's Voice spoke with Jen Hassum, past chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students (Ontario), who helped build the November 5th rallies.

PV: Were the actions successful?

Hassum: Yes. The demonstrations had really high energy, and it was great in Toronto, where we occupied an intersection [at College and University streets] stopping traffic. Outside of Toronto there were there were rallies in 13 cities - in Ottawa, Sudbury, Thunder Bay,

Mississauga, Orillia, London, Guelph, Sault Ste. Marie, Peterborough, Hamilton, Scarborough, Kingston and Windsor. And it was done by members and non-members of the Federation. London for example saw support from the undergraduates at Western, as well as Fanshaw College.

PV: Why was there such a good turn-out?

Hassum: I think the turn-out reflects the pressures students are feeling with tuition and ancillary fees rising. We collected tens of thousands of signatures as well from campuses, an unprecedented amount, and we had great organizers on the ground. We collected over 60,000 signatures. So it's no surprise to see high turnouts.

     The Action Assembly [a weekend training meeting of over 400 student activists from across Ontario] helped build for the day of action, creating a fighting movement that will continue, I think. We are also now publishing a newspaper, Campus Action, which is produced by a collective of students with some members of the CFS Ontario executive and other students. We wanted to create a paper that offered an alternative perspective, created for and by students, and I think it is a good outreach tool.

PV: Why mobilize now?

Hassum: I think there are good reasons. It is really a good time to be organized, tuition fees are increasing as part of the provincial government's four-year plan called "reaching higher" - and because the government is drafting a new framework, which opens the door to proposals for real alternatives to increases, including dropping fees.
PV: I heard the International Union of Students issued a statement in support.

Hassum: Yes, it is actually better than that, we called the action and there was also a province-wide day of action in Manitoba, and they had an activist assembly also. I understand that from this call-out there were student protests in London England, France, Germany, and the Philippines - all took action to fight what the IUS called the "corportization of education."

     Here in Ontario, we are fighting fees, because we still have them here! But tuition fees are really user fees for a public service. It forces students and their families to finance education through institutionalized private, personal debt. We see a retraction of public funding to education, making it less accessible. So this is how the system is becoming "corprotized here," it is privatization really, from the ground up.

PV: What's next?

Hassum: This is a good question for students. Especially because our first meeting of representatives with the ministry did not go as well as we had hoped. We need to escalate and pressure the government, creating forces no politicians can ignore.