All Posts Tagged With: "NDP"
Today is the CFS National Day of Action
Protests underway from coast to coast
Today, students from Memorial University of Newfoundland to the University of British Columbia are participating in the National Day of Action organized by the Canadian Federation of Students.
Through marches and on social media, they’re promoting the idea that Education is a Right.
Their explicit demands are for lower tuition fees, less student debt and more public funding.
The CFS says that the average student with debt owes $25,000 by graduation and that public funding has dropped from 81 per cent of operating costs of universities 20 years ago to 57 per cent today—all while tuition has risen from 14 per cent of operating funding to more than 35 per cent.
In other words, students are paying more of their own costs for university than ever before, which makes it difficult for low and middle-income students to get through school and then pay off debts.
The campaign is being discussed widely on Twitter with the tags #feb1 #cfsfcee or #cdnpse.
Peggy Nash, a candidate for the New Democratic Party’s leadership has already tweeted in solidarity and provided a link to her Plan to make Post-Secondary Education Accessible.
In Newfoundland, which already has among the lowest tuition anywhere, conservative Premier Kathy Dunderdale attended a National Day of Action event this morning and said that, during her lifetime, she’d like to see students’ first degrees paid for by the province, reports VOCM radio.
NDP candidate would lavish gifts on students
But Paul Dewar doesn’t have much support
Photo from PaulDewar.ca
No less than nine people are fighting for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Canada.
Now, one candidate has distinguished himself by promising gifts for students—in the form of cash.
Paul Dewar, member for Ottawa Centre, released a plan last week that would provide 10,000 youth with tuition grants in exchange for time served with non-profits, either in Canada or abroad. Those youth would get $1,500 per month to cover expenses during their years of volunteer work and up to $6,000 more for education or training.
But that’s not all. Dewar says he’d reduce interest on the federal portion of the student loan to prime (potentially saving students thousands), he would reduce tuition fees by $700 per year and he’d provide $200-million more in grants for low-income, disabled and Aboriginal Canadians.
Continue reading NDP candidate would lavish gifts on students
Layton’s books to rest at Ryerson University
Late NDP leader was lecturer at school from ’74 to ’81
Photo courtesy of Medmoiselle T on Flickr
The family of Jack Layton, the late New Democrat leader, has donated his book collection to Ryerson University. The donation was announced by President Sheldon Levy at the Ryerson Senate meeting on Oct. 4, reports The Eyeopener. Levy said the University is still in the “thinking stages” as to what to do with the books. Renaming or appointing a Chair position to honour Layton is also being considered.
Layton began lecturing in the politics department at Ryerson in 1974. He stopped teaching after joining Toronto City Council in 1982. He earned an MA (’71) and a PhD (’84), both from York University.
On May 2, Layton led the New Democrats to new heights, winning 103 ridings out of 308 total to become the official opposition for the first time. He died of cancer on Aug. 22 at the age of 61 and was honoured with a state funeral.
The Shakespearean Jack Layton
Like that of Henry V, Prince Jack’s passing leaves a big hole
Photo by Phil Kalina on Flickr
As a Shakespeare prof, I am always interested to see how the popular media represent my particular expertise, so this piece by Don Macpherson over at the National Post caught my eye. Macpherson suggests provocatively that the race to replace Jack Layton as NDP leader is a story worthy of Shakespeare — yet somehow the Bard of the St. Lawrence manages to get through the entire piece without mentioning a single Shakespearean play or character.
But the idea intrigued me, and since I have a passing knowledge of the Shakespeare canon, I wondered if there really was an instructive Shakespearean parallel here.
And I think there is. It’s the end of Henry V.
Without boring you with too many details (you have to shell out over a thousand bucks in tuition fees for that), let me tell you that Shakespeare’s Henry V was a heck of a guy. At first people thought he was a crazy radical, hanging with the wrong crowd and just not cut out to be king. But one day when the moment was right, he caught on, got the country behind him, and, against overwhelming odds, conquered the land of the French. Any of this sound familiar?
But Shakespeare’s Henry V ends on a sombre note. With barely time to savour his victory, Henry dies, and everyone knows that there is no one like him waiting in the wings. Sounding very familiar?
Following the death of Henry V, a terrible, divisive civil war breaks out (chronicled in three more plays) and it’s another generation before the path back to peace and prosperity can be found.
I won’t labour the point by trying to match up every NDP hopeful with a Shakespearean counterpart (is Thomas Mulcair destined to be the tyrannical Richard III?), but the lesson that Shakespeare draws from Henry V should not be ignored. Shakespeare’s point is that a dynamic, charismatic leader is a wonderful thing. He can do what others didn’t even dream of. But such leaders, by virtue of their own greatness, unintentionally set a dangerous trap for the future. Shakespeare saw that no man can cheat death, and the bigger the man, the bigger the void he leaves behind.
The New Democrats find themselves staring into just such a void and on the verge of their own civil war. The rest of us will have to be content to chronicle it as best we can. Oh, for a muse of fire…
Todd Pettigrew (PhD) is an Associate Professor of English at Cape Breton University.
What Jack Layton’s death means for young Canadians
Urback: I didn’t vote for Jack, but I did respect him.
Photo courtesy of Medmoiselle T on Flickr
I have never voted for the NDP. Before the May federal election, when the NDP surprised us with 30 per cent of the vote, I fleetingly considered supporting Jack Layton’s New Democrats, but couldn’t swallow his proposals for spending and tax increases. Jack seemed like a good enough guy, but for mostly fiscal reasons, I didn’t want him running the country.
As someone who never supported Jack politically, and honestly, likely would not have if he were able to run again, I still feel his death is sorrowful loss for young Canadians. Despite being in his sixties, Jack was indisputably the best of the federal leaders at connecting with the nation’s youth. He reached out to us despite our record of poor turnout at the polls. For this reason, Jack transcended party lines as a man who spoke to Canadian youths.
Jack Layton’s record with the under-30 crowd started when he was as a city councillor in Toronto. He was known to always save time for questions from young journalists during scrums and worked directly with university students on local issues that they cared passionately about, even those as seemingly insignificant as saving a couple of Victorian homes. Later, as federal leader of the NDP, Layton spoke directly to Canadian young people through venues such as Much on Demand, encouraging engagement, interaction, and faith in the political system. And then, of course, there was his final letter to Canadians, in which he penned a paragraph specifically to Canada’s youth, expressing his “belief in [their] power to change this country and the world.”
Political pandering is often a deliberate, pragmatic process, which is why so few politicians give youth the time of day. With such poor voter turnout among 18 to 25-year-old Canadians, other parties think it’s better to spend the campaign retirement home-hopping than wasting an afternoon on a university campus. But for Jack, it didn’t seem to matter.
I didn’t always agree with what Jack said, but I did always appreciate the fact that he was trying to speak to me. I’m not going to fawn, nor do the opposite and don a silly wig while making a grotesque statement about “National Necrophilia Week” like Ezra Levant. But I will say that Layton’s death means young Canadians of all stripes have lost an important federal advocate. I may not have given him my vote, but he did have my respect, and that’s because I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.
We’re right to be skeptical about young NDP MPs
And please, stop calling it ‘ageism’
When I was 19 and off university for the summer, I ended up spending most of my working time behind a bar. Though it wasn’t a job of rigorous expectations, I undoubtedly lucked out by being in the right place at the right time. One of the recipients of my hurried CV was a little Toronto restaurant that happened to be losing its only front-of-house employee the same day I dropped off my resume. I fumbled my way through an interview that afternoon: “Hmm…” the owner said, scanning my hospitality-weak resume. “I really would like someone with a bit more experience…” But she gave me the job anyway (probably out of sheer desperation) and that summer I earned every penny of my server’s minimum wage.
Only now do I realize that my composure during the interview was totally to my own detriment. When the owner was mulling over her desire to have someone with more experience, I really should have shouted “Ageist!” and stormed off angrily, possibly flailing.
After all, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do now that pundits are expressing skepticism about our brand new under-30 MPs? The youngest is 19-year-old Pierre-Luc Dusseault, a Université de Sherbrooke political science student who became Canada’s youngest ever MP last week after winning his Sherbrooke riding. And of course, along with six or so other 20-somethings, there’s Ruth Ellen Brosseau, who we all now know as the non-French-speaking assistant pub manager who won over her Francophone riding despite vacationing is Las Vegas during the campaign.
Many of these new MPs were clearly just lending their names to the NDP in ridings that were almost certain to vote Bloc. So, naturally, people are questioning their ability to perform well in their new unexpected, perhaps unwanted positions. And, also naturally, reactionaries have labeled that questioning with that nasty A-word. Then there are those, perhaps more rational than the ageist alarmists, genuinely asking why these young MPs are facing more scrutiny than rookie MPs with experience in other fields.
To me, the reason seems obvious. A rookie MP coming from a business background brings with her knowledge about corporate affairs and economics. A farmer new to politics brings with him agricultural insight and perspectives on climate change. Yes, they speak for different communities, but also bring valuable, diverse experiences to the House of Commons. Unfortunately, a 19-year-old just doesn’t have that wealth of life experience to draw on.
That’s not to say, however, that a young MP can’t serve his or her constituents well. Indeed, I hope that is the case. But in the meantime, we’re justified in keeping a raised eyebrow, at least until these young MPs fill up their resumes.
Is election of students another sign MPs are faceless?
Young MPs will be under the microscope
When Parliament resumes, the NDP’s Quebec delegation will include some of the youngest MPs ever elected.
On Monday night, Quebecers elected nine of the 11 university students running as NDP candidates in the province. At least two other new NDP MPs from Quebec are recent graduates.
Among the students is Canada’s youngest MP ever, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, an applied politics student at Université de Sherbrooke.
It definitely seems as though campaigning was optional for NDP candidates in Quebec. Charmaine Borg, one of several McGill students elected, didn’t speak to the local paper in Terrebonne-Blainville, the riding she represents, until election night. She spent most of the campaign in Montreal, helping out with Thomas Mulcair’s reelection effort.
She’s not the only young NDP MP coming under scrutiny, Isabelle Morin, a Université de Sherbrooke student who was elected in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Lachine, did her first interview with the Montreal Gazette on Tuesday. She told the paper that she had, in fact, been campaigning door-to-door in the riding and that, despite earlier reports, she could speak English, an important skill for the representative of a largely anglophone riding.
I probably don’t even need to mention the most infamous of the new NDP MPs, Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the Vegas-vacationing Ottawa bartender who still hasn’t spoken to any media.
The high level of scrutiny these MPs are under probably won’t be letting up soon, media here in Quebec will be watching to see if these new representatives open offices in their ridings and, in some cases, as they meet their constituents for the first time.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about this new crop of MPs.
I’m glad that ordinary young Canadians are taking seats in Parliament. I think that many of these young MPs will end up impressing people. Dusseault, in particular, has proven himself to be quite articulate. Even though most of these new MPs did not expect to win, all of them are engaged with, and clearly active in, Canadian politics, otherwise they would not have stood for election in the first place.
But I am concerned about what the election of these MPs says about the state of our system. None of these candidates were elected because of who they are, their record or their experience. No, they were elected because of the party they represent and that party’s leader.
To me, this is just another sign that MPs have become faceless, interchangeable representatives of their parties, rather than local individuals who represent their communities. There’s a reason we vote for candidates, not for parties or leaders.
Also, I’m a little jealous of these new MPs. They’ll all be looking at annual salaries of over $150,000 for, at least, the next four years.
NDP surge in Quebec could put students into office
10 university students standing as NDP candidates in Quebec
When Thomas Mulcair became the second NDP candidate ever to be elected in Quebec, it had far more to do with his personal popularity than with his party’s.
Mulciar had been the environment minister in Jean Charest’s cabinet and publicly disagreed with the premier on a plan to sell part of a provincial park. When he was demoted, he resigned. Standing up for his convictions may have hurt Mulcair’s career in Quebec City but it certainly didn’t hurt him at the federal ballot box.
Coming into this election, the NDP had its eyes on gaining a couple more seats in Quebec, but had no serious hopes of a massive breakthrough. As a result, in many ridings, the NDP has been willing to stand anyone with a pulse who wants to run. They’re placeholder candidates, whose only purpose is to ensure that the party’s name is on every ballot in the country.
But, with polls showing surprisingly strong for the NDP in Quebec, it caused a stir when one of the candidates took off for Vegas and when the party was unable to tell reporters if another candidate was still planning to take a vacation of her own. There have also been concerns that many of the candidates don’t live in their ridings and haven’t been campaigning.
Interestingly, 10 of the NDP candidates in Quebec are university students and two of them have a pretty good chance of being elected.
Some seat projections are putting Isabelle Morin, a student at Bishop’s University, in the lead in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce–Lachine. The western Montreal riding, which includes urban and suburban areas, has been considered a safe Liberal seat. Current MP Marlene Jennings has never received less than 40 per cent of the vote since she was elected in 1997.
The same seat projections are also suggesting that Elaine Michaud, a masters student at Quebec’s École nationale d’administration publique, could win in the riding of Portneuf–Jacques-Cartier. The suburban riding, which surrounds much of Quebec City, is currently held by André Arthur, an independent who usually votes with the Conservatives.
While I’m not sure how much I trust riding-by-riding seat projections, it doesn’t look like some of the student candidates have much of a chance.
Some of them, like Charmaine Borg, who is standing in the riding of Terrebonne-Blainville, don’t seem to be campaigning at all. A local newspaper in the riding couldn’t even get in contact with her. Borg is the co-president of the NDP club at McGill. The other co-president, Matthew Dubé, is standing in the riding of Chambly-Borduas, just east of Montreal.
Others, like Pierre-Luc Dusseault, look like they’re actually trying to get elected. Dusseault, who is standing in the riding of Sherbrooke, is an applied politics student at Université de Sherbrooke.
Laurin Liu, standing in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, north-west of Montreal, has some electoral experience, she was recently elected as one of the undergraduate representatives on the board of McGill’s campus radio station, CKUT.
If some of these students do get elected, it won’t be the first time Quebec has put a student in to the House of Commons. The youngest MP elected in 2008 was the Bloc Québécois’ Nicolas Dufour, who was 21 at the time. The youngest MP ever was also elected in Quebec; Claude-André Lachance, a Liberal, was 20 when he was elected in Montreal. Luachance got his law degree while he was a sitting MP.
Are youth voters behind the NDP surge in Quebec?
New poll data shows young voters aren’t any more likely to vote for Layton. It’s everyone else who is.
The NDP is surging in Quebec and many point to the party’s popularity among young voters as the reason why. Jack Layton’s progressive message, the logic goes, makes him stand out as a legitimate alternative to Gilles Duceppe among left-leaning voters.
But here’s a problem with that storyline: data from the Historica-Dominion Institute’s poll of young voters suggests there isn’t an NDP surge among Quebec youth at all. Its 2011 Inter-generational Study shows young Quebecers are no more likely to vote NDP now than they were in 2008. Back then, the party captured a mere 12 per cent of the vote in Quebec.
The Historica-Dominion survey gathered the opinions of 831 youth aged 18 to 24, including 189 from Quebec. The NDP was the most popular party among young voters in Quebec, capturing 27 per cent support, while the Liberals got 23 per cent, the Bloc Québécois got 21 per cent, and the Conservatives came last with 8 per cent. (For more results from the study, including a look at which issues matter to young voters, read the next issue of Maclean’s.) Those figures are virtually unchanged from the Institute’s 2008 Youth Election Study, which found 27 per cent of young Quebecers leaning toward the NDP, another 27 per cent supporting the Bloc, 20 per cent behind the Liberals, and 7 per cent leaning Tory.
The youth numbers also mirror last week’s EKOS and CROP polls, give or take a few points. “That seems to indicate the rest of the population is catching up to the youth in considering the NDP rather than a youth surge,” says Allison Harell, a political scientist at the University of Quebec at Montreal. That may be good news for Jack Layton. If his support is more broadly distributed across age groups, she adds, it may translate into more votes on election day. Historically, only about a third of Canadian youth end up voting, compared to nearly two-thirds of the electorate overall.
The big question is whether the current NDP supporters—young or not—will change their minds before election day. Houda Souissi, a 21-year-old labour law student at the University of Montreal has already switched back to Duceppe after a brief dalliance with Layton. After scrutinizing the NDP record, she worries an NDP government could take away provincial powers. She’s also turned-off by Layton’s stance on the long gun registry. Most importantly, she’s wary of inexperienced MPs. “I don’t want to say they’re nobodies,” she says. “But outside of Outremont, we don’t really know who the NDP candidates are.”
Souissi’s worries may be moot come May 3. If the NDP’s surge in the polls translates into actual votes, the party’s Quebec candidates could be well on their way to becoming decidedly mainstream among voters of all ages.
Report seeks to gut Nova Scotia universities
The O’Neill Report needs to go in a drawer right now.
Nova Scotians have lots to be proud of: stunning natural vistas, rich cultural heritage, and a network of universities that, considering the population, is unmatched in Canada.
That last one is under attack, and the first blast of the trumpet was sounded on Friday.
Tim O’Neill’s long-awaited report on Nova Scotia’s university system is out, and rather than offering ways to sustain or enhance one of the province’s social and economic advantages, it reaches for the same old hammer of economists and managers alike: cut, cut, cut.
O’Neill couches his recommendations in conditional phrases and other weasel words, but the pattern quickly becomes clear: never mind the long term consequences, let’s save money where we can right now. Indeed, that principle, long term pain for short term gain, is specifically invoked in his discussion of the idea of a University of Halifax system, an idea that other experts cite as the best opportunity to really save:
While the concept of a University of Halifax is both more logical and more appealing than that of a University of Nova Scotia, it is too large a consolidation effort to contemplate, at least in the current environment. For a government faced with having to impose fiscal restraint, the transition costs for a merger of six institutions would be far too high to seriously contemplate.
A solution that is logical and effective? Never mind that — there’s an election in a few years.
Though the report pretends its recommended changes are modest, they, could, if fully implemented, and adjusting for the bureaucratese in which the document is written, include:
1.Merge the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with Dalhousie
2. Merge the Nova Scotia Agricultural College with Dal and lower funding accordingly.
3. Merge Mount Saint Vincent University with Dal or St Mary’s
4. Make Cape Breton University a technical/transfer college
5. Move Universite Sainte Anne to Halifax
6. Drastically increase tuitions
Modest changes? Hardly. O’Neill’s report would see six institutions change dramatically and affect every single student in the province.
Many of these changes involve mergers which would, one hopes, see most programs remain in tact. The exception is that of Cape Breton University. As a Cape Breton native, O’Neill surely knows that returning higher education on the island to the bad old days of a technical school and a transfer college would be met with fierce opposition, so he pretends not to say it even as he proposes it:
With respect to how to reduce its offerings, CBU could consider eliminating whole programs. An alternative approach would be to eliminate four-year degrees in those areas where it may determine it has more limited capacity to compete. Instead, the first two years of the programs would be offered and arrangements made with other universities to accept the students who have completed these two years into the balance of a four-year degree program. However, this is not a proposal that CBU turn back the clock to its former status as a two-year institution or a junior college. It would still offer degrees, but in a more limited number of areas.
This is classic Orwellian Newspeak. O’Neill proposes canceling programs, turning programs into 2-year transfer options, and then washes his hands by claiming he does not want to “turn back the clock.” But of course, a college with limited degree options and transfer programs was exactly what Cape Breton had in the early 1970s before the formation of what was then UCCB. So O’Neill doesn’t want to turn back the clock; he just wants to go back in time.
Remember that CBU already offers a limited number of offerings as it is: many programs available as 4-year degrees elsewhere (Physics, Classics, Geography, French, Engineering to name just a few) are not available at CBU. To pretend that CBU could continue to call itself a university with significant program reductions at this point is disingenuous. At best, it would survive as a polytechnic school, though O’Neill probably avoids that word, since something similar was proposed for New Brunswick a few years ago and had to be abandoned after being met with public outrage. If O’Neill is seriously maintaining that there should be no genuine university to serve Nova Scotia’s second largest population centre, which he certainly is, he should say so plainly.
These recommendations are particularly egregious since O’Neill is proposing drastically reducing access to university programs in Nova Scotia while at the same time arguing that they should cost students much more. And this after Nova Scotians have already had their taxes raised, taxes that I thought were to help pay for things like education. And what consultant proposed that tax hike? The very same Tim O’Neill.
What we need are thinkers who understand how important universities are to a province and make policy suggestions accordingly. We need more views like this:
Nova Scotia benefits from a strong university system that delivers quality teaching to its students along with research that enhances the environment for innovation. Universities also improve the economic, social and cultural life of the communities in which they operate. [We need] to identify policy options which ensure the long-term viability of the university sector.
And what enlightened observer said that? That’s the very same Tim O’Neill, before he wrote the report. Apparently O’Neill has a strange idea about what “long term” means and what “viability” means. Of course, he didn’t say long term viability for everyone.
It’s worth noting that the government’s own release on the report ignores the biggest potential changes such as eviscerating CBU. One hopes that this is because they know they are non-starters. Put another way, at some point, Nova Scotia’s NDP are going to have to start acting like New Democrats.
To be sure, my own view is that of one person and is necessarily biased. But if bias is the issue, why is so much weight being placed on the necessarily biased view of one bank executive?
I maintain that smart public policy means investing in the long term and playing to one’s strengths. The Nova Scotia university system is one of the province’s strong points. It should be understood as an indispensable component of future prosperity, not a series of bank accounts to be tidied up or emptied. That approach is nothing to be proud of.
McDonough named interim president at Halifax university
Former provincial and federal NDP leader takes the reins at Mount Saint Vincent
Alexa McDonough, the former provincial and federal NDP leader, will be taking over as interim president of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax starting in August.
McDonough will serve as the university’s president for one year while the school looks for a permanent replacement for former president Kathryn Laurin, who was recently announced as the new president of British Columbia’s Camosun College.
Janet MacMillan, chair of the university’s board of governors, told the CBC that McDonough won’t be just a figurehead.
“She’s very much going to come in and provide the leadership and the continuity,” she said. “We’re in the middle of a capital campaign, so to keep that momentum going is really important to us.”
McDonough became the first woman to lead a recognized political party in Canada when she was elected as the leader of Nova Scotia’s New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1980. She held that position for 14 years, and was elected as the leader of the federal NDP in 1995, where she led until 2003. She was a Member of Parliament for Halifax until 2008.
Last month, she received an honorary degree from MSVU.
Tuition rebates don’t keep graduates, jobs do
But that doesn’t make a very good campaign slogan
Nova Scotia is having a provincial election which means politicians of all stripes are taking out half-baked ideas and promising the world.
A popular half-baked idea across the country these days is tuition rebates for recent graduates who stay in a province or, in the case of Saskatchewan, move to another province.
Lenore Zann, an NDP candidate in the NS election, tells The Truno Daily News that she is confident the NDP’s rebate plan will keep recent graduates in the province.
Sure, it will. Where graduates end up is in no way related to where they can find well-paying jobs with their degrees.
Feds wrongly choosing business over humanities: NDP
“Business-related” research gets priority over social work, health and education
The federal government is willingly abandoning social sciences and the humanities in favour of business-related research, which could have devastating effects on thousands of students and academics across the country, according the NDP’s post-secondary education critic.
“Scholarships granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) will be focused on business-related degrees,” reads one line in the Jan. 27 Conservative budget. That’s a statement that has Niki Ashton, the member of Parliament for Churchill, Manitoba, up in arms.
“This is not just an attack on future research, but an attack on research that is actually taking place,” says Ashton. “That the government is stipulating where money from a peer-reviewed, independent research council ought to be spent is wrong.”
When the budget was first released, Ashton says she initially overlooked the detail. However, since starting a petition on her constituency website, she says she has been approached by an “overwhelming” number of academics and students who are concerned what the move will mean for their research in fields including literacy, poverty reduction, education and health care.
So far the petition has gathered more than 17,000 signatures.
The NDP has attacked the decision to direct funds to business-related research as an “abdication” of the goals of the research council and the ideals of a “well-rounded society.”
“This recession will end,” says Ashton, who received a SSHRC grant while studying political economy at Carleton University. “We’re not saying that business doesn’t deserve support, but that this isn’t the way to go about doing it. There should be broad investment in all types of research.”
At a time when the new American administration is putting big money into research, she says it’s an embarrassing choice of words on the part of the feds, but is also setting a dangerous precedent that could give the government of the day an ability to direct funding to disciplines with more political clout.
“We don’t think this is the way to go for Canada,” says Ashton. “It’s only one sentence, but it’s one sentence that says so much.”
CFS opposes government economic update
Isn’t it the mandate of the CFS to lobby on behalf of students, not political parties?
At the CFS conference that was held this past weekend, the organization opposed the economic update presented by the government. Below is the text of the motion, that can also be found on La Rotunde’s Celine Basto’s blog.
Whereas the federal conservative government has tabled an economic update that ignores the need for investment in public infrastructures and furthers an ideological agenda through reckless tax cuts and wrongheaded limitation of union rights ; and
Whereas investment in accessible public post-secondary education is an important economic stimulus and a proactive measure for promoting economic stability in a knowledge-based society; and
Whereas in a minority parliament, opposition parties have the power to work together to oppose regressive policies and pass policies that reflect the priorities and interests of the majority of Canadians ; therefore
Be it resolved that the November federal economic update be strongly opposed ; and
Be it further resolved that the opposition parties be called upon to work together to oppose the economic update and to develop a plan to increase funding for public infrastructure, including a dedicated provincial transfer for post-secondary education that promotes national standards in quality and affordability.
Normally, the CFS’ (or any lobby group for that matter) opposition or endorsement of government legislation would be rather mundane and routine. But the context surrounding this particular economic update is definitely not routine. The Liberals and NDP have been in widely reported talks aimed at toppling the Conservatives and installing a new coalition government over the update.
Is the endorsement of a new coalition government what is meant by calling on the opposition “to work together to oppose the economic update and to develop a plan to increase funding for public infrastructure”? The phrasing is admittedly vague, but what else, given the context, could it mean?
The CFS is not simply calling for a specific action to be taken, as they do during election campaigns when they (appear) to lobby all parties to endorse particular policies. Here they are calling for specific action from specific political parties, the result of such action could be the installation of a new government. One wonders if the CFS has abandoned whatever veneer of non-partisanship they may have had.
One also wonders what regular students, those who fund the CFS, think of the organization offering an implicit endorsement of a change of government? Since when is that in the mandate students supposedly give the CFS when they vote to federate?
Is it not the mandate of the CFS to lobby on behalf of students, and not political parties? If the Tories survive the next few weeks, this makes it all that much more easy for the organization to be dismissed as an extension of the opposition.
Thousands of students march to protest tuition fees
Protesters say they blame Premier McGuinty for allowing fees to rise as much as eight per cent annually
Thousands of college and university students chanted slogans and marched through the streets of 14 Ontario cities Wednesday as part of a provincewide campaign calling on the Ontario government to slash tuition fees.
In Toronto, the protesters marched to the provincial legislature for a rally and blamed the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty for cancelling a tuition freeze in 2006 and allowing fees to rise as much as eight per cent annually.
“Dalton McGuinty has betrayed us time and time again,” Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario chairwoman Shelley Melanson told the students gathered at Queen’s Park outside the legislature.
“Students across Ontario are fed up with McGuinty simply paying lip service to accessibility. Today we are demanding concrete action to drop fees.”
Melanson noted that when McGuinty went to law school, tuition cost $700 a year, compared to the $20,000 it now costs at the University of Toronto.
Students also held similar rallies in Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Orillia, Ottawa, Peterborough, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Windsor.
The protesters cited Statistics Canada data released last month that indicated students in Ontario pay an average of more than $5,643 in tuition per year for an undergraduate arts program. That makes Ontario’s average fees the second-highest in Canada, behind Nova Scotia.
Jay Han, a second-year University of Toronto physiology student, said Ontario’s fees are too high and force students to take on part-time jobs to make ends meet.
“I think it’s a little bit too much for someone that wants to study at the same time as well,” Han said.
Crystie Doell, a University of Toronto biology student, said it’s difficult for medical students to find enough time for both studies and work.
“All you want to do is become a doctor and help other people, but we can’t even do that because we don’t have enough money,” Doell said. “It’s not fair.”
Federal NDP Leader Jack Layton and his wife, MP Olivia Chow, addressed the protesters along the march route from atop a flatbed truck.
“Right now, the barriers of tuition fees and student debt are standing in the way of your dreams,” Layton said. “Let’s lower those barriers.”
The march also featured a symbolic stop in front of the building housing the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
Security officials at the legislature estimated the crowd size at about 3,000, while police estimated it could have been as high as 5,000.
John Milloy, the province’s minister of training, colleges and universities, insisted Ontario’s post-secondary funding approach is reasonable.
“What you’ve got to do is you’ve got to balance issues around fees,” Milloy said. “We have a framework in place, a very thoughtful framework that came about after two years of discussion.
“You’ve got to balance it with student assistance, and we have … a very generous student assistance program.”
Milloy met Wednesday evening with three representatives of the student federation about their concerns.
Melanson said the student group was “disappointed” with the meeting with Milloy.
“Minister Milloy didn’t bring any new information to the table,” Melanson said Wednesday night.
Melanson said the students plan to continue to press the government to listen to their concerns.
“We are quite confident that the only way we are really going to be able to change the minister’s mind is by having continued actions,” she said.
Last month, students submitted more than 50,000 petition signatures calling on the government to drop tuition fees and establish a new framework to increase Ontario’s per-student funding level to the national average.
-The Canadian Press
The Individuals of an Election, Part I: Ujjal Dosanjh
Well, another Canadian federal election is underway… We thought we’d offer a small contribution to the debate by adding a more “human” element. Although it can be said that, unlike with our American friends, politics up here mostly ignores the characters involved in favour of more policy-centred coverage. If we have foresaken the cult of [...]
Well, another Canadian federal election is underway…
We thought we’d offer a small contribution to the debate by adding a more “human” element. Although it can be said that, unlike with our American friends, politics up here mostly ignores the characters involved in favour of more policy-centred coverage. If we have foresaken the cult of ego, the unfortunate result is that we inspire rather, well, uninspiring individuals to the helm of major national parties.
Since some of the contributors to our book, Kickstart: How Successful Canadians Got Started, are very much involved in the election, set to occur on October 14, we thought we’d highlight a few aspects of their early stories.
Here’s what Ujjal Dosanjh, the Liberal Member of Parliament who is defending his seat in Vancouver South, told us about his first experience running for office in 1979:
“It was a difficult campaign. It may seem normal now to have people from different backgrounds in politics, but in that time there weren’t very many. So when I ran, sometimes I’d go to the doorstep, knock on the door and somebody would open it. Before I even said something, the door would shut on me. That was pretty disheartening. But I persevered… and lost.”
That experience was with the provincial NDP in British Columbia. After eventually leading that party (and the province), he opted for the Liberals when he decided to run federally.
For more about Ujjal’s story, click here.
Educating Jim
Flaherty’s Feb 26 budget promises big news on student loans, scholarships, new money for research
The Conservative government may reduce the interest rate on Canada Student Loans in the 2008 budget to be released next week, according to sources close to key decision makers.
Monte Solberg, minister of Human Resources and Social Development Canada, has said to expect major policy changes for the Canada Student Loan Program in the budget. The announcements will be the result of a year-long review of the program conducted by Solberg’s office. But the government has been very quiet on just what these changes will entail.
Be here on February 26 starting at 4pm EST for full coverage of the 2008 Budget.
However, multiple sources say that the government may reduce the interest rate on federal student loans. The budget is also expected to include major announcements about research and development funding and the future of the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation.
“We’ve heard that interest rates are a key priority for the government,” said Julian Benedict, co-founder of the Coalition for Student Loan Fairness. His advocacy group has been pushing for the elimination or reduction of interest on student loans. Benedict also expects policy changes that will assist graduate students, with an emphasis on technology research.
Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives announced a plan to cut provincial student loan interest rates in their post-secondary education platform this week. Nova Scotia also recently slashed rates.
The federal student loan program has received considerable criticism in recent months stemming from media reports claiming that the system is “broken.” For instance, Maclean’s reported that two thirds of applicants are being denied the student loan disability assistance program even if they receive disability support from their provincial government.
Critics have also drawn attention to the program’s interest rates and alleged poor customer service and communication. Some borrowers have been forced to file freedom of information requests to get information about their own loans. Others brought complaints directly to their MPs after not being able to resolve them directly with the program. This has lead to critics calling for a student loan ombudsperson.
Solberg’s review was announced in the 2007 federal budget. Although critics feared that the scope was too narrow — addressing only bureaucratic efficiencies — it seems that through consultations it has heard about problems with everything from costs to ineffective programs.
“I think there is a pretty good chance that the government will reduce the interest rate on student loans,” said Ian Boyko, campaigns coordinator for the Canadian Federation of Students. While Boyko believes that reducing the interest rate would alleviate pressure on borrowers, he is hesitant to applaud the move. “We wouldn’t consider that as a significant attack on student debt.”
The CFS has been lobbying the government to launch a federal system of needs-based grants. The organization argues that it is the upfront costs of education that prevents young people from accessing post-secondary. “There is a certain sticker shock, or debt aversion, that many families experience,” said Boyko.
This sentiment is also behind the CFS’ position on the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation. The mandate of the foundation that awards federal scholarships and bursaries is set to expire in 2009 and an announcement about its fate is expected on February 26.
The foundation has distributed half a million bursaries and scholarships worth about $2.2 billion since 2000. $325 million is disbursed annually.
The CFS has long opposed the foundation, accusing it of being unaccountable to taxpayers because of its status as a private foundation. They have urged the government to replace the foundation with a government-run, needs-based grant program.
Denise Savoie, NDP post-secondary education critic, called the foundation a “fundamentally flawed vehicle for delivering financial aid” in a January open letter to Minister Solberg. She explained in an interview that regardless of the fate of the foundation, it’s crucial that the funding stay in some kind of grant system.
Many other student groups have urged the government to extend the foundation’s mandate. The Canadian Association of Student Associations says students are concerned about the “looming $350 million hole in Canada’s financial aid system.” The government should commit to the future funding of the Foundation, which significantly affects accessibility to post-secondary education, according to the group.
Although the Coalition for Student Loan Fairness does not have a position regarding the Canada Millennium Foundation, Benedict cautions that rolling the program into the Canada Student Loan Program could be dangerous. “We have serious questions about the ability of the Canada Student Loan Program to even manage the programs it has effectively,” he said.
Although relief may be coming for borrowers, further increases in transfer payments to provinces to fund universities and colleges are not expected. “We know that the $800 million they announced last year is coming,” said Savoie. “There will no further announcements.”
Boyko acknowledged that the $800 million was substantial but cautioned that a framework was necessary to ensure that the transfer payments actually go to post-secondary education, not other provincial projects.
Savoie is also concerned about the possibility of changes to research and development funding. “I’ve been hearing from quite a lot of people – not just universities – that they are concerned about the way research is going,” she said. “We have to find a way to ensure that research funding doesn’t just go to an organization that happened to agree with the ideology of the government.”
