Hundreds of university students, alumni, activists, and union members marched onto Parliament Hill Feb. 1 to lobby the federal government for greater access to post-secondary education.
The rally was part of an an annual, student-organized initiative called the National Day of Action.
Beating drums, waving signs and chanting, the crowd settled at the steps in front of the Peace Tower and listened to speakers address a range of issues related university education and accessibility.
Organized each year by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and set in cities across the country, the National Day of Action has three main goals: to reduce tuition fees, drop student debt and increase education funding.
Roxanne Dubois, national chairperson for the CFS, said the protest is a chance to demonstrate public support for affordable education. She said the CFS wants to see the federal government take responsibility for increased access to education.
“In Canada, we have a vision for health care at the federal level even though it is a provincial responsibility. It has a responsibility to maintain a certain level of access to health care,” Dubois said. “We would like to see that for education. This would reduce the huge disparities between the provinces, which would have an incentive to have provinces reduce tuition fees.”
Mike Hons, a fourth-year economics and business student at Carleton, said he’s about to graduate with $26,000 in debt. Hons said he doesn’t want his younger siblings to graduate with the same problems.
Hons said the Ontario provincial government’s new grant, implemented in January 2012 offering eligible students a 30 per cent reduction of tuition fees, isn’t enough.
“It is only accessible to some students. Being out of high school for over five years makes you ineligible,” Hons said. “Being a part-time student makes you ineligible. Being a graduate student makes you ineligible. Being an international student makes you ineligible. Being not in good standing makes you ineligible as well.”
Jackie Boulding, a first-year political science student at the University of Ottawa, said the debt students currently have to manage is too much to handle.
“[Getting an education] should be for the sake of education, not for the sake of getting out and being able to get a job and paying your student loans back,” Boulding said. “Because during university [debt] is all students are thinking about.”
Despite multiple large gatherings across the country, there are still students who oppose the CFS’s efforts.
Justin Campbell, a computer science councillor for the Carleton University Students’ Association, said the protests are a waste of student’s money and lobbying the federal government is a waste of time.
“Money was spent on flyers, posters, breakfasts, coach buses to go downtown . . . advertising,” Campbell said. “If you want to see tuition fees reduced in the short-term, which is what this is about, you should be lobbying Queen’s Park and the provincial government.”
CUSA vice-president (student issues) Chantle Beeso said exact numbers on how much was spent on the campaign aren’t yet available. But CUSA specifically didn’t spend money on the T-shirts, posters or signs — they came from the national CFS office, Beeso said. CUSA did, however, spend its own money on buses to transport participants from Carleton to the University of Ottawa for the events, and on newspaper and bus advertisements, she added.
According to the CFS, the average student with debt owes $25,000 by graduation and public funding has dropped from 81 per cent of operating costs of universities 20 years ago to 57 per cent today. Tuition has risen from 14 per cent of operating funding to more than 35 per cent.
