Steven Del Duca, the newly-elected leader of the Ontario Liberal party, visited Carleton University just three days before the school shut down classes due to COVID-19.
Meeting 15 students in the Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA)’s office on the afternoon of March 10, Del Duca spoke about hot topic issues affecting university students such as the Student Choice Initiative (SCI), OSAP cuts and changes, and high living costs.
In addition to visiting Carleton University, where he took a year’s worth of classes in 1992, Del Duca said he had also travelled to Windsor the same day of the RRRA meeting and would be travelling to Thunder Bay next on his campaigning trail.
“I wanted to come out to get on the road right away,” Del Duca said of his public appearances just three days after he was elected Ontario Liberal leader on March 7.
“I wanted to come out to a campus,” he said. “Having a chance to talk with all the students is just fantastic.”
“It’s important when students have the opportunity to speak to elected officials, no matter the level of government or political party that the politicians are part of,” RRRA president Douglas Cochrane said of hosting the event.
As for the turnout, Cochrane said the event was a bit smaller because it was planned the day before and there is limited space available in the RRRA office.
“We didn’t have the space for it really,” he said. “It was such a quick turnaround that it wasn’t really something where you could make, like, posters or anything like that.”
Despite the fairly low number of attendees, Cochrane said he was happy to see some diversity.
“It was good to have students from different backgrounds—both male and female, and, you know, everyone else—kind of be a part of the conversation,” he said. “It’s much more advantageous to have that representation than to not have it.”
“Specifically in the realm of public education, restoring the programming, the funding that existed on June the sixth of 2018—including the kind of OSAP funding and support that we had in place—would be one of my number one priorities for sure,” he said.
When asked how sustainable restoring the previous level of funding would be long-term, Del Duca said education is the key to a thriving economy.
“The government can absolutely afford to do it,” he said. “The creation of a world-leading pool of talent based on an education system is our single best economic policy.”
“In fact, it’s destroying, or will undermine and destroy, the economy if we don’t have that pool of talent available,” he added.
“Even if that means we have to make other decisions and other priorities, investing in public education at all levels should be the provincial government’s number one priority.”
Although Del Duca said he was “not going to get all partisan,” he couldn’t resist taking a few jabs at the Ford administration.
“It’s not about me, it’s not about us, it’s about all of you,” he said. “That’s what I believe will help going forward.”
“And I promise not to change the license plates,” he added, which was met with laughter from students.
“I’m far more focused on the things that will actually help us,” Del Duca continued. “When you have to deal with a real plan for the climate crisis, or public education, or public healthcare, or a good economy that’s fair and prosperous—why you’d be obsessed with things like license plates is completely beyond me.”
While Del Duca said he was “not surprised” to hear students are displeased with OSAP changes, high living costs and the SCI, given he had heard similar sentiments throughout his leadership campaign, he said it was “good to know people are keen to see positive change coming.”
Featured image by Tim Austen.
