Students from Carleton University, University of Ottawa, Algonquin College, and Collège La Cité gathered Tuesday afternoon to protest recent cuts to OSAP grant funding.
The protest, organized by local student organizations, started at the Ottawa Courthouse, and protesters ended their route marching to Parliament Hill.
Students led chants like “OSAP, ASAP,” with uOttawa Students’ Union’s advocacy commissioner Alex Stratus and Carleton University Students’ Association’s vice-president of student issues Aidan Kallioinen* riling up the crowd.
Kallioinen said CUSA organized the protest out of worry for students.
“When the provincial government makes decisions that are contrary to the interests of the majority of our students — the students that rely directly on OSAP and provincial grants — we’re going to do something. We’re going to act. We’re going to speak out,” he said.
Kallioinen said he believes the protest was well-attended because of the long-term stakes of the OSAP cuts.
“I’m thinking about what students are going to experience five or 10 years down the road, whether that’s more long-term debt (or) making a conscious choice not to pursue a post-secondary education,” Kallioinen said.
Chloé LeBlanc, a fourth-year political science and feminist and gender studies student at the University of Ottawa, said she relies on OSAP.
“I’m here because I think it’s crazy that OSAP is getting cut,” she said. “I rely on OSAP to pay my rent, pay tuition, pay for groceries, and I kind of got blindsided.”
“I’m here because Doug Ford is cutting OSAP, and that’s not right. I protested against him in Grade 8, and I’m doing it again in third-year because he keeps cutting education,” she said.
She said OSAP should go back to offering more grants.
“You’re going to stop people from going to university. It’s going to lower the education in our country,” she said.
Ruth Lau MacDonald, a National Capital Region representative for the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said students are struggling to pay for their education.
“If (graduates) are feeling it — I’ve been out of school for eight years — I can only imagine what the pressure is like for students who are still at our universities and colleges in Ontario,” MacDonald, a Carleton alum, said.
“It’s brutal.”
She praised the protest’s student organizers.
“You’ve got some folks with some really fantastic energy,” she said. “It’s great to see (protests) by students, for students.”
MacDonald said she’s calling on Ford to backpedal.
“I hope he course corrects and he keeps those grants in place because they help people complete their education with a level of dignity, food on the table and some hope for the future.”
Featured image by Nathan Cox/the Charlatan
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