The City of Ottawa transit committee voted unanimously to support a motion asking city council to reverse its decision on an age limit for student bus passes at a meeting Sept. 1.
At an earlier city council meeting in December council voted to cap the age for the student bus discount at 27. The decision came into effect July 1, and now requires students over the age of 27 to pay the adult price for a bus pass.
The cap will cost older students about $220 more per year and will bring in an estimated $220,000 of annual revenue for the city.
The transit committee heard from delegations from the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), Carleton’s Graduate Students’ Association, the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Algonquin College Student Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 4600.
“This will affect roughly 3,300 Carleton students,” CUSA president Erik Halliwell said in his statement to the committee. “This is tantamount to a 5 per cent tuition fee hike.”
“A student is a student no matter what your age is,” Halliwell said.
“We are challenging you to change your perception of a student,” said Doug Wotherspoon, director of advancement at Algonquin College. “Today students come in all ages.”
Forty-nine per cent of Algonquin’s students have an average annual household income of $33,000 or less, Wotherspoon said, and 20 per cent of full-time students and the “vast majority” of part-time students are older than 27.
“This was a money grab, pure and simple,” agreed city councillor Jacques Legendre, speaking in support of the motion. He said the cap targeted “some of the most vulnerable, and at the same time most talented.”
Councillor Clive Doucet said the debate wouldn’t exist if the city created a universal bus pass. “This is not a trivial problem – it affects people’s lives.”
Now that the committee has approved the motion, it will be revisited by city council at a meeting Sept. 9. In order to abolish the price cap, 18 of the 24 councillors must vote for it.
“I’m glad you folks have stood up and said ‘This is wrong,’” said councillor Alex Cullen, committee chair. But he warned it would be difficult to convince council to revisit the budget, which would have to be rebalanced to make up for the lost revenue the age cap would have generated.
“Does this mean some other program gets cut? Where does this money come from?” Cullen said. “This is eight votes – I suggest you find 10 more.”
Halliwell said the committee’s decision is “a good one.” CUSA will be speaking with other city councillors before the Sept. 9 council meeting, and is collecting signatures from the Ottawa community for support.
Although Halliwell wouldn’t comment on where he thinks the lost revenue should come from, he emphasized that “students should be a priority in the city.”