Sid Ryan, Guest Columnist
Article Appeared in Print Edition: Saturday, June 2, 2012
Read the article on the Toronto Sun website and share your comments
Quebec is currently gripped in a not-so-quiet revolution and, in an ironic twist, it is the children of the ’60s and ’70s who led an era of momentous social upheaval who are today’s decision-makers, responsible for stripping young people of the rights and benefits that previous generations fought so hard to secure.
Unfortunately, this irony is lost on Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who sparked a massive student strike — now in its 111th day —by proposing a 75% increase to college and university tuition fees over the next five years. Consider that Charest himself paid only $540 a year for his law tuition fees at the University of Sherbrooke back in 1981 because increases were banned for over 20 years.
And Charest is not alone. Branding their re-engineering of the social safety net as “austerity,” baby boomer politicians at every level are championing a stunning double standard that plots to pull up the ladder in health care, post-secondary education, Employment Insurance and Old Age Security, just after their generation has taken full advantage of each.
More than 150,000 college and university students are on strike and hundreds of thousands of supporters from all ages and backgrounds have joined their near daily protests.
Yet it took Premier Charest over 100 days to personally meet with student leaders to hear their concerns and, ostensibly, attempt to begin negotiating an end to the strike. It is stunning when you think of it. Try to imagine any government in Canada displaying a similar ambivalence to the business community lobbyists.
It’s recent corporate tax giveaways in the face of budget deficits that put the lie to the argument that governments cannot afford important social programs that provide modest protections for working people. It’s all about priorities.
Twenty years ago, in my home country of Ireland, the economy was backward and the workforce was ill-equipped for the global economy.
The government made the bold decision to abolish tuition fees in 1997 and the Celtic Tiger roared. In less than a decade, the Irish economy was transformed into a high-tech leader. While the Irish economy has since been devastated by banking sector greed, Ireland remains one of 20 countries in the OECD that charge no or nominal fees for higher learning. It is time that Canada followed suit and Quebec students are showing us this way.
In Ontario, a four-year degree for an average student living at home costs $55,000 and with fees climbing at twice the rate of inflation, that cost is expected to leap to $102,000 in the next 18 years. Graduates begin their careers with an average debt of $37,000.
With more than 70% of new jobs requiring a post-secondary education, it makes little sense that our young people should pay any fees at all. As for paying the bill? If only $170 of the roughly $500 in taxes that every household pays annually for Ontario’s corporate tax cuts were re-directed to higher education, university could be free for every student.
But how to convince our government to shift priorities?
Quebec students have provided the answer: Ontario’s students and their families need to take this message to the streets this fall and keep on striking until the government rolls back our punishingly high tuition fees.
After all, none of us can afford the price of silence.
— Ryan is President of the Ontario Federation of Labour
