Students deliver 50,000 petitions to Ontario gov't

HAMILTON (CUP) — Students rolled out thousands of petitions onto the lawn of Ontario's legislature in Toronto, and presented tens of thousands to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's constituency office in Ottawa.

Increased tuition fees, insufficient funding, and the current economic crisis have motivated over 50,000 students to send in signatures.

“Reaching Higher,” McGuinty's post-secondary framework, was one of the topics addressed in the petition.

The provincial government has increased funding for post-secondary education, but many students and lobby groups say this isn't enough.

“No one would deny that the Ontario government has sunk more money into post-secondary education,” said Shelley Melanson, Ontario chairperson for the Canadian Federation of Students, Canada's largest student lobby group.

But, tuition rates continue to rise, and students are graduating with more debt than ever before.

The petitions delivered on October 22 call on the government to reduce tuition and ancillary fees for all students in the province. They also ask that a portion of all student loans be converted into grants.

“We knew the government was going to be making an announcement on the state of the economy and giving an update on the budget,” said Melanson.

“Like many places in the world, Ontario is facing an economic downturn. What we are trying to argue is that one of the best ways to alleviate a poor economy and to strengthen it is to invest in post-secondary education.”

Statistics Canada released a report in early October that said tuition fees in Ontario increased at the highest dollar amount in Canada. This has pushed Ontario's tuition fees for an undergraduate degree to the second highest in the country, after Nova Scotia.

She says federal and provincial funding was cut during the 1990s, and tuition fees have gone up by 350 per cent since 1991, four times the rate of inflation.

Melanson says the biggest issue with McGuinty's “Reaching Higher” plan is increased tuition fees along with increased loan limits.

“I guess the theory the government has is that by increasing loan limits, you're increasing access, because people have the ability to cover the new cost of education,” she said.

“The problem is [the plan] creates a significant graduation debt. For most students, the average debt for a four-year degree is quickly approaching $28,000.”

She says Canada is experiencing enormous job losses within the manufacturing industry and a shift toward a knowledge-based economy. Most new listed jobs in Canada require some form of post-secondary education.

While fees go up, class sizes are increasing as well, says McMaster University professor Richard Day, an expert in the quality of undergraduate education.

“We have much larger classes in most institutions now. We haven't had the amount of funding from the government that would allow us to do faculty renewal,” said Day.

He says that while more funding is needed, the quality of education hasn't changed.

“If you look at what a quality education means, it is always dependant on the effort the student puts in to learn things, and I don't think that has changed over the years at all,” said Day.

On November 5, the Canadian Federation of Students will be hosting an Ontario-wide Day of Action to call for accessible post-secondary education. Marches and rallies will take place across the province.

“Students are going to continue to escalate until we see our demands met,” said Melanson. “It's really important for us that we take this opportunity now to address these issues before they get completely out of control.”