UWindsor students to McGuinty: Fax off
By Clarissa Guyton
Lance Writer
November 12, 2008
 On Nov. 5, students at the University of Windsor took a stand to reduce tuition fee hikes set in place by the government headed by Ontario premier, Dalton McGuinty. The date was officially titled by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) as the Day of Action in which 358 students participated.
In September of last year, McGuinty vetoed the decision to freeze tuition fee hikes, which would have put a stop to an increase of four to eight per cent each year. With three-quarters of the country agreeing that tuition fees should be reduced, it’s no wonder this type of rally has come to pass.
With tuition fees at an all time high, the CFS has created more of a buzz, which has resulted in more students and schools getting involved. On the UWindsor campus, Windsor’s Day of Action rally consisted of continuously faxing petitions to McGuinty’s Ottawa office.
Due to the strike aftermath, the CFS decided that an all out protest would require more preparation and so they settled for faxing off petitions.
“We set up a fax machine in the CAW (Centre) so students [could] write their concerns, how much debt they’re in, and any type of messages they [wanted sent] out to the central government,” said Lauren Quinn, the event coordinator.
“We’re going to send them out so that their fax machines will be completely clogged up and they can’t ignore us,” she added.
For the last two decades, there has been a decrease in government funding for postsecondary education. This has led the provincial government and, consequently, individual universities and colleges to raise tuition and other fees.
Statistics show that in the early 1990s, user fees used to make up about 21 per cent of a post-secondary school’s operating budget.
Currently, it is stated that the same user fees are now covering over 50 per cent of the school’s budget; this is more than double what it was over 10 years ago.
Those numbers were enough for many students to get involved, including Darryl Gallinger, a fourth-year history and English major at the University of Windsor.
“One of my friends contacted me during the strike about how he had connections with the CFS and how they wanted Windsor to be part of the Day of Action protest,” Gallinger said.
“Since most of the other major Universities in Ontario had already implemented this rally, I took it upon myself to get Windsor involved,” said Gallinger. “I have always been interested in doing stuff around the school with the hope that I could help change things.”
According to Ontario’s provincial policy, tuition fees for domestic students would see a 20 to 36 per cent increase over the next four years. Those numbers place Ontario among the highest in the country and last for per-student funding in Canada.
|
