Canadian Universities and Access 2000

Ellie Kennedy Canadian Universities and Access 2000 In theory, every Canadian has access to higher education. Canadian universities are virtually all state funded and controlled, which means (again, theoretically) that they are open to anyone with reasonable grades, and they are not subject to private interests or the corporate obsession with profit. The downside is that they are susceptible to the whims of governments. As a result of the mid-1990s drive to achieve balanced budgets, both federal and provincial governments cut their education budgets to the quick, and universities were hard hit. Ultimately, the burden falls on the shoulders of the students, who have seen tuition hikes of over 300% during the last ten years. In someprovinces, there is talk of total deregulation, which would see Canadian tuition fees (still relatively low by American standards) reach levels comparable with those south of the border. Scholarships and Teaching Assistantships have not kept pace with this increase. Already, some graduate students are finding that their funding packages barely cover tuition. And because fees have traditionally been so low, tuition remission is virtually unheard-of in Canadian universities. ACCESS 2000, affectionately known as "A2K," is the Canadian Federation of Students' (CFS) year-long campaign for a universally accessible, high quality system of higher education in Canada. A2K is about protesting federal government cutbacks to post-secondary education and calling for a reinvestment of $3.7 billion, as well as tuition freezes and a system of grants rather than loans. The campaign loudly announced its presence with a pan-Canadian Day of Action on February 2, designed to give a clear message to the federal government a few short weeks before the 2000 budget. "In survey after survey," said the CFS, "Canadians place a high priority on spending, in the form of transfers for health care, education , and employment initiatives. If Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Finance Minister Paul Martin care about what Canadians think, theywill focus on these areas, and not on tax cuts." The government's response was, however, another band-aid solution: the February 2000 budget announced a paltry Can$2.5 billion to be shared between health care and education over the next four years. Undeterred, the CFS campaign continued. Although some issues differ from province to province, during Access 2000, students across Canada raised their voices in unified protest. The following are some of the highlights of the Access 2000 protest campaign. On Friday, January 14, students welcomed Finance Minister Paul Martin to Winnipeg. Martin was in town for a $100-a-plate Liberal 282 the minnesota review Party fundraiser, and students rolled out the red carpet for him. A "red carpet" of money, with slogans that read "reinvest the surplus" and "tax cuts don't cut it" was rolled out in the main lobby of the Lombard Hotel. Students gave out pamphlets that called on Martin to invest the surplus in social programmes. During the University of Victoria Students' Society strike vote, students were also given an opportunity to fax Finance Minister Paul Martin, asking him to give back the $7 billion cut from higher education over the past ten years. Martin responded by turning off his fax machine. Lakehead University students in Thunder Bay, Ontario camped out in sub-zero weather to raise awareness about the importance of freezing tuition feesand expanding access to higher education. They ended their "Freezin' to Freeze Fees" camp-out on February 2 to join the students rallying across the country. The 1998 "Education Budget" announced the creation of a Millennium Scholarship Foundation, a $2.5 billion endowment fund, to be issued to undergraduate students in merit- and need-based awards, administered by a private foundation over ten years. This was billed as an aid to reducing student debt, but in fact the opposite has proved to be true in some provinces, where scholarship money has been substituted for already-existing provincial financial aid. Worse, scholarship income is taxable, whereas loan-forgiveness is not, hence students "lucky" enough to receive a Millennium Scholarship can actually end up worse off. Hundreds of students said "thanks, but no thanks," and gave their so-called scholarship back. Several Canadian Universities organized a debt...