Ontario NDP launches new website
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath launched a new website aimed at bringing awareness to the issue of student loan debt. The goal of the new site, according to a press release from the NDP, is to help put an end to student debt by “Collecting stories from young people about how it is affecting them.”
In a press conference on Nov. 7, Horwath said, “This is a first step in addressing the crisis of student debt in Ontario and it is an important one.”
According to the new site, endstudentdebt.ca, Ontario has the highest average tuition fees in the country. Several students and graduates stood by Horwath’s side as she announced the roll-out of this new venture.
One of these young people was Ahmad Moussaoui, a 26-year-old graduate from Windsor, Ont. Moussaoui created an online petition that already has the support of over 60,000 people. The goal of the petition, Moussaoui explained in an interview with The Ontarion, is student loan forgiveness, or at the very least, interest-free loans.
The petition is going to be presented formally to parliament, looking for a response from the Liberal government. In the meantime, endstudentdebt.ca is a forum for students to share their struggles with loan debt.
In February, along with the 2016 budget, the provincial Liberal government announced the updated Ontario Student Grant. The changes to the OSAP program will make it possible for 150,000 students to have average tuition covered by grants. While this plan has the capability to dramatically improve access for low-income students, nothing has yet been done to address those students who already have excessive student loans.
The new website states that, “The government makes over $25 million dollars of profit annually off interest payments from student loans. That’s not right. And it has to stop.”
Rajean Hoilett, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, is also in support of the NDP’s new campaign to eliminate interest on student loans. For the CFS, interest-free loans are the goal of their Fight the Fees campaign which mobilized thousands of students.
“We hope that this is the first step in realizing students’ vision for a high-quality system of college and university that is free of financial barriers and accessible to all,” Hoilett said during the Nov. 7 press conference.
As far as next steps for the campaign, Moussaoui told The Ontarion, “It’s only going to stay relevant as long as people keep talking about it,” adding that in order to make student loan debt a real issue, it must be kept in the news. For Moussaoui and the NDP, the goal right now is to keep people talking about the issue, at least until the outcome of the petition is known.
Photo by Mariah Bridgeman.