On freezing tuition fees
Last Wednesday’s Central Student Association (CSA) board meeting, I put forward a motion for the finance and operations commissioner and academic and university affairs commissioner to make the demand for a freeze in tuition fees in their budget presentation to the board of governors. A majority of the CSA board of directors decided against supporting the call for a freeze at this time.
I was told I am not doing a good job representing students in calling for a freeze in tuition fees. And yet, I spend every Thursday talking to students to ask them to support worker’s unions on campus and talking to them about high tuition fees. The majority agree the board of governors should freeze tuition fees and put pressure on the provincial and federal government to provide more funding for post-secondary education.
I was also told I am misinforming students by telling them a freeze in tuition fees would pressure governments for more funding. At this point, I am unsurprised by these personal attacks against my ability to represent students and my character. When people don’t have good arguments to justify their position, they turn to personal attacks.
Education should be free, accessible, public, and of high-quality. There’s no question our society has the resources for this. But these institutions are controlled by corporate interests and senior admin, which care more about their careers and looking good in front of the Liberal Party than actually sticking up for students.
Unfortunately, at this school, we have “student leaders” who know which side they are on: they are on the side of corporate interests and senior admin and will not protest with students against tuition fees.
It shouldn’t be this way. I encourage students to show up to the CSA meeting March 3 at 6 p.m., where CSA board members are threatening to delete CSA policy, which mandates the student union to call for freezes in tuition fees.
—Peter Miller
So shameful, and yet unsurprising from this year’s executive.
Peter, while at times retorts seem personal, and no doubt some are, there are valid criticisms of your stance. You’ve been told you’re misinforming students, perhaps a better way to put it is that you are not fully informing students in some manner. You make bold claims like “There’s no question our society has the resources for this” in reference to free education, but I and others have not heard from you any statistics that imply society could afford free education, and thus I have doubt. I have also heard you speak of protest in Quebec that froze tuition, but this is Ontario not Quebec; are the political and financial situations between us so similar that it’s simply “protest and tuition will freeze?”
While I have no doubt that you care greatly about the large financial burden on students, I must say that you are entirely too dismissive of your opponents point of view, and too ready to jump to conspiracy theories that many of your fellow students have essentially been bought off or intimidated by the University Administration. I hope you will come to see that not everyone who disagrees with you on something is your enemy, I certainly do not see you as mine.