Ryerson University's Attack on Student Democracy

By Ivan Byard

This article was initially published in People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper

On January 24 Ryerson University in Toronto broke its 1986 operating agreement with the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU). The university’s justification was that a new operating agreement had not been finalized, following allegations of improper use of RSU funds by members of the 2018-2019 Executive. This is a thinly veiled excuse to attack the democratic rights of students. The RSU remained actively engaged in negotiations with the university to enter into a new operating agreement and remains willing to make concessions, but not at the risk of jeopardizing their autonomy and ability to effectively advocate for students. The union was in fact hours away from sending over a new draft of the agreement when they received the university’s statement terminating the agreement and derecognizing the RSU as representing students on campus. The RSU nonetheless provided the university with a draft agreement the same day.

A history for student sturggle for unity (2)

Divisions and current challenges

by Drew Garvie
To oppose the militancy of the CFS, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) was founded in June of 1995 with help from mainly the Liberal Party, but also from the Conservatives. Its tactics do not include any member mobilization and instead focus entirely on lobbying and photo opportunities with politicians. CASA and its provincial affiliates have distinguished themselves by frequently supporting rises in tuition fees over the last 25 years. Its capture by governments and the Liberal party remains and students cannot call it a truly independent student federation.

The history of student union federations in English-speaking Canada (1)

A history of student struggle for unity
by Drew Garvie

The student movement has a long, proud history of struggle across Canada. This issue of Rebel Youth is going to print as the Canadian Federation of Students, English Canada’s largest and only independent student union federation, finds itself facing crises on several fronts: a split with the “BC Federation of Students” (what was left of CFS-BC) and attacks from Ontario’s Doug Ford government which threaten to defund a large part of their remaining base in Ontario.

University of Victoria's Student Society prevents a celebration of the International Day of Students

November 17, 1939 antifascist rally in Prague

By Tyson Riel Strandlund

November 17th marks the International Day of Students, a day which commemorates the anniversary of the 1939 Nazi storming of the University of Prague after demonstrations against the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, following which student leaders were executed and over 1200 students sent to concentration camps. This day is marked and celebrated by students around the world, and it was with this day in mind that students at the University of Victoria had intended to come together to raise their voices in unison demanding the right to free, universal, democratic post-secondary education on November 14th. It would cost approximately $10 billion to eliminate tuition fees in Canada. Meanwhile, Canada’s 6 banks reported $42 billion in profit for 2017. With the $4.5 billion used to purchase the Trans-Mountain Pipeline, we could’ve eliminated student debt for over 150,000 people. Additionally, our commitment to NATO means our already bloated military budget of over $20 billion will be increasing by 73% over the course of the decade. There is simply no excuse for the prioritisation of corporate profits over education.

Student loans: Can’t pay? Don’t pay!

In Canada, the average student debt sums up to $30,000

By KH

This article is an essay of personal experience in avoiding repayment of student loans from the period of 2010-2019. Read on to learn how you might avoid repayment, as one act in a broader struggle for universal free tuition!

Growing up in a single-parent home where we often couldn’t afford the basics, how I was going to pay for university was the last thing to cross my mind. Upon high school graduation, I got accepted to university, ready to start my academic career. I signed the student loan application without even a thought and was loaned $8,000 for my first year at 7% interest. I was 17 years old. Each year the debt kept piling up. At 21 I owed $33,000, and before I was even handed my degree I received a bill for my first loan payment: $600 per month. I hadn’t even graduated yet, and I certainly had no job prospects.

I researched for weeks prior to graduation, knowing I would receive a bill I couldn’t pay. I had heard all the horror stories: harassment by collection agencies, garnished wages, parents still paying off their loans into their 40’s and 50’s. I knew it was an injustice and that I would do whatever it took to avoid 20+ years of debt repayment for an education that is a human right. Nine years later I have not made a single payment, and the debt is legally dissolved. I now have a Master’s degree and am starting a PhD in the fall. Here’s how I avoided paying, and if you’re looking for a way out, you can too.

Ontario Students March for Free Education and Against the ‘Student Choice Initiative’

By Ivan Byard - organiser of the Toronto YCL-LJC

While students are getting ready for an Ontario-wide rally against OSAP cuts on February 19th, here is a report on the last student demonstration that took place on January 25th in Toronto.

On January 25th thousands of students, faculty, organized labour members, and their community allies gathered in Toronto to demonstrate their outrage against the provincial tory attack on public education. The march was a spontaneous response to the January 17th announcement from the Doug Ford government that a 10% reduction in tuition fees was a ‘bait-and-switch’ swindle that would be paid for with devastating cuts to the Ontario Student Assistance Plan (OSAP) and universities and colleges institutional funding.

Unite for Free Education and Against Ford's Anti-Democratic Attacks

YCL-LJC at the Rally in Toronto on January 18th

By Peter Miller 

In light of the recent announcement from the Ford Government, which includes continued unregulated international tuition fee costs, cuts to student grants, cuts to public investment in Post-Secondary Education, and voluntary payment of fees for student-run organizations, there is no doubt the student movement needs to build as militant and united a student movement as possible.

It all started on Friday with a large contingent of people making their voices heard against Doug Ford’s attacks against students. The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario organized the rally and took time out of their general meeting to protest with other students and labour allies.

Day of Action for Democracy on Campus is just the beginning

Banner drop on Nov. 29th in Windsor

By Peter Miller, coordinator of the YCL-LJC in Ontario and Chair of the Student Commission

YCL Ontario students and allies organized a Day of Action for Democracy on Campus on November 29th to protest against the implementation of Doug Ford's "free speech" directive on Ontario college and university campuses. We came together in opposition to this directive, which instead of encouraging free speech, has the goal to stifle it for marginalized and activist groups while emboldening the hate speech of far-right and fascist groups trying to increase their presence amongst youth.

Ford's directive attacks democracy on campus by forcing campuses which already follow academic freedom to include a free speech policy. Most outrageously, his policy attacks democracy by threatening student activists with discipline for organizing protests against hate groups speaking on campus.

Solidarité avec les Franco-Ontariens

Special to RY

Exceptionnally, to show our support to the Franco-Ontarien resistance movement that mobilized over 14,000 people on Saturday, December 1st, we publish an article in French. The English version of this YCL-LJC statement can be found here. Franco-Ontarians are mobilized since November 15th, "Francophonie's Black Thursday", when Doug Ford announced he would get rid of the French Language Services Commissioner and that his government would stop funding Ontario's French language university that was supposed to open in 2020. We encourage our readers to follow the developments as it is clear that the fight has just begun. Already, Franco-Ontarien students are working on a large demonstration after the holidays. 

Day of action against Doug Ford’s “Free Speech” directive: find out what is happening today

Today is the Ontario Day of Action for democracy on campus. This event is aimed at denouncing Doug Ford’s so-called ‘free speech’ directive, a directive that has nothing to do with free speech, but that is aimed at targeting progressive voices on campus, as explained in previous articles published on this blog.

For this occasion, actions are being held throughout the province, ranging from rallies, banner drops and information tables; but there should also be some activity online through the hashtag #SilencedbyFord dedicated to this Day of Action.

Young Communists mobilise for the Ontario Day of Action for Free Education

Special to RY

In 2017, the CFS Ontario, delegates voted in favour of an Ontario Day of Action on February 1st, 2018 with free education as one of the main demands. After the positive experience of the November 2nd, 2016 Pan-Canadian Day of Action, which mobilised 56 campuses in 38 cities, the YCL-LJC welcomed the mobilisation for an Ontario Day of Action.

"Considering the increasingly difficult situation for students in Canada and in Ontario, we thought it was important for us, young communists, to actively participate and mobilise for this Day of Action and focus on the need to organise and fight for free education, which we see as the first priority and uniting demand for the student movement", says Peter Miller, Chair of the Student Commission of the YCL-LJC.

UBC Students Vote Yes to BDS for Justice and Liberation!

Special from YCL Vancouver

This week (April 3-7), the University of British Columbia (UBC) is faced with an important referendum for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS). Proposed by the UBC chapter of the social justice group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), BDS is a call by Palestinian activists for justice and equality. BDS recognizes that Palestinians currently live under an apartheid regime imposed by Israel. Israel is occupying Palestinian land and denying the right of return, a fundamental human right, to Palestinians. The call for BDS is a call to end 70 years of oppression.

The Polytechnic lives! From Athens to Montreal, the student struggle continues

Adrien Welsh

Last Sunday, November 20th, the Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Québec participated along with the Greek Workers’ Association of Québec in activities commemorating the 43rd anniversary of Athens’ Polytechnic popular uprising that contributed to the end of the military dictatorship that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974 with the full support of the USA and NATO.

"Fuck it all": Review of the Spring 2015 Quebec student strike

Marianne Breton Fontaine

We need to be careful not to underestimate the importance of ideology in shaping our strategies and our daily struggles. This is demonstrated by the latest attempted general strike, which the Quebec student movement initiated last spring. This strike was conducted primarily based on anarchist principles. It was also the result of dissatisfaction among activists from the Maple Spring which ended in 2012, a dissatisfaction that comes from an incorrect analysis of the transformative potential of a student strike.

The Student Movement, Class & Revolution

Jenna Amirault & Drew Garvie

The upcoming school semester brings about renewed opportunities for student mobilization, solidarity with labour, and the creation of wider coalitions in the battle against austerity. The need to organize militant cross-Canada action has been made apparent by all the bourgeois political parties’ failure to take student issues seriously in this election and their failure, more generally, to represent the working class as a whole. In today’s economy students make up a new generation of debt owners with little prospects of getting a job upon graduation and insufficient social services to lessen their economic disparity in times of hardship. Colonialism and institutional sexism and racism create barriers to education that are left unaddressed by bourgeois politicians. It is pressing that students organize to challenge the limitations of the current education system and work with labour to overthrow capitalism itself. But what role can students play in revolutionary action? Why is the demand for access to education important, if it is not in itself revolutionary? And why is student-worker solidarity important?

UofT’s strike in retrospective: How students and labor pushed for unity

Zach Morgenstern

From February 27 to March 26 of 2015 UofT’s CUPE 3902 Unit 1, a union which represents UofT student-course-instructors (most prominently teaching assistants (TAs)) went on strike. The Union, which bargained with a strike-vote mandate it had held since November, ultimately settled for arbitration. Arbitrator William Kaplan has since ruled in UofT’s favor, allowing for a deal the union had previously voted down, which does not guarantee funding increases for individual graduate students, to be implemented.  Despite this being a far from perfect result for the month long campaign, it has to be said that CUPE 3902’s approach to the strike was commendable, at least when it came to student-TA relations.

Tuition fees: How students are getting it handed to them and what we can learn

Drew Garvie

We hear a lot about skyrocketing tuition fees, but one of the challenges in the student movement is high turnover and a lack of historical memory. Which government did what when? And the most important question, which governments are never truthful about; why did they do it? Here Rebel Youth examines some short histories of tuition fee increases in five provinces in order to help understand the attack we are facing and what we can do about it.

#IAmAStudent: the student fightback at UBC

Rebel Youth presents an interview with University of British Columbia student activist Kelly Gerlings

Interview by Rozh Armand

RY: What sparked the #IAMASTUDENT movement? How did it start?

KG: In early October 2014, the UBC Alma Mater Society (AMS) [the student union] leaked a proposed 10% increase to international tuition and a 20% increase to 8-month contracts for on-campus housing. Quickly students began organizing and speaking about the proposals. Just as quickly it was understood that if the students were going to be heard, they would need to organize outside of the AMS. And so within about a week of getting the news, a Teach-In was held for more information to be disseminated, and out of this, the group “I Am A Student” (IAAS) was 'born', in a sense.

Communist Youth of Chile demand justice for murdered students

Special to RY

On Thursday, May 14th, two Chilean students were shot dead in the city of Valparaiso. The two students, Exequiel Borbaran, 18, and Diego Guzman, 24, were participating along with 160 000 others in mobilizations across the country. Students were demanding the fulfillment of the government of Chile's promise to deliver free, quality, accessible public education at all levels.

Exequiel and Diego were shot by a store owner after attempting to hang a banner at the end of the march. Diego was a member and activist of the Communist Youth of Chile (JJCC), which has a long and proud history of resisting fascism and violence and fighting for a socialist Chile.

Interview with Marianne Breton Fontaine on Quebec's Anti-Austerity movement

Jane Bouey of "Media Mornings" in Vancouver interviews Marianne Breton Fontaine on the 2015 Quebec student strike and the movement against austerity. Interview is from April 8th, 2015.

Marianne Breton Fontaine is a writer for Jeunesse Militant and Rebel Youth magazines, a longtime member of the YCL-LJC, a leader of the Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Quebec and a student at UQAM in Montreal.