I know they aren't even close to the same situation but they are somewhat similar and we handled it in a far more mature manner.
Or you took the easier out by not fighting the changes. I mean, you can spin the story any way you want to.
The fact is, heavily subsidized tuition has been a staple of post-secondary education in Quebec for a long time, and is something that the people there feel strongly about. They are perfectly within their rights to protest the decisions of the government. It's really the only course of action we have to act against the government's decisions.
Also the government really threw gasoline onto the fire with the anti-protest law. It doesn't matter if it hasn't been used, or may eventually be removed due to being unconstitutional. It was a direct attack against the only recourse people felt they had to addressing an issue. I don't blame them for being pissed off.
As I understand it, the law just says that you have to inform the police that you will be protesting within 8 hours of it. I don't really see how that is a big issue. From what I've been reading, the police haven't made any attempt to stop protests, just arresting the people that trying to turn it into a riot.
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I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Also, unifying the right made sense because the CRAP was a splinter group from the PC. So it wasn't so much unifying as it was re-unifying it. On the left, the NDP and Liberals have never been the same party, they are two different parties with different histories.
I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
The fact is, heavily subsidized tuition has been a staple of post-secondary education in Quebec for a long time, and is something that the people there feel strongly about. They are perfectly within their rights to protest the decisions of the government. It's really the only course of action we have to act against the government's decisions.
Except for, you know, actually voting on who forms the governemnt and makes the decisions. The last election in 2008 had a voter turnout of 57%, the lowest in 70 years. And students aren't a high-turnout demographic, even by that standard.
So long as we're still using an outdated electoral system, I don't know how true that is. And by their nature, elections are determined on a number of decisions points.
Perhaps it would have been better to say that "It's really the only course of action we have to against a single governmental decision."
I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
Oh okay. I guess I'll tell my years growing up in Cochrane and Calgary through the 80s and 90s that it was all a lie then.
Here is a helpful video (or it just may confuse you further) - I personally admire them for what they are doing and wish the rest of the country would rise up too.
Edit: Whoops, posted this already. Still, looks like Cadmus didn't bother watching it.
I just watched it. I didn't go back and look at older pages. I have a few comments on the video though.
1) At 0:35 it shows people throwing rocks and fire crackers and again at 4:30 people are wrecking shit. Any reason why they are doing this? Doesn't seem to have any relation to what they are protesting.
2) In the video it says they are now mostly protesting against capitalism. Sure, that's fine, but what exactly is their goal? I can get behind a movement with a goal, like, end corruption in the current economic system. End corporate involvement in government, that kind of thing. But protesting because capitalism = bad? Ok. Capitalism is bad. *slow clap*
3) Free education. Awesome idea, I think it's great. I'm with them 100%, except I'd like to know how one thing. Who's going to pay for it? Are the professors just going to work for free? We going to invent unlimited free energy to pay the universities power bill? I think we should also have free housing for everyone and no taxes but it's not exactly practical.
4) They make the university/government out to be some kind of demon for banning protests on campus but fail to mention that happened because of a legal injunction brought on by students. If I walk into a starbucks, grab a customers coffee, throw it in their face and start trashing the place, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that I'm bad shit crazy. So why is it ok to walk into class rooms, shove students books off the tables, spray paint the walls and yell disrespectful shit at everyone in the room? The professor is being paid to teach the students, it's their JOB and the students paid to be there. That kind of behaviour is just messed up and the ban on protesting near campus is a result of that action, not because the government is evil (in fact, it was the court system that was responsible for the ban, wasn't it?).
I'm not saying that have nothing to complain about at all, but it all really seems like #firstworldproblems
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
The sentiment is not entirely undeserved. It's hard to feel for the plight of someone who "needs" free tuition but can afford a car, an apartment, a smart phone with an unlimited plan, the latest fashion wear, eating out at restaurants, drinking in bars and parties on the weekends, going to shows, and going on trips. And their solutions involve cutting tax benefits for taxpayers' education saving accounts and cutting university employee salaries... I don't know if it came up this time around but when I was an undergrad they were actually talking about a general tax increase on the population to cover free tuition.
I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
Oh okay. I guess I'll tell my years growing up in Cochrane and Calgary through the 80s and 90s that it was all a lie then.
Ah, I hear things are very different in southern Alberta. Still, saying it was the people of Alberta is not true at all, maybe some people in certain areas but definitely not everyone.
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3) Free education. Awesome idea, I think it's great. I'm with them 100%, except I'd like to know how one thing. Who's going to pay for it? Are the professors just going to work for free? We going to invent unlimited free energy to pay the universities power bill? I think we should also have free housing for everyone and no taxes but it's not exactly practical.
Education should be free. We get free health care, paid for by taxes. Why not education? If you take away the burden of 20 years of massive debt that kids with no career and no assets are given just to be given the great privilege of joining the work force then general wealth and average standard of living will go up.
And it'll make the average Canadian more educated, which has all kinds of benefits, since now there's no financial barrier to entry to these programs.
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I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
Oh okay. I guess I'll tell my years growing up in Cochrane and Calgary through the 80s and 90s that it was all a lie then.
Ah, I hear things are very different in southern Alberta. Still, saying it was the people of Alberta is not true at all, maybe some people in certain areas but definitely not everyone.
Do I really need to qualify my anecdotal statement as not including every single person in Alberta without exception?
I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
Oh okay. I guess I'll tell my years growing up in Cochrane and Calgary through the 80s and 90s that it was all a lie then.
Ah, I hear things are very different in southern Alberta. Still, saying it was the people of Alberta is not true at all, maybe some people in certain areas but definitely not everyone.
Do I really need to qualify my anecdotal statement as not including every single person in Alberta without exception?
Christ.
Well, it really seemed like you were blaming anyone in alberta for the currently retarded government.
3) Free education. Awesome idea, I think it's great. I'm with them 100%, except I'd like to know how one thing. Who's going to pay for it? Are the professors just going to work for free? We going to invent unlimited free energy to pay the universities power bill? I think we should also have free housing for everyone and no taxes but it's not exactly practical.
Education should be free. We get free health care, paid for by taxes. Why not education? If you take away the burden of 20 years of massive debt that kids with no career and no assets are given just to be given the great privilege of joining the work force then general wealth and average standard of living will go up.
And it'll make the average Canadian more educated, which has all kinds of benefits, since now there's no financial barrier to entry to these programs.
The problem with taxing everyone to pay for university is that university is optional. We already have free education, it just happens that a small portion of the population decides to goes to University. Additionally, there have been many research studies that show very few people don't go to University or drop out of University due to financial reasons. In Alberta where tuition is much higher, finances are not a barrier to a University education at all. The only strong correlation with getting a University education is if your parents got a University education. Making it free wont result in more people getting the education.
Another problem with free University is how many students will go without really putting much effort in. Every course I took in University was graded based on how students perform in relation to each other. The speed of the course as well as how much get's covered in a semester was also based on how well the class is absorbing it. If half the class was people that don't really give a shit, the education of those who actually want to learn something is going to suffer. Pretty much every student that I met who wasn't putting any effort in was there because their parents demanded it and were paying for it. How many more parents will demand that their kid go to university if it was free?
As for the 20 years of massive debt, who has this problem in Canada? I could see in the US where it costs 20k+ per semester but it really is pretty cheap everywhere in Canada.
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I'm still paying for my student loan 10 years later.
Of course, my education is worthless, was a waste of time and money, and I wish I hadn't bothered, so that's probably coloring my perception.
Anyway, the whole 'skin in the game' argument is dumb. Why are we offering free education at all if people who pay their own way uniformly do better (Tip: They don't). Make those kids earn their way through elementary school!
Now if you're talking about forcing someone to take a class they have 0 interest in, then yeah. But that's not a problem with cost or lack thereof. The thing is, how many people have some kind of post secondary education? According to statscan (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-595-m/81-595-m2007059-eng.pdf), something like 80% of Canadians have at least some post secondary education. 80% is significant. Why are we demanding that this ratio of Canadians start their careers with thousands of dollars of debt?
How many employers require degrees of some kind from their applicants for entry level jobs? I don't actually know, but I do know how much pressure there was from everyone that I go to university or college or something. Teachers told me I couldn't get a job without a degree. My parents told me. Various other counselors told me that. It was nearly unanimous that I take on massive debt with no assets and no credit just to be qualified to get a job.
I remember during the consecutive terms of Chretien that people in Alberta were talking about 'vote splitting' and 'unifying the right'.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
Oh okay. I guess I'll tell my years growing up in Cochrane and Calgary through the 80s and 90s that it was all a lie then.
Ah, I hear things are very different in southern Alberta. Still, saying it was the people of Alberta is not true at all, maybe some people in certain areas but definitely not everyone.
Do I really need to qualify my anecdotal statement as not including every single person in Alberta without exception?
Christ.
Well, it really seemed like you were blaming anyone in alberta for the currently retarded government.
Let's be fair about this. Ontario is pretty much to blame for the current state (majority) of the Federal government. I say this as someone living in Ontario. We've got a shit-ton of seats, and a lot of them flopped over to the Cons this past election.
I know we've still got some more years of the madhouse, but I'm earnestly hoping that the NDP can capitalize on their surge in strength in the next election.
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Eh, I wasn't 'blaming' Albertans so much as saying that unifying the right did not work out like it was hoped it would. So unifying the left would probably be worse than the current state of affairs as well, so it was more...be careful what you wish for.
Except for, you know, actually voting on who forms the governemnt and makes the decisions. The last election in 2008 had a voter turnout of 57%, the lowest in 70 years. And students aren't a high-turnout demographic, even by that standard.
I posted this before, but I'll post it again:
Also, as the brouhaha in Montreal continues, I'm so frustrated by this.... Look, for years, we've been concerned about extremely low voter turnouts amongst young Canadians and their increasing disconnection and dissatisfaction with Canadian politics. They are, without a doubt, feeling cynical towards and disenfranchised by our political system. So finally, FINALLY, a large group of young Canadians has gotten together to fight for an actual political goal, and our response is, "You guys already have it plenty good. Back in our day, ... And over in Somalia, they don't even get ..." and "Won't someone think of the Grand Prix?!"
When I look at what's happening in Montreal, I don't even see the tuition problem, because I can't see anything but a hugely blown opportunity to engage a politically active, young Canadian demographic and a complete disconnect between the established boomer generation and their own children. Students don't take to the streets because that's their first choice of expression; telling them to go vote isn't a valid response from their perspectives, and, if anything, just demeans their situation. "If you don't like something, go vote! And if you think the voting system is rigged and that we older people are selling you out, well then, tough, because we outnumber you!" It's just a baffling, baffling response. I can't help but interpret it as, "We want you young people to engage in politics, but only on terms, on our sides of our issues," and it's just so incredibly tone-deaf.
The problem with taxing everyone to pay for university is that university is optional. We already have free education, it just happens that a small portion of the population decides to goes to University. Additionally, there have been many research studies that show very few people don't go to University or drop out of University due to financial reasons. In Alberta where tuition is much higher, finances are not a barrier to a University education at all. The only strong correlation with getting a University education is if your parents got a University education. Making it free wont result in more people getting the education.
About a quarter of Ontarians go to university - I dunno about Canada over all - and the correlation between university educations and income are well-established. We could easily just increase income taxes on the top 25% of earners, and effectively amortize university tuitions over the earning lifetimes of graduates. This reduces both the financial barrier to university education, but also the administrative barrier, which represents one of the major reasons why those whose parents don't have university educations struggle to get them - because they have no systematic knowledge of how to navigate university (and student funding) bureaucracies. We could easily expand this to colleges as well, which in Ontario, means another ~25% of the population, so now we're covering >50% of high school graduates, never mind mature students, which is far from a "small portion".
The key isn't education. It's social mobility. And if you don't think making education free will allow more people to get it and to succeed at it, you haven't set foot in an inner-city high school and seen kids sleep their way through class because they've got part-time jobs trying to make ends meet.
More than anything, it just sounds like you're looking for reasons to rage against them. Like because some of them are wealthy suburbanites, obviously the whole lot of them are spoiled and the cause is in error. Or because the police haven't exercised the option to abuse them, that means it's okay for the police to have that option. Or that just because oppressive laws passed by the government are unconstitutional, the people should overlook the fact that their government is trying to pass oppressive, unconstitutional laws. Or whether universities and university educations themselves have integrity in how they function, wtfbbqrelevance? This ain't Starbucks. It's social contract democracy, and quite frankly, there's an entire generation of young adults and another generation of teenagers who largely feel that the political establishments of today have broken it.* Youth unemployment in Canada is 14.3%; global warming continue to be shat on; Canadian policies continue to move towards conservatism; serious police abuses are regular and prominent; Parliamentary democracy continues to be dysfunctional, etc, etc, etc,.
* Or who don't know what a social contract is nor give a shit. Which are the exact sort of people we want to be tomorrow's political and business leaders, amirite?
And it seems like Cadmus is blaming everyone protesting for the actions of some of the protesters, that comes across very hypocritical if you are going to lay into Nova_C. Here is a hint: for a protest to have an impact, it needs to be disruptive of the status quo. Often times to be disruptive, all one needs is enough people to be civilly disobedient and/or loud with a message that is counter to business as usual that changes the shopping habits and other times, like say after the cops crack down on peaceful protest, the people protesting will escalate in response and I think they are fully justified in doing so. Try to remember that Quebec has had cops in the past go undercover and incite violence - and then people like yourself think the protesters started it. I feel no sympathy for a government that provokes its own people to bring on the only unfortunately power they really have between elections when petitioning officials fails, that of the mob to shut it all down.
Additionally, there have been many research studies that show very few people don't go to University or drop out of University due to financial reasons. In Alberta where tuition is much higher, finances are not a barrier to a University education at all. The only strong correlation with getting a University education is if your parents got a University education. Making it free wont result in more people getting the education.
This, right there, is exactly right.
For the record, I do agree that a major reform of the studet financial aid system is needed, to better evaluate the needs and merits of students and guarantee that those students who need and deserve the money receive it. A kid from a lower-income family whose parents live paycheck to paycheck should have his education, room and board paid to help him improve his future; he should not be forced to choose between accumulating life-crippling debts to get educated or working a subsistance-wage job for the rest of his life. But the number of students who are actually in a situation like this one where finances are a major obstacle to going to university are a minority. Free tuition across the board for everyone is overkill.
Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
Yeah, just because we missed our chance to protest tuition hikes doesn't mean we're not the morons who sat idly by whereas the Montreal students are actively working to improve their situation.
Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
I didn't say I paid more. I was educated in Québec. I paid as much as they did. And I don't believe I've heard anyone in Québec complain that they paid more.
My argument for the tuition increase is simply that universities need money. Money is what hires qualified professors and what builds labs (not to mention pays the salaries of the administrative staff that is there to help students navigate the maze that is university bureaucracy, to follow up on hippofant's post). And guess what, tuition is a major component of university funding, and more importantly a component that can be planned and accounted for years in advance (as opposed to government budgets that change from year to year and private/foundation awards that are just unpredictable), thus allowing the universities to make a long-term development plan.
Moreover, as was pointed out already, there is no correlation between tuition costs and a population's education level. There are specific individual cases where tuition cost is an obstacle, but those can and should be handled by the financial aid system.
Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
I didn't say I paid more. I was educated in Québec. I paid as much as they did. And I don't believe I've heard anyone in Québec complain that they paid more.
Wasn't specifically talking about you. But it is the sentiment I hear expressed from virtually everyone who is against the protests.
My argument for the tuition increase is simply that universities need money. Money is what hires qualified professors and what builds labs (not to mention pays the salaries of the administrative staff that is there to help students navigate the maze that is university bureaucracy, to follow up on hippofant's post). And guess what, tuition is a major component of university funding, and more importantly a component that can be planned and accounted for years in advance (as opposed to government budgets that change from year to year and private/foundation awards that are just unpredictable), thus allowing the universities to make a long-term development plan.
Moreover, as was pointed out already, there is no correlation between tuition costs and a population's education level. There are specific individual cases where tuition cost is an obstacle, but those can and should be handled by the financial aid system.
1) The idea that government paying for it instead is problematic is just ridiculous considering the government already pays for most of it. Tuition fees are a whopping 20% or so of University budgets. Government pays in almost 3 times that much.
2) If tuition costs aren't correlated with education level, then why would you want to raise them? A financial aid system is a cumbersome and inefficient way of solving issues with tuition costs.
2) If tuition costs aren't correlated with education level, then why would you want to raise them? A financial aid system is a cumbersome and inefficient way of solving issues with tuition costs.
The issues are special cases. A financial aid is a tool to handle such cases. Free tuition is a general across-the-board solution, which, in my opinion, is overkill as a means to handle special-case problems.
And guess what, tuition is a major component of university funding, and more importantly a component that can be planned and accounted for years in advance (as opposed to government budgets that change from year to year and private/foundation awards that are just unpredictable), thus allowing the universities to make a long-term development plan.
Moreover, as was pointed out already, there is no correlation between tuition costs and a population's education level. There are specific individual cases where tuition cost is an obstacle, but those can and should be handled by the financial aid system.
At the University of Toronto, tuition fees represent a third of their operating revenue, or a sixth of their total revenue. Government grants represent about one half. That can be a lot or a little, depending on your perspective, but it's substantially more than it was a few years ago, before UofT lost all its endowment money on the markets.
However, citing such a correlation is spurious, at best. There aren't enough nations to provide a decent sample size, and there are too many confounding factors, such as industrialization, student mobility, scholarships, student funding, etc,. I mean, Harvard has crazy high tuition levels... yet they provide bursary enough for any student to attend.
Also, LOL. OSAP couldn't handle its way out of a wet paper bag. Our post-secondary financial aid system's a mess. There's no reason a student should have to be a Polish female studying astronomy to win the scholarship they need to continue on with their degree, yet there it is. The stories I could tell you about what UofT does to secure outside funding....
Edit: Corrected my numbers, after reviewing UofT's budget reports more closely.
I feel like if public funding of universities isn't stable, that's not really an argument for fees, it's an argument for the government to get their shit together and fund universities properly
2) If tuition costs aren't correlated with education level, then why would you want to raise them? A financial aid system is a cumbersome and inefficient way of solving issues with tuition costs.
The issues are special cases. A financial aid is a tool to handle such cases. Free tuition is a general across-the-board solution, which, in my opinion, is overkill as a means to handle special-case problems.
It's A tool. It's not an efficient or good tool though.
Having to go over every applicant and case both discourages/confused applicants with paperwork and, more importantly, costs alot of money.
Means testing is not free. And often, not even efficient.
Also, LOL. OSAP couldn't handle its way out of a wet paper bag. Our post-secondary financial aid system's a mess. There's no reason a student should have to be a Polish female studying astronomy to win the scholarship they need to continue on with their degree, yet there it is. The stories I could tell you about what UofT does to secure outside funding....
I've got a friend who can't get OSAP cause she works, but can't not work because if she stops, she can't afford the medication she needs to not die. And can't afford both at the same time.
The lady she talked to at OSAP, after she's explained the situation to her, said "If you've had that much surgery, haven't you taken enough money from the government?".
2) If tuition costs aren't correlated with education level, then why would you want to raise them? A financial aid system is a cumbersome and inefficient way of solving issues with tuition costs.
The issues are special cases. A financial aid is a tool to handle such cases. Free tuition is a general across-the-board solution, which, in my opinion, is overkill as a means to handle special-case problems.
It's A tool. It's not an efficient or good tool though.
I agree completely. It needs serious reform to fix it.
2) If tuition costs aren't correlated with education level, then why would you want to raise them? A financial aid system is a cumbersome and inefficient way of solving issues with tuition costs.
The issues are special cases. A financial aid is a tool to handle such cases. Free tuition is a general across-the-board solution, which, in my opinion, is overkill as a means to handle special-case problems.
It's A tool. It's not an efficient or good tool though.
I agree completely. It needs serious reform to fix it.
Why not just abolish it and fund post-secondary education out of income taxes instead?
Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
I am by no means anti-protest. I just think there are way worse things going on right now and it saddens me that the only protesting that is actually happening is over something pretty trivial by comparison. Government sneaking massive institutional changes into a budget bill, forced on-line surveillance bills with no warrant or monitoring and it's clearly only being done for private corporations so they can more easily sue people. A completely screwed up banking system... there's a ton of things that warrant protest right now but nobody cares about them. Take aware our rights, that's ok by us, but increase our tuition?? Freak out!
While I share belief in the goals and/or ideals of this protest(and the occupy movement), I don't think it's unreasonable to be sceptical of the methodology or prospects of current youth protests. Especially the supposed decentralized structuring, which seems to be somewhat naive. I think the issues brought up here go way beyond tuition fees, and that a lot of change needs to occur in many levels of our society before things will get better. I'm not sure if protests such as this or occupy wall street will have significant bearing on a course towards a more progressive society.
In the blog blkmage posted, an interviewee mentioned the sixties movements which ended up with those involved growing up to become conservatives. How will it be different in the next thirty or forty years? Are these protests and movements actually leading somewhere, presumably leftwards?
Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
I am by no means anti-protest. I just think there are way worse things going on right now and it saddens me that the only protesting that is actually happening is over something pretty trivial by comparison. Government sneaking massive institutional changes into a budget bill, forced on-line surveillance bills with no warrant or monitoring and it's clearly only being done for private corporations so they can more easily sue people. A completely screwed up banking system... there's a ton of things that warrant protest right now but nobody cares about them. Take aware our rights, that's ok by us, but increase our tuition?? Freak out!
So your argument is invalidity by comparison? Well, things here aren't as bad as they are in Somalia, so ....
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Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
I am by no means anti-protest. I just think there are way worse things going on right now and it saddens me that the only protesting that is actually happening is over something pretty trivial by comparison. Government sneaking massive institutional changes into a budget bill, forced on-line surveillance bills with no warrant or monitoring and it's clearly only being done for private corporations so they can more easily sue people. A completely screwed up banking system... there's a ton of things that warrant protest right now but nobody cares about them. Take aware our rights, that's ok by us, but increase our tuition?? Freak out!
So you suggest protesting against those things, but the anti-protest laws pushed through by the Quebec government are not worth protesting?
Also, I hate the anti-protest people because they are the worst people ever.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
I am by no means anti-protest. I just think there are way worse things going on right now and it saddens me that the only protesting that is actually happening is over something pretty trivial by comparison. Government sneaking massive institutional changes into a budget bill, forced on-line surveillance bills with no warrant or monitoring and it's clearly only being done for private corporations so they can more easily sue people. A completely screwed up banking system... there's a ton of things that warrant protest right now but nobody cares about them. Take aware our rights, that's ok by us, but increase our tuition?? Freak out!
You realise these aren't related groups, right?
Like, the students are protesting because this directly effects them. They are busy with that. Everyone else is just ignoring all that shit. Including the tuition thing.
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As I understand it, the law just says that you have to inform the police that you will be protesting within 8 hours of it. I don't really see how that is a big issue. From what I've been reading, the police haven't made any attempt to stop protests, just arresting the people that trying to turn it into a riot.
That worked out great didn't it? Now the inmates are running the fucking asylum in the Conservative party and moderate right of centers have no party to vote for.
Vote splitting isn't an issue when there is a strong party to get votes. There are still way more left of center in Canada than right. Either the NDP needs to get that last burst of progress to get a mandate, or the Liberal party needs to stop being collective morons and actually make with the politics.
Regarding the student protests in Montreal: There is so much backlash against them for being 'freeloaders' that I've pretty much decided that the Canadian public are a collective villain. Tuition and student loans are increasing rapidly everywhere and the demand for college and university educations now when even 50 years ago you didn't even need a high school education is creating a new class of indentured servants.
Ya... so that's not true at all. The politicians from alberta might have been saying that but I don't recall anyone in Alberta being pissed off. I constantly hear people talking about politics now and how Harper is fucking the country royally. I never heard people talking about politics much in the Chretien era. The vast majority of people that vote conservative in Alberta don't seem to really follow politics at all. They seem to mostly be 35+ and always vote conservative "cause the god damn liberals with their gays and such".
Perhaps it would have been better to say that "It's really the only course of action we have to against a single governmental decision."
Oh okay. I guess I'll tell my years growing up in Cochrane and Calgary through the 80s and 90s that it was all a lie then.
I just watched it. I didn't go back and look at older pages. I have a few comments on the video though.
1) At 0:35 it shows people throwing rocks and fire crackers and again at 4:30 people are wrecking shit. Any reason why they are doing this? Doesn't seem to have any relation to what they are protesting.
2) In the video it says they are now mostly protesting against capitalism. Sure, that's fine, but what exactly is their goal? I can get behind a movement with a goal, like, end corruption in the current economic system. End corporate involvement in government, that kind of thing. But protesting because capitalism = bad? Ok. Capitalism is bad. *slow clap*
3) Free education. Awesome idea, I think it's great. I'm with them 100%, except I'd like to know how one thing. Who's going to pay for it? Are the professors just going to work for free? We going to invent unlimited free energy to pay the universities power bill? I think we should also have free housing for everyone and no taxes but it's not exactly practical.
4) They make the university/government out to be some kind of demon for banning protests on campus but fail to mention that happened because of a legal injunction brought on by students. If I walk into a starbucks, grab a customers coffee, throw it in their face and start trashing the place, I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that I'm bad shit crazy. So why is it ok to walk into class rooms, shove students books off the tables, spray paint the walls and yell disrespectful shit at everyone in the room? The professor is being paid to teach the students, it's their JOB and the students paid to be there. That kind of behaviour is just messed up and the ban on protesting near campus is a result of that action, not because the government is evil (in fact, it was the court system that was responsible for the ban, wasn't it?).
I'm not saying that have nothing to complain about at all, but it all really seems like #firstworldproblems
The sentiment is not entirely undeserved. It's hard to feel for the plight of someone who "needs" free tuition but can afford a car, an apartment, a smart phone with an unlimited plan, the latest fashion wear, eating out at restaurants, drinking in bars and parties on the weekends, going to shows, and going on trips. And their solutions involve cutting tax benefits for taxpayers' education saving accounts and cutting university employee salaries... I don't know if it came up this time around but when I was an undergrad they were actually talking about a general tax increase on the population to cover free tuition.
Ah, I hear things are very different in southern Alberta. Still, saying it was the people of Alberta is not true at all, maybe some people in certain areas but definitely not everyone.
Education should be free. We get free health care, paid for by taxes. Why not education? If you take away the burden of 20 years of massive debt that kids with no career and no assets are given just to be given the great privilege of joining the work force then general wealth and average standard of living will go up.
And it'll make the average Canadian more educated, which has all kinds of benefits, since now there's no financial barrier to entry to these programs.
Do I really need to qualify my anecdotal statement as not including every single person in Alberta without exception?
Christ.
Well, it really seemed like you were blaming anyone in alberta for the currently retarded government.
The problem with taxing everyone to pay for university is that university is optional. We already have free education, it just happens that a small portion of the population decides to goes to University. Additionally, there have been many research studies that show very few people don't go to University or drop out of University due to financial reasons. In Alberta where tuition is much higher, finances are not a barrier to a University education at all. The only strong correlation with getting a University education is if your parents got a University education. Making it free wont result in more people getting the education.
Another problem with free University is how many students will go without really putting much effort in. Every course I took in University was graded based on how students perform in relation to each other. The speed of the course as well as how much get's covered in a semester was also based on how well the class is absorbing it. If half the class was people that don't really give a shit, the education of those who actually want to learn something is going to suffer. Pretty much every student that I met who wasn't putting any effort in was there because their parents demanded it and were paying for it. How many more parents will demand that their kid go to university if it was free?
As for the 20 years of massive debt, who has this problem in Canada? I could see in the US where it costs 20k+ per semester but it really is pretty cheap everywhere in Canada.
Of course, my education is worthless, was a waste of time and money, and I wish I hadn't bothered, so that's probably coloring my perception.
Anyway, the whole 'skin in the game' argument is dumb. Why are we offering free education at all if people who pay their own way uniformly do better (Tip: They don't). Make those kids earn their way through elementary school!
Now if you're talking about forcing someone to take a class they have 0 interest in, then yeah. But that's not a problem with cost or lack thereof. The thing is, how many people have some kind of post secondary education? According to statscan (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-595-m/81-595-m2007059-eng.pdf), something like 80% of Canadians have at least some post secondary education. 80% is significant. Why are we demanding that this ratio of Canadians start their careers with thousands of dollars of debt?
How many employers require degrees of some kind from their applicants for entry level jobs? I don't actually know, but I do know how much pressure there was from everyone that I go to university or college or something. Teachers told me I couldn't get a job without a degree. My parents told me. Various other counselors told me that. It was nearly unanimous that I take on massive debt with no assets and no credit just to be qualified to get a job.
I take issue with that demand.
Let's be fair about this. Ontario is pretty much to blame for the current state (majority) of the Federal government. I say this as someone living in Ontario. We've got a shit-ton of seats, and a lot of them flopped over to the Cons this past election.
I know we've still got some more years of the madhouse, but I'm earnestly hoping that the NDP can capitalize on their surge in strength in the next election.
I posted this before, but I'll post it again:
About a quarter of Ontarians go to university - I dunno about Canada over all - and the correlation between university educations and income are well-established. We could easily just increase income taxes on the top 25% of earners, and effectively amortize university tuitions over the earning lifetimes of graduates. This reduces both the financial barrier to university education, but also the administrative barrier, which represents one of the major reasons why those whose parents don't have university educations struggle to get them - because they have no systematic knowledge of how to navigate university (and student funding) bureaucracies. We could easily expand this to colleges as well, which in Ontario, means another ~25% of the population, so now we're covering >50% of high school graduates, never mind mature students, which is far from a "small portion".
The key isn't education. It's social mobility. And if you don't think making education free will allow more people to get it and to succeed at it, you haven't set foot in an inner-city high school and seen kids sleep their way through class because they've got part-time jobs trying to make ends meet.
More than anything, it just sounds like you're looking for reasons to rage against them. Like because some of them are wealthy suburbanites, obviously the whole lot of them are spoiled and the cause is in error. Or because the police haven't exercised the option to abuse them, that means it's okay for the police to have that option. Or that just because oppressive laws passed by the government are unconstitutional, the people should overlook the fact that their government is trying to pass oppressive, unconstitutional laws. Or whether universities and university educations themselves have integrity in how they function, wtfbbqrelevance? This ain't Starbucks. It's social contract democracy, and quite frankly, there's an entire generation of young adults and another generation of teenagers who largely feel that the political establishments of today have broken it.* Youth unemployment in Canada is 14.3%; global warming continue to be shat on; Canadian policies continue to move towards conservatism; serious police abuses are regular and prominent; Parliamentary democracy continues to be dysfunctional, etc, etc, etc,.
* Or who don't know what a social contract is nor give a shit. Which are the exact sort of people we want to be tomorrow's political and business leaders, amirite?
This, right there, is exactly right.
For the record, I do agree that a major reform of the studet financial aid system is needed, to better evaluate the needs and merits of students and guarantee that those students who need and deserve the money receive it. A kid from a lower-income family whose parents live paycheck to paycheck should have his education, room and board paid to help him improve his future; he should not be forced to choose between accumulating life-crippling debts to get educated or working a subsistance-wage job for the rest of his life. But the number of students who are actually in a situation like this one where finances are a major obstacle to going to university are a minority. Free tuition across the board for everyone is overkill.
Anyway, I can tell you simply why the students in Quebec are protesting or annoyed or whatever, including all the non-extremists:
The government basically said "We are basically doubling your tuition over the next like 4 years". Who WOULDN'T be pissed at that?
Especially given that my trust in the Quebec government's budgeting ability is essentially zero.
The one major complaint you hear from every single person who complains about the protests is "Well I paid more!".
Yeah dumbass, that's not an actual argument. Maybe you paid too much?
Yeah, just because we missed our chance to protest tuition hikes doesn't mean we're not the morons who sat idly by whereas the Montreal students are actively working to improve their situation.
I didn't say I paid more. I was educated in Québec. I paid as much as they did. And I don't believe I've heard anyone in Québec complain that they paid more.
My argument for the tuition increase is simply that universities need money. Money is what hires qualified professors and what builds labs (not to mention pays the salaries of the administrative staff that is there to help students navigate the maze that is university bureaucracy, to follow up on hippofant's post). And guess what, tuition is a major component of university funding, and more importantly a component that can be planned and accounted for years in advance (as opposed to government budgets that change from year to year and private/foundation awards that are just unpredictable), thus allowing the universities to make a long-term development plan.
Moreover, as was pointed out already, there is no correlation between tuition costs and a population's education level. There are specific individual cases where tuition cost is an obstacle, but those can and should be handled by the financial aid system.
Wasn't specifically talking about you. But it is the sentiment I hear expressed from virtually everyone who is against the protests.
1) The idea that government paying for it instead is problematic is just ridiculous considering the government already pays for most of it. Tuition fees are a whopping 20% or so of University budgets. Government pays in almost 3 times that much.
2) If tuition costs aren't correlated with education level, then why would you want to raise them? A financial aid system is a cumbersome and inefficient way of solving issues with tuition costs.
The issues are special cases. A financial aid is a tool to handle such cases. Free tuition is a general across-the-board solution, which, in my opinion, is overkill as a means to handle special-case problems.
At the University of Toronto, tuition fees represent a third of their operating revenue, or a sixth of their total revenue. Government grants represent about one half. That can be a lot or a little, depending on your perspective, but it's substantially more than it was a few years ago, before UofT lost all its endowment money on the markets.
However, citing such a correlation is spurious, at best. There aren't enough nations to provide a decent sample size, and there are too many confounding factors, such as industrialization, student mobility, scholarships, student funding, etc,. I mean, Harvard has crazy high tuition levels... yet they provide bursary enough for any student to attend.
Also, LOL. OSAP couldn't handle its way out of a wet paper bag. Our post-secondary financial aid system's a mess. There's no reason a student should have to be a Polish female studying astronomy to win the scholarship they need to continue on with their degree, yet there it is. The stories I could tell you about what UofT does to secure outside funding....
Edit: Corrected my numbers, after reviewing UofT's budget reports more closely.
It's A tool. It's not an efficient or good tool though.
Having to go over every applicant and case both discourages/confused applicants with paperwork and, more importantly, costs alot of money.
Means testing is not free. And often, not even efficient.
I've got a friend who can't get OSAP cause she works, but can't not work because if she stops, she can't afford the medication she needs to not die. And can't afford both at the same time.
The lady she talked to at OSAP, after she's explained the situation to her, said "If you've had that much surgery, haven't you taken enough money from the government?".
I agree completely. It needs serious reform to fix it.
Why not just abolish it and fund post-secondary education out of income taxes instead?
Such bullshit. Ugh!
I'm still impressed she isn't the subject of a homicide investigation right now.
I am by no means anti-protest. I just think there are way worse things going on right now and it saddens me that the only protesting that is actually happening is over something pretty trivial by comparison. Government sneaking massive institutional changes into a budget bill, forced on-line surveillance bills with no warrant or monitoring and it's clearly only being done for private corporations so they can more easily sue people. A completely screwed up banking system... there's a ton of things that warrant protest right now but nobody cares about them. Take aware our rights, that's ok by us, but increase our tuition?? Freak out!
In the blog blkmage posted, an interviewee mentioned the sixties movements which ended up with those involved growing up to become conservatives. How will it be different in the next thirty or forty years? Are these protests and movements actually leading somewhere, presumably leftwards?
So your argument is invalidity by comparison? Well, things here aren't as bad as they are in Somalia, so ....
So you suggest protesting against those things, but the anti-protest laws pushed through by the Quebec government are not worth protesting?
Hm.
That is indeed mind-blowing levels of bullshit. "What, you benefited from our healthcare system? Pffft, no education for you!"
You realise these aren't related groups, right?
Like, the students are protesting because this directly effects them. They are busy with that. Everyone else is just ignoring all that shit. Including the tuition thing.