allthecanadianpolitics:

By Coty Zachariah, National Chairperson, Canadian Federation of Students

For decades, student unions and associations have driven systemic changes in education and increased access for potential and current learners. On campuses across Canada, students have organized with each other to collectively improve conditions on campus and create and sustain services that are beneficial to our realities. When there is a threat to students’ access to education, students unions have been the vanguards challenging damaging policies and uplifting the voices of affected individuals.

Student mobilization has won many victories, including tuition freezes, standalone sexual assault policies, service centres as well as increased funding for Indigenous and graduate students.

Now, thanks to the Ford government, this could all be overturned.

Doug Ford wasn’t fooling anyone when he announced the 10 per cent reduction in domestic tuition fees. In the same breath, the Ford government launched the insidiously named “Student Choice Initiative,” a move that launches a transparent attack on autonomous student organizing.

Ford used the 10 per cent tuition reduction announcement as an ill-planned smokescreen to hide the blatant union-busting legislation that will reduce the resources of some of his biggest critics.

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