ew Year Campaigns

roup says it’s gaining ground in BC

evin Groves
ritish Columbia Bureau

ANCOUVER (CUP)—Tired of being
geon-holed as irrelevant protesters by
he media, the Canadian Federation of
dents (CFS) plans to use new tactics in
003 to continue their campaign ‘against
gher tuition.
eaders of the student lobby group, which
presents about 425,000 students from
bast to coast, said they plan to form clos-
ties with other special-interest groups,
ch as seniors organizations and labour
puncils, to create broader public support
br lower tuition in Canada.
“Right now we know there is incredible
blic support for lower tuition but we're
pping this move will make the idea more
a priority to governments,” said
mmer McFadyen, BC chair of the CFS.
To help create that broader support, the
FS has planned summits in Vancouver,
innipeg, Sudbury, Ontario, and

Sydney, Nova Scotia this semester. A
national summit will then be held in
Ottawa.

The idea is to raise public awareness of
what the financial impediments to a uni-
versity education are, such as why tuition
is high as well as possible solutions, CFS
leaders said.

“[The summits] are not designed to be
a demonstration, and they're not about
the number of people who turn out,” said
Ian Boyko, national chair of the CFS,
“They're about getting groups in the com-
munity together and making people feel
more included.”

Michelle Kinney, chair of the University
of Victoria Student Society (UVSS), a
CFS-affiliated school in BC, added that
another new tactic being tried this year is
“silent protest,” which uses theatrics, such
as binding and gagging protesters to rep-

resent their views falling on deaf ears, to
get the message across.

“What we're trying to do is find ways to
accentuate the positive, so we can get
away from the perception that our
demonstrations are just another angry
protest,” said Kinney.

It is also likely that there will be some
success this year in CFS campaigns, lead-
ers say.

Boyko said the CFS is due for some
progress in BC, now in the second year of
a three-year, 90 percent tuition hike.

He said the CFS is slowly winning a
public relations battle in BC as more of
the electorate warm to the idea that high-
er tuition fees hurt accessibility.

“The more the current BC government
do, the more they show that they’re not
interested in the public good, and now
the honeymoon period is quite over,” said

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Boyko.

According to a December 19 Ipsos-Reid
poll, The BC Liberal government current-
ly has the support of 44 percent of decid-
ed voters, compared to 31 percent for the
provincial NDP and 17 percent for the
provincial Green Party.

Boyko added that the CFS had a fairly
positive fall last semester in terms of
recruitment.

The lobby group added the University
of Toronto to its membership after a
November referendum, while its main
competitor, the Canadian Alliance of
Student Associations (CASA), recently
lost the University of Alberta and Grant
MacEwan College, two important mem-
bers.

“So we're riding that wave right now,
and we're getting stronger,” Boyko said.
“It’s going to be a good year.”

 

 

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