end strike

> Students missed five weeks of class,
semester potentially salvageableBy

Jake Wray
News Editor

 

00,000 college students in Ontario
haven't been to class in five weeks.

Their fall semester was waylaid when
the Ontario Public Service Employees
Union (OPSEU,) the union for Ontario
college instructors, voted on October 16
to strike after a breakdown in contract
negotiations with the College Employer
Council (CEC), which represents post-
secondary institutions in Ontario.

The union was fighting for greater
academic freedom and fighting against
“exploitation” of instructors employed
under temporary contracts, according
to a press release issued by the OPSEU
October 15. In recent years, numerous
post-secondary instructors across
North America have spoken out against
the prevalence of precarious part-
time employment contracts that force
instructors to re-apply for their job
each semester and accept low wages.

The CEC called the union’s demands
“unreasonable,” saying that the demands
would increase annual costs for Ontario
colleges by $400 million and eliminate
over 4,000 teaching jobs, according toa
press release issued by the CEC September
20. Negotiations between the colleges and
the union failed to produce results in the
five weeks that students were out of class.

Now, the Ontario government
has passed legislation forcing the
college instructors back to work,
effective November 20. Students
will return to class November 21.

Premier Kathleen Wynne and
her Liberal government moved back-
to-work legislation on November 16
with a goal of having students back in
class by November 20, according to

a report by CBC News, but that was
temporarily blocked when the Ontario
NDP refused to back the legislation.

Andrea Horwath, leader of the
Ontario NDP, said ina press release
issued November 17 that her party wanted
students back in class by November 20
as well, but only if the teachers’ union
and colleges can come to an agreement.

“T will not support back-to-work
legislation. I want students back in
classrooms Monday [November 20,] and
I want that achieved through a deal,” she
said in the press release. “It looks like
Kathleen Wynne wanted to use anti-
worker back-to-work legislation all along.’

Legislators debated the back-to-
work legislation throughout the weekend
of November 18 and November 19.

Deb Matthews, Liberal MPP
and Ontario minister of advanced
education, told reporters that the
Ontario NDP’s move to block the
bill was unfair to students.

“This is up to the NDP, we could
have passed this last night,” Matthews
said November 17, according to a Globe
and Mail report. “This is cruel what
they are doing to students right now.
Students have been through so much,
there has been so much uncertainty.”

Ontario students have expressed
essentially-unanimous frustration
with the strike, but they have various
opinions about who is to blame.

Julian Ghloum, an insurance and
risk-management student at Fanashwe
College, wrote a letter to Wynne blasting
her and the Liberal government for
inaction, according to a report by Global
News on October 20. He wrote that the
government should pressure the CEC to
accept some of the OPSEU’s demands.

“If the lack of government

>

 

involvement continues, you can guarantee
to have lost my vote, and I would safely
bet that a large majority of the 500,000
students affected by this strike,” Ghloum
wrote. “I think it’s unfair that our
livelihoods are at risk while the resolution
to this conflict hasn’t even begun.”

Krista Seager, a second-year nursing
student at St. Clair College, said she
blames the teachers for jeopardizing
her education, according toa CBC
News report published November 16.

“T feel the teachers are being greedy,”
she told CBC News. “They’ve gotten
most of what they want ... sometimes
you have to make an agreement
and let one or two things go.”

Zachary Babins, a public relations
student at Seneca College, told CBC
News his mental health has suffered due
to the stress and loss of routine caused
by the strike. Babins said he and other
students are facing serious consequences
from the strike, despite the fact that they
support the teachers, according to a CBC
News report published November 12.

“A lot of us, we really feel for the
teachers and we want them to have
the tools they need to succeed,” he
told CBC News. “But at the same time,
we feel caught in the crossfire.”

Douglas College hosts truth
and reconciliation forum

> Panel discusses calls to action in New Westminster

Colten Kamlade
Staff Reporter

 

forum at Douglas College, entitled
“Truth and Reconciliation: Cities
and Citizens,” delved into the many
complexities of the history and
future of New Westminster and its
relationship with Indigenous people.
This event is the fourth forum
that Douglas College has hosted
on urban issues. Panelists Dr.
Gail Edwards, Rob McCullough,
and Dave Seaweed discussed the
history of New Westminster and
its Indigenous inhabitants, and the
kind of action that needs to be taken
to move towards reconciliation.
Edwards, a history professor at

Douglas College, told the story of her
family settling in North America.

“My family’s story is fairly typical of
settler-born Canadians,” she said. “What
all my ancestors had in common was that
the land on which they farmed was the
land of Indigenous people of the United
States and Canada; land that had been
taken through purchase, and through
treaty, and land that was unceded”

McCullough, manager of museums
and heritage services for the City of
New Westminster, discussed some
of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission's calls to action.

“A significant call to action that
specifically identifies where we can
act is number 47, which calls upon
federal, provincial, territorial, and
municipal governments to repudiate

concepts used to justify Europeans
sovereignty over Indigenous peoples
and lands, such as the doctrine of
discovery and terra nullius, and to
reform those laws, government policies,
and litigation strategies that continue
to rely on such concepts,” he said.
McCullough said many of the calls to
action cannot be accomplished without
support from outside the government.
“Many of the calls require more
than a team of city staff to deliver,
they require deeper engagement and
collaboration with the Indigenous
community,” he said. “An example is
number 57, which calls upon government
to provide education to public servants
on the history of aboriginal peoples.”
Seaweed, an aboriginal co-ordinator
at Douglas College, voiced concerns

Photo via ‘Ontario Public Service Employees Union’ Facebook page

Many students are demanding
refunds on their tuition. #WePaytoLearn,
a petition on change.org demanding
tuition refunds, has accrued 138,000
signatures. Students who quit college
because of the strike are eligible for a
tuition refund, according to a report by
the Toronto Star published November 20.

Amir Allana, a paramedic student at
Humber College and one of the authors
of the #WePaytoLearn petition, said both
sides of the strike dispute need to consider
the student perspective, according toa
report by CBC News published October 14.

“We want to send a clear message
to both college administrations and
unionized faculty: We pay your salaries.

It is our tuition money that you are
fighting over. Get back to the bargaining
table, compromise, and figure it out. Or
we want our money back,” he told CBC
News. “We are not taking a position. Both
sides have a right to bargain and both
sides have a right to this conversation. We
are just a third stakeholder that has not
been heard throughout this process.”

According to CBC News, a
class-action lawsuit was launched
November 14 on behalf of students
seeking tuition refunds.

More to come.

about dialogue without action.

“We're kind of in the honeymoon
phase,” he said. “We don't want to
see lip service, we want to make sure
that things are moving forward.”

Seaweed said the City has
made some positive moves
following the calls to action.

“The government came in, right
after the report came out, and came to
each institution and went to the ... VP
Academic and myself, and [gave us]

a questionnaire,” he said. “And in the
Truth and Reconciliation calls to action,
there’s 12 that are dealing specifically
with education, and [the questionnaire]
went into each one, in depth, and

said, ‘what have you done, what are

you doing, and what do you plan on
doing?’ So, we're excited about that.”