With about a week to go in what has so far shaped up to be one of the most contested election campaigns in recent Canadian history, postsecondary education has largely been off the nation’s political agenda.

Early in the campaign, it seemed possible that a Liberal minority might result in student-friendly parties having a bigger say in Canada’s new parliament, but with the new Conservative party gaining ground in the polls, and with talk of Stephen Harper becoming Canada’s next Prime Minister, many students are worried about the implications for education.
Sam Rahimi, SAC’s newly elected VP external, thinks that students tend to ignore elections and the result is political parties tend to be disinterested in student’s concerns.”It’s a vicious cycle,” Rahimi said. “Students don’t vote, so politicians can’t care about their issues, which makes them not vote.”

David Livingstone from U of T’s Center for the Study of Education and Work at OISE, thinks that post-secondary education has not become a major issue in this campaign because traditionally the Canadian government has done a good job of funding education in comparison to other western democracies, and the backslide in education funding in the last ten years has yet to hit the mainstream consciousness. “Nationally, we have been very successful in educational participation, especially in terms of community colleges. However, there is an increasing disincentive for students from lower income backgrounds to attend college or university. Students now shoulder a much larger portion of the cost of their educations, and this trend continues to increase.” Livingtone sees indebtedness as the single biggest educational issue facing students, and thinks that increasing bursaries is a better solution than the proliferation of larger and larger loans.

As far as pushing student issues onto the political table, “it’s up to students to make it happen,” says Rahimi. “If you look at the tuition freeze in Ontario right now, it’s the one promise that Dalton McGuinty has kept, and it’s because student leaders working together as the Canadian Federation of Students basically forced him to make that commitment.” He notes that SAC is not telling students how to vote in the upcoming election, as he says SAC represents the entire student political spectrum, but does concede “as far as education issues go, the NDP has focused on them more than the other parties have.”

He says that SAC is engaging in a poster campaign across U of T to encourage students to vote and get involved in the election, and Rahimi has also set up a town-hall meeting with several candidates from the GTA to take place at U of T.

The debate is at 11:00 am on June 23 in the McClennan Physics Lab, Room 203. The format will encourage questions from the floor.