In response to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty’s recently announced tuition hike, student organisations headed by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) are sending out warning signs about the possibility of a student strike.

UTM is considering a walkout on the last day of classes in April. But although groups like the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC) approved the student strike at a recent meeting, they stress it would be a last resort.

“Right now we are really focusing on organizing a whole bunch of events, and getting student groups on campus to see what they are capable of doing to help stop these tuition fees from going up,” said Jen Hassum, SAC’s outgoing VP External and next year’s chairperson. “The goal here is to keep tuition fees frozen-the goal here is not to have a strike. It would be something we decide [on] when there is nothing else.”

“There are no decisions definitively,” echoed Jesse Greener, Ontario chairperson of the CFS. “We need to keep pressure on the government. There is a bill on legislation, Bill 12, to keep tuition frozen, and there has been a lot of rallying students have been doing. There are petitions, responses to MPPs, emails reaching 600 a day; there has been a great response.”

With a majority of student unions open to the idea of a student strike as a last resort, members of the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) have voted against it.

“College students are begging to get back into their classes right now,” said SCSU VP External Rob Wulkan. “The idea that we’re talking about having students walk out of them on purpose seems almost comical in its irony. In my opinion we haven’t exhausted our other avenues, and until such time as we have I would be strongly opposed to a general student strike.”

The consensus among SAC, SCSU, and the CFS is that students need to take action and do whatever they can to draw the attention of the wider population to the tuition issue.

“Call your MPP,” said Hassum, “We have to do something. If we do nothing we know tuition is going to be going up, but if we do something, maybe we can change it.”

Quoting Ralph Nader, Hassum urged students to act. “If you’re not turned on to politics, politics will turn on you,” she said.