Thousands of students from schools across Ontario marched to Queen’s Park yesterday, Nov. 5, to demand lower tuition fees.

The annual, province-wide Day of Action was arranged by the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario as part of their Drop Fees campaign. The U of T Students Union and Graduate Students’ Union are members of CFS.

On Tuesday, Dave Scrivener, VP external of UTSU, was busy handing out fliers in Sid Smith, where UTSU members had been working an information table all week.

“I think it’s pretty likely [that fees will drop] if students put pressure on the government,” Scrivener told a skeptic undergrad. He described student response to the campaign as “overwhelmingly positive.”

Wednesday’s protesters were on board, yelling slogans from a flatbed truck outside Con Hall. A large group from York was the last to join students from St. George, UTM, UTSC, Ryerson, George Brown College, OCAD, and Trent University.

“I think that education is a social good, so society should take care of it through the state,” said Ricardo Habalcan, a fourth-year economics student at U of T.

According to CFS, Ontario’s per-student funding is 25 per cent below the national average. Between 2002 and 2008, annual tuition for a U of T Arts & Science student rose from $4,107 to $4,776. The increase was more dramatic for international students and those in professional faculties, such as law or engineering.

In 2004, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty honoured an election promise to freeze tuition fees. Two years later, he replaced the freeze with his Reaching Higher framework, which allowed tuition to rise but also increased the amount of loans and grants given to students. This framework is in its fourth of five years, a fact CFS has highlighted as the provincial government decides what to do next.

According to Greg Flood, spokesperson for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, the government has no plans for change and “continues to move forward with the implementation of the framework at this time.” For proof that Reaching Higher is getting positive results, Flood cited an increase of 100,000 post-secondary students in Ontario, 120,000 new student grants, and student loan default rates that are the lowest in Ontario’s history.

NDP leader Jack Layton took a different stance.

“With the kind of student fees and student debt that are facing students now, it’s a huge obstacle to achieving the potential we have as a country,” Layton told The Varsity just before boarding the rally truck. “So this action by CFS is vitally important for drawing attention to the barriers and obstacles.”

Obstacles like Shannon MacInnes is facing. “I am currently $32,000 in debt and I’m not even finished my second year,” the history and visual arts student said.

For many students, amnesty from skipping classes wasn’t enough incentive to go to the rally. “We don’t have amnesty from tests that in the future will cover this material,” said Richard Cerezo, a third-year math major.

“I feel as an international student, a lot of these rallies and things don’t apply to me because my fees go up all the time anyway,” linguistics student Dylan Uscher chimed in.

For those who came, the message was clear. In the words of Andrew Thomas, a fourth-year environmental science major, “It’s important to get students together and show the government that we’re serious, and that we need tuitions dropped.”