$745,000. That’s how much of our student fees the University of Toronto Students’ Union spent on their own salaries last year. For that sort of money, you would expect progress on the issues that matter to students. But year after year, tuition goes up, clubs continue to operate on shoestring budgets, and the largest university in Canada hosts a homecoming that’s both underfunded and underwhelming.
StudentPAC was formed by a group of students who think that we can do better. It’s not a political group. We are not affiliated with any party, ideology, or movement. Our members come from every college, faculty, and campus at the university. In a packed room at Hart House in October, this diverse group of ordinary students came together to share their ideas for a better university. We found that most people were concerned about the same core issues: their money, their clubs, and their social life.
These may be the issues that most students care about, but they are not the issues that UTSU has chosen to spend our student fees working on. Instead, they have put our money to use furthering their own personal pet projects. These may be worthy causes, but they are not the causes that matter to students. StudentPAC’s mission is to make sure that UTSU spends our money on the things that matter to us.
For the past few months, we have been attending UTSU commission sessions and the Annual General Meetings and General Assembly. We have been asking UTSU the questions that matter to students. Why does our tuition keep rising even though UTSU promised to lower it? Why do our clubs only get a fraction of the funding they need and deserve? Why doesn’t UTSU spend a bit of the money they collect from us on a decent homecoming and better social events?
It’s reasonable to ask that our money — yours and mine — be spent with our concerns in mind. Unfortunately, UTSU looks down on those who suggest that this is the case. At the university’s General Assembly, students who asked questions regarding UTSU’s repeated failure to lower tuition were shouted down. The Varsity reported that one such student was dismissed as a “rich white kid.”* This is not how a student union should respond to the students it is supposed to represent.
StudentPAC has worked for months to talk with UTSU about the issues that matter to students. They’re not listening. Our current UTSU Executives are nice people, but they’re wrong on all the issues that matter to students. Fortunately, we also elect the UTSU Executives who run the union. The next UTSU election was recently called and on March 8, 9, and 10 all University of Toronto undergraduate students will have the chance to elect a new UTSU Executive.
In previous elections, turnout for UTSU elections has been understandably low — after all, why would students take time out of their busy day to vote in elections for a student union that had so consistently failed to deliver results and so adamantly refused to talk about the issues that mattered to us?
This year is going to be different. At every event and meeting, ordinary students who have never voted before in UTSU elections are coming out and expressing their desire for a student union that shares their concerns and hopes. Just like those who packed the room at StudentPAC’s first meeting, students are tired of UTSU taking their money and giving nothing in return.
We have been hearing the same thing all year: not voting is just too expensive. Many of us are on OSAP, most of us are strapped for cash, and all of us have eaten way too much Ramen and Kraft Dinner for our own good. For students, every dollar counts. So when UTSU collects almost $2 million in student fees from us every year, we expect to see some results. Disappointingly, we’re still waiting.
StudentPAC is working to make sure that this election is about the issues that matter to students. But the $745,000 UTSU spends on their salaries is your money. If you want it spent on things that matter to you rather than someone else’s paycheque, then you will have to take action this election and vote for an UTSU Executive that shares your priorities.
This year, don’t settle for the same old, same old. If you’re fed-up with rising tuition and broken promises to lower it, then say so. If you’re tired of bake sales being clubs’ main source of funding, then demand better. If you think that the country’s biggest university deserves the country’s best homecoming, then you’ve got to vote for it.
StudentPAC is going to continue raising these issues, but it’s up to each and every one of us to get out there and demand an UTSU that works for us. It’s our money and it’s being wasted. We have a right to be upset. But unless we take action, nothing is going to change.
Taylor Scollon is Communications Director for the Student Political Action Committee
Editor’s Note: On January 24, 2011 in the news story “Reform group hits campus,” The Varsity reported that Andrew Agnew-Iler, part-time undergraduate representative on the Arts and Science Council, tweeted a photo of a table used by members of the StudentPAC at the U of T General Assembly with a caption that read “the rich white men are out in force.”
