October 28, 1997

Feds feel student fury on road trip

By Sarah Schmidt

TORONTO (CUP) — Federal politicians returned to Ottawa Wednesday after get- ting an earful from students across the country during a quick-paced, pulse-checking roving tour of the country.

The five-day, 10 city tour, which saw finance minis- ter Paul Martin’s advisors hop from Vancouver to St. John’s, was a bumpy trip.

Martin, who has been dubbed the “education minis- ter” for recent quick-fix solu- tions to an under-funded post- secondary education system, sent members of the House of Commons Finance Commit- tee to hear from the people last week.

“There is no question we’re in a new economic era where we can actually debate fiscal dividend,” committee chair Maurizio Bevilacqua, said. “Everything is on the ta- ble, every idea needs to be explored.”

Grandiose ideas and new visions were tabled dur- ing the tour, which follows on the heels of Martin’s annual economic update delivered last week in Vancouver. Martin announced Canada is ap- proaching a post-deficit era. He predicts a balanced budget by next year and wants to know how the dividend should be spent.

But almost wherever Martin or the committee sur- faced, they faced anger about cuts to social spending made in the last few years in the name of deficit reduction.

“Social justice has fallen off the table,” Gerald Vandezende of the Citizens for Public Justice said at the Toronto hearings earlier this

week. “The Liberals have abandoned their values.”

“T think this committee may want to interview that man,” he added about a home- less man Vandezende passed on his way to the hearings.

And Martin’s pseudo- title of education minister was symbolically stripped from him by irate students. “He got grilled,” Mark Veercamp, treasurer of the British Co- lumbia component of the Ca- nadian Federation of Students, said about Martin’s stop at Simon Fraser University.

“It’s putting a fire out with aneye dropper,” he added about the merit-based $1-bil- lion Millennium Scholarship Fund recently announced, which he sees as a flashy, quick-fix initiative that does nothing to repair the damage the Liberals have done to the post-secondary system.

Martin has presided over federal budgets which have resulted in $2.29-billion cut from post-secondary edu- cation since the Liberals came to power in 1993. And during his tenure as finance minister, tuition fees have risen by 45

r cent across the country and student debt loads are up 70 per cent.

Marjorie Brown,amem- ber of the federation s national executive and president of the University of Regina Students Union, had a similar message for members of the committee when it hit Saskatchewan days later.

She stressed the fed- eral deficit has been shifted to the backs of students and other ordinary Canadians, an argu- ment echoed by four other fed- eration spokespeople in hear-

ings elsewhere in the country this week,

But sandwiched in-be- tween this message was an outpouring ofanger from mem- bers of the University of Calgary’s Reform club. When Martin arrived on the campus, he was heckled by members of the Young Reformers.

“We tried to get our message across,” said

Brendan Cassidy about the .

Young Reformers call for the abolition of the Canadian Pen- sion Fund and an across-the- board tax cut.

Butit looks like Cassidy and other Reform supporters won't be getting the govern- ment’s ear anytime soon.

“Canadians have said, Yes, we have paid a big price in terms of the social fabric. And we re not prepared to continue at the expense of tax cuts. That’s been the overrid- ing message right across the country,” Tony Valeri, a Lib- eral member of the finance committee and parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance, said Wednesday at the end of the tour.

Nelson Riis, a New Democratic member of the finance committee, says if the federal government wants to truly help students, they should be prepared to take drastic measures.

“If the Prime Minister is serious about education, which I think he is, I believe we have to do something big like eliminate tuition fees. Let us do what other countries do and do away with tuition fees to make it truly accessible,” he said.

Students irate about youth work experience Pi oaiam

__ ByKip Bonnell

soe u di nt lead ders in Newfoundland

the legality of a government funded work-

am fo youth ¢ x may pursue the matter in Ree OnE e 5 See eS

. a hase

Work and Services Program was intro- Iooa to ahve Newt oeoditnd students

inity tc earn money and gain career-related expe-

, Fun joint! /by the provincial and federal onsists of two components, paid employment Weeryice: Sea \unity service component is what has student

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( i m, $ s work for non-profit or- izations that ideally are related to their field of study. sy receive $50 per week plus a tuition voucher for $1,400

‘at the end of the work placement. . Dale Kirby, chair of the Newfoundland component of the Canadian Federation of Students, says he is troubled by the fact that students receive small cash payments during the work term, and in the end receive funds that can only be used fortuition.

_ “{ don t think that people should be forced to be paid with a voucher,” Kirby said. “Students should have the freedom of choice.”

~ Studen uld be

the option of taking the tuition uivalent amount through cash rk period, he adds.

he federation is presently working with F wyers to determine whether there are challenge the program and its $50 per week s labour codes. _

ocess of investigating the legalities of ) per ae and nether or not that is our,” he said. He adds that if the

sar, a legal challenge may be