Tuition protest the start of a ‘long and escalating fight back’

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This article was published 18/04/2017 (3258 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A protest on the steps of the Manitoba Legislative Building on Tuesday may have targeted tuition hikes, but the chanting and cheering spilled over to attack the provincial government.

About a hundred protesters organized by a group calling itself the Revolutionary Student Movement carried signs with slogans such as, “Student debt shouldn’t be a solution to provincial debt” and “Education, not a corporation.”

“I think tuition should be free in developed countries,” Lois Masur said. “Education is not just for the elite.”

The mother of a University of Winnipeg student, Masur joined the student movement to protest the Progressive Conservative government’s Bill 31 — which allows for a five per cent increase in tuition, plus inflation — and the more recent decision to eliminate tuition fee tax rebates for students.

The decisions have been lauded by members of the provincial government and university officials. But political bodies outside of Premier Brian Pallister’s government strongly disagree with the decision to increase tuition.

Josh Haney, a provincial campaign manager for federal NDP leadership candidate Peter Julian, called the increases “astonishing.”

“(Pallister) said there were ‘no sacred cows’ when he was running for office. Now we know what that means,” Haney said.

Manitoba’s university tuition has historically been among the lowest in the country on average. According to Statistics Canada, only Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have a lower average tuition.

But tuition issues are what the Revolutionary Student Movement targeted in this protest, even if the demonstration seemed to include broader concerns, with some protesters waving bright red flags and carrying signs attacking the “bourgeoisie” government.

Combined with the logo of the movement — a white hammer and sickle inside of a black cog — one could be forgiven for seeing this as a political protest.

Ian McDonald, a co-ordinator for the student movement, called the protest “the first step we see in a long and escalating fight back” against the government.

For McDonald, that includes student strikes and more “militant tactics,” including occupations and other actions to disrupt what he called the “neo-liberal agenda.”

“It’s not about making a spectacle; it’s about getting people on board,” McDonald said at the demonstration.

As speakers at the rally shouted slogans to the crowd such as “dare to struggle, dare to win!” and called the Revolutionary Student Movement “a new organization where other organizations have failed,” it seemed there was a deeper dissatisfaction among the protesters.

Yanisa Wu, the media contact for the movement, called the ideas at the rally “a little more radical” than they had planned. She said that the protest was intended to gain attention and sympathy for their cause and to be a call to action for students.

“The middle class and upper class are the only ones who can afford (increased tuition),” Wu said as the crowd chanted behind her.

Wu specifically pointed out organizations such as the Canadian Federation of Students as failing to act on a national level to rally students against government action.

“Right now, the student movement is incredibly passive and docile,” she said.

Although Wu said “abolishing capitalism” was a long-term goal for the group, she also said she didn’t expect large-scale change in the immediate future.

Despite any concern over radical ideas, the crowd seemed united in their purpose — and their chanting.

“Tuition hike: time to strike!” they chanted.

matthew.olson@freepress.mb.ca