Student Solidarity
CSCT Students Endorse Quebec Student Strike
We, the students of the Cultural Studies and Critical Theory (CSCT) graduate
program at McMaster University, stand in solidarity with the hundreds of
thousands of Quebec students currently on strike against the neoliberal
assault on post-secondary education in their province. The proposed 75%
increase to Quebec tuition fees is the most the most recent and egregious
example of the larger project to dismantle the quality and accessibility of
post-secondary education across Canada.
We also stand firmly against the further commercialization of education,
which the Quebec government has erroneously pushed as the education sector's
financial solution. Quebec students have pointed out that the proposed
intensification of research commercialization - which is expected to add $36
million to the province's university budget - will further subject
university research to the demands and priorities of the market. The
consequences of such policies have already begun to be felt in Ontario
universities.
These tuition increases and related attacks on Canada's students of public
higher education institutions, nowhere more so than in Quebec, nurture a
culture of debt that is further disenfranchising students in a society
readily dismantling its public social support apparatuses in favour of
privatized solutions. This kills the dreams that have made Canada's
universities some of the most forward-thinking and progressive in the world
- the pursuit of social justice education, the dissemination of democratic
knowledge, and positive change in the larger community unimpeded by the
chokehold of private, corporate interests. These changes to the face of
higher education in Canada are nothing short of undemocratic, anti-student,
and anti-education.
In Solidarity,
Melissa Aceto, Catherine Bernardi, Stephanie Cheung, Greg Fenton, Brandon
Fratarcangeli, Dallas Hunt, Evan Johnston, Dakin McDonald, Alana Prochuk,
Rick Ramrattan, Jocelyn Smith, Shaun Stevenson, Tony Walker, Alison Watson,
Alissa Watt