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STUDENT RALLIES BLAST FEDERAL LIBERALS
(This article is from the Feb. 15-29/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
By Darrell Rankin
WITH SPIRIT AND DETERMINATION, tens of thousands of students demanded better access to post-secondary education during the February 2 Day of Action organized by the Canadian Federation of Students. Representing 400,000 university and college students across English-speaking Canada, the CFS is demanding that Ottawa restore $3.7 billion in funding to post-secondary education. The protests marked a resurgence of student protests, said a CFS spokesperson.
Actions took place in nearly all of the 60 campuses affiliated to the CFS, as well as on some non-member campuses, and in smaller communities. The "strike" tactic was used to shut down several campuses with solid picket lines. Students rallied, petitioned, held all-day soup kitchens, and performed political theatre.
"[The Day of Action] was great," said Elizabeth Carlyle, CFS National Deputy Co-Chair in a brief interview. Carlyle said that Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart promised "nothing specific" in a meeting after the protests.
Conditions for working class students have grown worse throughout the 1990s, despite a weak economic recovery in recent years. Intensified pro-corporate government policies are at the root of the growing, serious crisis in post-secondary education.
The Chretien Liberals and most federal politicians are sticking to pro-corporate policies or mild, ineffectual reforms at best. But support for the student protests is spreading, reaching well beyond the labour, women's and other organizations that have supported CFS protests over the last five years.
Some university administrations proclaimed an "amnesty," saying students who participated in the protests would face no academic reprisal. Several city councils passed resolutions of support for the students' demands.
Not surprisingly, working class youth, whose conditions have deteriorated dramatically, are playing a crucial role in organizing this resistance to the corporate agenda. Faced with the prospect of massive debt loads and poor job prospects, students from working class backgrounds are responsible for the largest protests currently challenging the Liberal hold on power in Ottawa.
Another important feature of the protests was the growth of communist youth participation and leadership in a number of cities. Thousands of copies of the Communist Party's Youth and Student Commission leaflet expressing solidarity with the CFS campaign were distributed at the rallies. The leaflets included information on the conference of revolutionary youth being organized by the Commission in May.
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