University students now need stability for the future

This past week of unscheduled debate in the Ontario Legislature marks the final chapter in a sad story that saw a reluctant government finally put an end to the victimization of some 50,000 York University students - students being denied their right to an education for which they worked hard and paid heavily.

If it wasn’t for the pressure of student groups and Opposition PC’s province, many York students would still be paying the price – lost meal plans, lost fees, lost tuition, lost education, and lost employment. For 12 weeks the McGuinty government sat on its laurels as the York University strike held students, their education, graduate plans, financial resources and employment opportunities on hold.

Despite last week's vote to ensure that class is back in session, we continue to question if the Ontario Government will do the right thing and reimburse those who have languished under this delayed response.

If all Premier McGuinty has to offer is the promise of additional OSAP funding, that really means more debt. Students don't deserve to have more debt and more interest charges because government chose to ignore their plight.

Ontario’s 'Education Premier' must learn from past mistakes and come up with a plan for the future. This government must also look forward and find a way to stop this from happening again. There are currently 10 other Universities with contracts set to expire and the impact on students across Ontario could be devastating if there is no solution put forward.

Perhaps it’s time to institute an arm’s-length university relations commission that would monitor strikes and notify the government when the academic year is in jeopardy. And perhaps it’s time for an entirely new thinking on the way this government deals with strikes in general as we look towards the potential of a corrections strike, a possible teacher strikes, and continued attempts to unionize farms.

While the PC Opposition pushed for back-to-work legislation in the York dispute– something we first called for last November – it’s clear that months of inaction have left a mark on this government.

The return to the Legislature to bring sanity to this situation wasn’t without its own twists as the Government and NDP bounced the future of these students around like a hot potato – ensuring a full week of debate before the issue was finalized. If it was justified, this debate could have been held before Christmas.

Mismanagement first made the students pawns in the dispute between York University and CUPE 3903, and mismanagement then turned them into pawns in a political game between the Liberals and the NDP.

Over the 12 weeks, Premier McGuinty's priority, clearly, was the rights of CUPE and not the rights of university students. His casual dismissal of the hardships and injustice that York U. students have been made to suffer does not bode well for University of Toronto students who may be suffering the same circumstances shortly. The same can be said or the 300,000 students at universities across Ontario whose education may be disrupted by CUPE strikes in 2010.

Such disruption would not be occurring under either an education premier or an education government.