Victoria Silman | News Editor
Featured Image: The march was held downtown, spanning from Yonge-Dundas Square to Queen’s Park. | Kevin Taghabon
With the announcement of cuts to OSAP, tuition, and ancillary fees, students have begun initiatives to push back against the changes.
On January 25, thousands of students from across Ontario gathered at Yonge-Dundas Square to partake in the March Against OSAP Cuts. The march ended at Queen’s Park, where students gathered to pressure the provincial government to abandon these changes.
While the event page showed 4,400 students attending, and another 22,000 interested, despite the chilly -2 degree weather, organizers estimate close to 5,000 students joined the march to fight back against OSAP and tuition changes.
Aleksei Shkurin, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, was one of the students helping to organize the protest.
“Before I came to Canada, I did my undergrad in Finland for free; having that experience, I thought these OSAP changes would have a negative impact on Canadian society,” he says.
“It is crucial to invest in teaching people how to think, learn, and ask the right questions. I just wanted to help my Canadian friends reverse these unfortunate decisions.”
President Rhonda Lenton recently released a statement addressing the changes.
“We still do not have all the details, but we are reaching out to the government and working closely with our partners across the post-secondary sector to understand the implications for our students and our university,” she said.
The statement also points to changes with student fees, which have caused concerns within student groups on campus. Some ancillary fees will become optional with the changes, but what will be affected has yet to be determined.
Addressing the issue, the York University Graduate Students Association held a strategy meeting on January 28 with major student groups at York to discuss changes to these fees. The details of the meeting are not yet available, but will be in the coming weeks.
In a previous correspondence with MPP David Piccini, he said: “We’re working with schools, student groups, and administrations now on ancillary fees.”
Furthermore, a Change.org petition, called “Stop Doug Ford Cuts to OSAP” has also been created, garnering over 234,000 signatures of the 300,000 goal at the time of publication.
Alongside this outcry, another March Against OSAP Cuts is scheduled for 12 p.m. on February 4, at Queen’s Park. So far, the event page has generated 2,000 interested attendees, while over 500 have confirmed their attendance.
“We are dedicated to continue fighting until OSAP is fully reinstated,” Shkurin says.
