This October I represented BC students in Ottawa during the Canadian Federation of Students’ (CFS) national lobby week. From October 22 to 26 students from across Canada met with Members of Parliament (MPs) and senators to talk about our common goals for postsecondary education. I met with seven NDP and Conservative MPs, with whom my colleagues and I shared eight recommendations on how the federal government should improve postsecondary education in Canada.
These recommendations are aimed at increasing equality of access for people who come from low socio-economic and other marginalized backgrounds. The recommendations that we made were democratically prioritized by students from across Canada at national general meetings (the CFS represents over 500,000 students from all the provinces).
Our recommendations include the creation of a national postsecondary education act and dedicated funding that would reduce tuition fees and ensure that money allocated to the provinces for postsecondary is used as intended. We also recommended that grants be increased and that federal student debt be cut in half by 2015. Other recommendations include removing the cap on funding for First Nations and Inuit students, and regulating tuition fees for international students.
Our recommendations were met by a wide array of responses, and support has been growing. Our goal is that the federal government will recognize that postsecondary education is an important investment that could have significant positive impacts for Canadian society, as well as the Canadian economy.