Student Dispatch with Bilan Arte

Daniel Crump

Welcome back to campus for another year filled with textbooks, term papers, and all-nighters. While you were enjoying the summer working (or looking for work), spending time with family and friends, or taking a summer class, a lot was happening on the post-secondary education front. 

For returning students, you’ll notice that you’re paying more in tuition and ancillary fees than last year. Legislation passed by the provincial government tied tuition fee increases to inflation for undergrads in arts and sciences, and left the door open for bigger increases for everyone else.

While students fight to eliminate barriers to post-secondary education, we also fight for safe and inclusive campuses. The province has started discussing how best to deal with harassment and assault in schools through Bill 18, the Public Schools Amendment Act (Safe and Inclusive Schools), opening the door to conversations about harassment on campuses. Students and your representatives have also been hard at work pushing City Hall to create a U-Pass for all students in Winnipeg and working with the provincial government to extend tenant protections to students living in residence.

On a national level, students have successfully lobbied to have the off-campus work permit and study permit rolled into one. Now international students have an easier - and cheaper - process for finding work. 

In the fight for accessible, affordable, and high-quality public education, students across Manitoba must be working alongside one another and with others in our communities—our parents, professors, staff, friends, and families.

On the research front, federal funding cuts to research granting councils and the National Research Council are resulting in program cuts that have been announced throughout the summer. Students must continue to advocate for increases in funding to all granting councils and that funding be consistent with enrollment.

From a distance, many of these changes and victories seem to have happened on their own. But in reality, all of the gains that students and communities have made happened because people worked and organized together and fought for these changes. And where we’ve seen cuts and increases in fees, governments have taken advantage of divisions or a lack of organized opposition efforts. Everything that students have won - tuition fee freezes and caps, and funding increases alike - have been won through dedication and hard work of entire communities, not just individuals on their own.

In the fight for accessible, affordable, and high-quality public education, students across Manitoba must be working alongside one another and with others in our communities—our parents, professors, staff, friends, and families. 

The Canadian Federation of Students-Manitoba represents all 42,000 students at the University of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg, Brandon University, and l’Université de Saint Boniface. Throughout the year I encourage you to get involved in the student movement and have a say in shaping the system of post-secondary education here in Manitoba. 

As we settle into the school year, let’s not get too comfortable. Let’s shake things up, let’s push the boundaries, and let’s work together to improve public education for everyone in this province.

Bilan Arte is Chairperson for the Canadian Federation of Students–Manitoba. She previously served a term as President at the University of Manitoba Students’ Union and has been involved in student activism in Manitoba for over three years. She is currently completing a degree in Political Studies and Criminology at the University of Manitoba.

Published in Volume 68, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 11, 2013)

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