There it is—the unmistakable sound of students packing up to leave before the class is over.

This is something that has happened in almost every class I’ve taken in my six semesters at Western, and I’m sure many other students have noticed it as well. It bothers me, and here’s why.

First, we are university students. We are here to learn and expand our horizons. Cliché? Sure. Idealistic? Probably. True? Absolutely.

A university degree may be necessary to get ahead in today’s job market, but that doesn’t mean students are just going through the motions while they’re here. Unlike high school, in university we get to choose our major and tailor our courses to suit our goals and interests. We should be interested in the topics we are being taught, and want to learn as much as we can.

When the prof says they’re going to summarize the important part at the end of a lecture, that means what they’re about to say is important. It doesn’t mean the lecture is over, and it doesn’t mean you should disrupt the students who are trying to listen to the lecture by shuffling your notes and zipping up your bag.

I know it isn’t always like that—maybe the lecture hall is stuffy, the seats are uncomfortable, or you didn’t have time to eat breakfast and you can’t wait to get to Centre Spot for lunch. But it’s a trend I notice consistently, and to me it says that students don’t care about the information they’ve paid thousands of dollars to have the privilege of learning.

Second, to start packing up—which is usually a loud and annoying process when undertaken en masse—before the lecture ends is beyond disrespectful to your professor. These are people who have devoted their lives to learning and teaching, and are passing on their immense knowledge to you. Do you think your prof doesn’t notice when a room full of immobile students starts fidgeting with their belongings, and they have to raise their voice to be heard over the commotion?

I can only imagine how discouraging it must be for a professor, who is lecturing on the pretence that their students are interested in what they have to say, to see half the class start packing up five minutes before the lecture ends. If you’ve managed to sit still and pay attention for an hour and 45 minutes, will another five minutes really kill you?

And how much time do you really save by packing up early, anyway? The whole process shouldn’t take you any longer than thirty seconds.

When you start packing your things before your lecture is over, you are sending a message. To your fellow students, you are saying, “I am so uninterested in this class I’ve chosen to take that I can’t bear to sit here a minute longer, and I don’t care if you can hear the prof.” To your professor, you are saying, “Your knowledge and experience are not interesting to me, and I’m only here to get a passing grade.”

So, next time you’re inclined to disrupt the end of a class, stop to ask yourself—if I can’t bother to listen to five more minutes of this lecture, then what am I even doing here?

“Previously, students were charged $3.38 on an annual basis and [when they] purchased [their] course pack, [they] paid a 10 cent royalty fee per page. Now, the course packs will not carry a royalty charge,” Maureen Cavan, executive director of Access Copyright, explained.

Instead, a flat rate of $27.50 per student has been agreed on between Access Copyright and the administration at Western—down from the original proposal of $45 by Access Copyright.

“This was a negotiated change between Western University and the University of Toronto to reflect, to the best of our ability, the value of what those copyrights would be,” Cavan said. “It was strictly a reasonable rate that everyone could agree to.”

However, not everyone is content with the changes to the fee structure.

“This is, to put it bluntly, a total sell out,” Samuel Trosow, an associate professor in the faculty of information and media studies, said. “Access Copyright is essentially trying to prop up a very stagnant and outdated business model that generates a lot of revenue well beyond its usefulness.”

Though the $27.50 was negotiated down from the proposed $45, Trosow felt the price still unreasonable.

“Yes, $27 looks good compared to $45, [but] I reject that claim,” he asserted. “It’s still way out of line.”

Despite the objections to the change in fee structure, both Western and U of T found the new price to access copyrighted material reasonable.

“Western believes that everyone in our university community will benefit from having the appropriate rights to copy both digital and written materials,” Keith Marnoch, director of media relations at Western, said.

“The new agreement [...] gives all students and faculty, and the university, an indemnity against breach of copyright assertions and removes any risk of dispute between Access Copyright and Western over what constitutes fair dealing.”

Yet Trosow believes the deal struck was not actually in the best interest of the students.

“I think [the administration] is opting for administrative convenience at great expense to the students,” Trosow said. “They’re shifting the costs to the students, and really the people that are going to suffer are the students who will have to pay it year after year.”

The university noted because of the fees attached to course packs, the average student was paying $18 in fees, on top of a $2.90 base fee.

The University Students’ Council shared similar sentiments.

“The university is looking to do what is the easiest, but sometimes what’s the easiest costs more,” Patrick Searle, vice-president university affairs for the USC, said.

According to Searle, the process for determining the fee never included any proper student surveying, preventing the viewpoint from being effectively voiced.

“The fee was never approved through a proper medium of students,” Searle said. “Students deserve a fair and transparent process to approve fees and we just don’t want to see this set any precedent for any future fees that need to be increased.”

Access Copyright is not the only option universities have when it comes to legally using copyrighted documents.

“The USC believes there are ways to live without Access Copyright,” Searle said. “What other universities have done is set up copyright offices and do it all internally.”

According to Searle, the university administration does intend to assume some of the new cost, easing the burden on students.

“The university has indicated they will pay $2.50 of the $27.50 fee,” explained Searle.

For self-esteem coach and professional counsellor Jennifer Schramm, speaking at Brescia in honour of eating disorders awareness week will be meaningful in more ways than one.

Schramm, who was a Western student herself, will talk about her own experience overcoming an eating disorder on Thursday evening.

“I am going to give the full details of what it was like to be in the eating disorder and how I came out of it,” she says.

When it comes to eating disorders, Schramm says university can be tough.

“University is a transition into adulthood and can be a vulnerable time for people—living away from home for the first time, meeting new friends, heartbreaks, failures, successes, a new way of learning, being more independent, and it is a time where we start to learn who we are and what we want from life,” she explains. “There are a lot of firsts and some of us haven’t learned how to cope with life stressors or feel little control over our lives, so we turn to an eating disorder as a coping mechanism.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way, she says, though it took Schramm a while to realize she needed help.

“For many years and including when I was in university, I was hurting so badly and had nowhere to turn. I didn’t even really know I had a problem or that my eating was disordered or that I had low self-esteem,” she says, describing constant anxiety, comparisons and obsession with perfecting her body.

Eventually, she realized what she was really after.

“What I was really seeking was love and acceptance from myself,” she says. “I needed to get help so that I could learn how to give myself the attention I was so desperately seeking.”

An example of someone who has not only survived, but also thrived after suffering from an eating disorder, Schramm says counselling and giving back—through events like the one scheduled for Thursday—is extremely rewarding.

“[When I was getting better], I really wanted to talk to someone who had gone through an eating disorder and who could relate and understand where I was coming from and what I was going through, and I never really found it,” she says. “I want to be that for others.”

Sponsored by the Eating Disorders Foundation of Canada, the speaker event, which is organized by London’s Hope’s Garden Eating Disorders Support and Resource Centre, is just one of the events planned to promote eating disorders awareness week from February 6-10. Hope’s Garden is also hosting a breakfast on Tuesday with keynote speaker Maureen Shirreff, the North American creative director of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.

The event takes place Thursday, February 9 at 5 p.m. in the auditorium of the St. James Building at Brescia. Donations of $5-$10 suggest, proceeds to Hope’s Garden. Visit hopesgarden.org for more information.

The John Labatt Centre’s Broadway in London performances are normally amazing one night only engagements that inspire and mesmerize the audience. Their exclusive nature ensures a packed house, but doesn’t allow for the benefit of hearing word-of-mouth reviews prior to purchasing a $60 ticket. Normally, this isn’t a problem.

Fiddler on the Roof  fell short of the musical’s great potential, choosing to rely heavily on a comedic interpretation of Bock, Harnick and Stein’s 1964 ode to the Russian Revolution and forgetting to create any character depth or play upon the musical’s intellectual undertones. A few of the characters achieved cartoonish hilarity at times, but only the character of Tevye, played by veteran actor John Preece, was given the opportunity to display a variety of believable emotions or thoughts, which should be expected from an actor who has played the same character over 1,700 times.

Many of the actors have substantial professional dance training backgrounds that could have been wonderfully utilized during the show’s musical numbers, but the opportunity was completely overlooked. It’s extremely disappointing for a musical that depicts a country with such a rich dance history as Russia. Further, it’s lack of imaginative costume design could have been excused if the designs were at least authentic to Orthodox Russian-Jewish culture. Horrendous fabric choices and tacky interpretations of Russian “simplicity” were reminiscent of elementary-school productions reliant on overburdened moms to throw together their childrens’ costumes the night before the show.

The innovative set design and the strength of the original musical numbers were the play’s saving graces. Tevye’s house was quaint and folded up like a dollhouse to transition from indoor to outdoor settings, romanticizing the dire poverty that was experienced by many of Russia’s Orthodox Jews. This made it palatable to a modern sensibility allowing the musical’s other themes to be emphasized. While none of the actors had a stunning vocal range or ability, the individual numbers were strong enough to entertain (“Matchmaker”) or even enrapture (“Sunrise, Sunset”). The small ensemble orchestra was well-selected and talented.

Fiddler on the Roof is a hard musical to succeed with as it deals with serious religious, political and socio-economic issues and has a setting that most North Americans have little knowledge about. This attempt was unfortunate, but the JLC’s previous showing of My Fair Lady was great enough that future performances are still anxiously awaited.

Catch Riverdance at the JLC on April 17, and Young Frankenstein on May 27.

A report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information found there were 931 regulated nurses per 100,000 Canadians. The field as a whole grew by two per cent over the past year.

“In some respect this is a really positive trend that we’re seeing, because the nursing profession in particular went through a particular period of shortage,” Sandra Regan, assistant professor in the department of nursing, explained. She noted during the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a shortage of nurses, largely because of an aging workforce.

Regan said while there was growth in the field, numbers were nowhere near where they should be. “While we’re looking in the right direction, we have a ways to go yet.”

Regan explained part of the problem was there was no ideal goal for the number of nurses in Canada. “It doesn’t factor in health care needs of patients, or health care needs of the population.”

She noted it was a high level goal, which didn’t take into account local needs of populations, or even the current population, which was aging and being diagnosed with more chronic diseases. Also, where nurses were giving care was not taken into account, such as whether they were in hospitals or community care centres.

Ryan Mallin, vice-president student affairs with the Nursing Students’ Council at Western, noted the changing needs of the population were part of the reason many of his peers were not concerned about their job prospects. “As long as people are getting sick, nurses will be there helping them through their journey to recovery.”

“If you have more health care providers […] an increase would be associated with more access to care,” Carol Brule, manager of health human resources with the Canadian Institute for Health Information, explained.

She noted the number of nurses depended not just on demand for nurses, but also on the number of seats available for students in a nursing program. Many of the policies that were created during the shortage were to place more students in classes.

“It is true that more nursing students are graduating from Canadian universities and colleges than ever before, but the need for nurses will always be there,” Mallin reiterated.

“I think there are lots of opportunities for graduates in the future,” Regan said. “New graduates have lots of opportunities in front of them.”

“There is a vast array of job opportunities for nursing graduates as we speak. I think we often hear that nursing students can’t find jobs because some are being very specific in regards to what area of nursing and what city they want to work in,” Mallin said.

This conclusion came as a result of research conducted by Philip Oreopoulos, a professor of economics at the University of Toronto, on Canadian immigrants struggling in the labour market. Oreopoulos sent out 600 fake resumes on various job posting sites, such as monster.ca, some with Anglo-Saxon sounding names and some with foreign-sounding ones. A computer program randomly generated degrees and work experience in Canada or abroad.

According to Oreopoulos’ paper, having a degree from a prestigious Canadian university did not appear to impact call-back rates. “While Canadian experience plays a crucial role in determining the likelihood of a call-back, having a degree from a more prestigious institution or acquiring additional schooling in Canada does not appear to impact the chances of a call-back significantly,” the paper said.

However, the prestige of the applicant’s education does come into play when they have a “foreign-sounding” name. “The one exception is Canadian resumes with foreign names. While there is no effect for similar applicants with English names, applicants with foreign names receive about 40 per cent more call-backs if they list a higher ranked Canadian university,” Oreopoulos’ paper noted.

“We’ll hire from any university or any college, it’s not a big deal for us,” one recruiter from Aerotek, a company which other employers outsource their hiring to, explained.

He explained that other things were more important than the reputation of a candidate’s university. “We look at a student’s resume for credibility, where they held positions. For us, it’s based on personality—when they walk in the door and how they interview with us. We care about whether they have selling mentality.”

Kevin Goldthorp, vice-president external at Western, disagreed. Goldthorp has been meeting with corporations and their HR departments for nine years, and said companies definitely prefer graduates from certain universities, Western among them.

He explained recruiter’s judgments stemmed from the accomplishments of Western alumni. He said, “People experience you as you go out in the world and Western graduates get a reputation of being able to do the job, and do the job really well. People say, ‘Oh you went to Western? I know people from Western who are doing great things. You must be good.’”

Frances Woolley, a professor of economics at Carleton University, also explained other factors in the job search that would affect results more than a prestigious degree.

“Factors include the strength of the local economy, the person’s field of study, the person’s other experiences, networks and connections.”

She also explained that location of the institution was important—Western is not only prestigious, but gives graduates the advantage of the larger Ontario labour market.

“With O-Week in general, we’ve been doing our best to reevaluate every step of the process, to make sure that everything from the selection of head sophs to deciding the actual programs is fair,” Nicole D’Alessandro, vice-president student events for the University Students’ Council, said. “This year we included [in the selection process] first-year residence councillors to add in a fresh perspective. We also included the outgoing head soph, and the controversy is that it’s now a non-voting position.”

The decision to take the vote away from the outgoing head sophs of each soph constituency sparked an outcry from head sophs and student representatives, who felt the rearrangement did not serve the best interests of students.

“In my opinion, current head sophs have the relevant experience to choose the next head soph, and I think have one of the most important votes,” Zach Valliant, president of the Media, Information and Technoculture Students’ Council, explained. “I also don’t understand the replacement of their vote with that of a first-year representative, because they don’t have much experience with what it means to be a head soph, yet they have a vote.”

D’Alessandro explained the reasons for the change were to eliminate any bias from the selection process.

“In the past, a lot of applicants felt the process was a matter of outgoing head sophs picking their friends,” D’Alessandro said. “It’s still not a perfect process, but I think it was one step towards leveling the playing field.”

Valliant, however, disagreed with her reasoning. “I don’t think that argument has any merit because the person is still just one vote.”

D’Alessandro highlighted another reason for the change was that unlike the rest of the committee, outgoing head sophs would not be working with incoming ones. Valliant expressed his doubts.

“If that’s the case, then why am I there?” Valliant said, referring to the inclusion of constituency representatives on the selection committee. “I’m not going to be working with [the incoming head soph] either.”

Yogesh Patodia, who was a member of the Orientation Staff for 2011, expressed his concern that administration was asserting too much control over the orientation programming.

“People from administration are being brought into a student-driven program and making all these changes. I think the people that are qualified for the positions are purposely not being taken because they’re ‘over-qualified’ and could therefore resist the changes that are being made,” Patodia said.

Arjun Maini, the current head soph for the faculty of science, agreed it was risky to shift negotiating power away from students.

“When administrators of the program who definitely have an agenda that, while ultimately beneficial for the first-years, [is still counter to that of the student representatives], they ultimately hold the power over the program’s leadership and direction.”

D’Alessandro, however, said she had received positive feedback from outgoing head sophs after the selections last week. Maini, for example, said his own experience at this year’s selection was a positive one, even with the changes.

Patodia, conversely, expressed his disappointment in what he saw a unilateral decision by the administration.

“I think the major issue that these decisions were made without any input from students, even though O-Week is a student program.”

The candidates for the University Students’ Council presidential elections had their second official public appearance today, when they were interviewed in the Spoke for The Big Purple Couch.

The hosts interviewed each candidate separately for about 15 minutes. The format was more casual than last night’s debate, allowing the candidates more time to speak. Despite the more laid-back atmosphere, they mostly expanded on themes brought up in the debate.

Logan Ross came on stage first and appeared very much at ease. She continued on her somewhat risky path of drawing attention to her shortfalls—it was clear during the debate last night that she wanted to portray her lack of direct involvement in the USC as a strength, rather than a weakness.

At first I wasn’t convinced this would work—why try to sugar-coat your shortcomings rather than promote your assets?—but after the BPC interview, I think Logan might be able to actually make this work in her favour.

For example, some have questioned Logan’s plan to update her platform mid-campaign, saying it makes her look indecisive. But, as she clarified for BPC, “I can’t know every student’s concern before the campaign period.” She said her platform is feasible and won’t be changed completely—perhaps “adjusted” would have been a better word.

And again, she pushed her lack of direct involvement with the USC as a plus, saying she had “grassroots appeal.” I can see the tactic working now that Logan seems more comfortable in the campaign, but it remains to be seen whether voters will bite, or go with a more experienced (safer?) choice.

Jon Silver was next up, though unfortunately I missed the first few minutes of his interview—I briefly left the Spoke to follow what appeared to be an encore to yesterday’s protest.

When I returned, Jon was talking up his platform point of introducing a “Spoke Brew,” modelled after the infamous beer brewed in-house at the Ceeps. “Everyone loves Ceeps Brew,” he said as I sat down—hang on now, Jon, let’s not say things we can’t take back. I admit I’m intrigued by this idea, but I just don’t see how brewing beer with student fees could ever get off the ground [Update: I've been informed that Silver only plans to buy beer, and brand it as Spoke Brew].

Contrary to Logan, when asked to differentiate himself from Adam Fearnall, Jon pushed his extensive experience at various levels of student government. He claimed his experience was “much more well-rounded” than Fearnall’s, which is arguably true.

But while Jon continues to push his experience and impressive knowledge of the USC, is it possible he’s alienating some voters? It’s obvious that the average student knows far less about student government than Silver, and he might risk turning them in favour of Logan or Claire, the “average student” candidates.

Claire McArthur was all smiles—practically a platform point of its own for her. I couldn’t help noticing her boots were untied—perhaps it was part of her image as an average student (you know, the kind who eats lettuce while hanging out in Middlesex College).

To her credit, Claire defended her somewhat-criticized use of pop culture references in last night’s debate (she referenced four TV shows and a celebrity breakup, each in a separate answer), by saying she thought it was important to stay light-hearted in order to engage students, and even made another—this time to Napoleon Dynamite. She has a point—I’ll concede that some of those marathon five-hour council meetings could have gone by a lot quicker with some comic relief.

Though she answered questions directly for the most part, Claire continued to seem the least comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. Her answers tended to ramble and lack focus. However, as far as I can tell, Claire McArthur has more enthusiasm than any other candidate in this race. But how far will that take her?

Adam Fearnall is in his element in front of a crowd. Maybe it’s all that time he’s spent sitting in front of the USC as the speaker this year, but he seems to exude confidence when speaking to an audience.

At the same time, though, this confidence might be off-putting to some, crossing the line to insincere. Good politicians are great speakers, after all, and who’s ever heard of a sincere politician?

Adam defended his platform point for an interest credit for students, which was criticized as unfeasible by Jon Silver in last night’s debate—Silver said the credit would allow for far too many possible combinations to be researched, putting undue strain on an already struggling counselling system. Adam pointed out, however, that a similar system has already been implemented at other schools including McGill and Harvard (after all, Western is aiming to evoke Harvard-style prestige with their new branding), and said critics were just afraid of “big ideas” like this one.

When discussing his platform point to update the CHRW recording studio, Adam did drop one interesting nugget—reportedly he is working on an album of his own right now. Maybe it’s just part of one of his almost-too-well-rehearsed stories, but that’s something I want to hear.

It was atypical for many reasons—I grew up in a log cabin in the woods, lived outside of a town with a population of 400 and spent my summer vacations getting paid to “monitor” a beachfront parking lot. But one part of my childhood that I didn’t realize was so strange until recently was my deep, intimate knowledge of Groundhog Day.

You see, I grew up 10 minutes outside of the town of Wiarton, Ontario—home of Wiarton Willie, groundhog prognosticator to the world, or so I was told.

In this strange little bubble of midwestern Ontario, Groundhog Day was right up there with every other major holiday. If you’ve ever seen the movie Halloweentown, imagine that, but replace witches and goblins with senior citizens wearing fake groundhog ears.

Before young students even considered cutting out cardboard Valentine cards in my hometown, we were busy colouring in pages of Willie, which wasn’t all that exciting considering Willie is an albino groundhog, as we all know.

The town literally goes crazy for this holiday. If, in early February, you see a lineup of townsfolk at the local grocery store, arms brimming with salty snacks, you can bet it’s not for a Superbowl party—it’s for Groundhog Day.

There’s a whole festival for it—a bonspiel, a dance, a parade and even a beauty pageant. In fact, I’m very proud to say that this year my good friend’s little sister was named second princess in the groundhog pageant—even if she was robbed of the big crown.

At sunrise on Groundhog Day hundreds of people gather around Willie’s groundhog hole as the town mayor—who speaks “groundhogese”—asks Willie whether or not he saw his shadow. If he does, it means six more weeks of winter. But if he doesn’t, it means an early spring. Then everyone goes to the legion and has pancakes.

I really wish I was making some of this up. Growing up in the area, this seemed like perfectly normal happenstance. “Of course the mayor talks to a rodent once a year, of course the entire town misses work and school to find out Willie’s prediction,” I thought. “It’s perfectly normal for every 16-year-old girl to dream of winning the groundhog crown, right?”

But now, getting it all on paper, it suddenly seems very strange. And this also might explain all the bizarre looks I get from other Western students who had a more normal childhood when I start talking about Willie.

But today, on all days, I’m proud of my strange heritage. I could have had the same boring childhood as everybody else, but instead I was lucky to have been from a place with a little bit of character, even as silly as this particular character is.

There are pros and cons to everyone’s childhood, but I consider my knowledge of groundhog lore a unique—if strange—benefit of living in the Wiarton area.

Today, I’m proud to say that I’m looking forward to telling everyone who will listen about the funny little town where I grew up—and receiving that annual phone call from my mother, filling me in on Willie’s big prediction, without even an ounce of irony. Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!

According to Brianna Peniuk, chief returning officer for the USC, the violation came as a result of someone from Ross’ campaign team posting an advertisement for a “campaign party” in the Science Soph Facebook group prior to the campaign period.

“The issue is that it clearly was pre-campaigning,” Peniuk said.

“We gave her the lowest possible amount of demerit points according to the bylaw. It wasn’t like she was putting signs up on campus a week before the elections started or anything like that,” she continued.

A USC presidential candidate is allowed a maximum of 30 demerit points before they are disqualified from the race.

Ross, however, took issue with the elections committee, who make all decisions having to do with campaign violations, calling her post in the group an ad for a campaign party.

“I was just telling the members of my soph team that we were having a meeting for the launch, and in the email it said that I was advertising for a campaign party,” she said.

“I didn’t advertise it as a party, just as a campaign meeting so everyone could come and set everything up, just like any of the other candidates had done, because that’s what you do.”

Peniuk argued it was Ross’ use of the Facebook group itself before the campaign period that was the real issue.

“You’re not supposed to abuse the access to a group or contact list that anyone else may or may not have access to,” she countered.

“It was beyond the range of what was permissible.”

Ross did not seem phased to be the first of the four candidates to receive demerit points.

“I’m just going to keep running my own race and stay clean and hopefully it won’t affect the rest of my campaign.”

Twenty-five graduate students from Western travelled to Toronto yesterday to take part in the Canadian Federation of Students’ national day of action.

In 16 cities across Ontario, students upset about high tuition fees gathered together to protest. In Toronto, students poured in from around the province for a rally at the University of Toronto followed by a march to Queen’s Park.

Desiree Lamoureux, vice-president student services for the Society of Graduate Students at Western, was part of the group. “Students from York, University of Toronto-Mississauga, University of Toronto-Scarborough, Ryerson and George Brown College are all joining up and marching on Queen’s Park to demand lower tuition fees, increased funding to post-secondary education, and a drop in student debt,” she said.

“Education is a right, and it’s a benefit to our society, and just like a hundred years ago it was decided to pay for high school for everyone in Canada, I believe it’s time to reassess how we want our society to function with education,” she said.

“In Ontario, we receive lower per-student funding than any other province,” Nora Loreto, communications and government relations coordinator for CFS-Ontario, stated. “The result of that is that students are paying the highest tuition fees in Ontario’s history, [the history of] the public system, and also the highest tuition fees in Canada.”

“I think the main hope, especially for graduate students, is to get the Liberal government to rethink this 30 per cent reduction in tuition fees, that actually is only affecting a third of all students in Ontario,” she continued.

Loreto explained CFS-Ontario was advocating for the Ontario government to restructure their new tuition grant system, which reduces tuition fees by 30 per cent for students, because not all students qualify for the grant. They want the government to inject the money into university operating budgets rather than giving it directly to a limited number of students, so all students can benefit.

Ralph Benmergui, director of communications for the Ontario Minister of Training Colleges and Universities, explained there was never a platform that guaranteed all students a tuition cut. “There was at no time a blanket statement that all students would get 30 per cent,” he said.

Despite this, Benmergui acknowledged the right of the CFS to protest. “Our minister, he was one of the founding members of CFS. He believes very strongly in the right to protest. He believes that all unmet needs should be responded to in constructive dialogue like we have with the Ontario University Students Association and the College Students Association.”

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