As the YCL-LJC stated one year ago, the post-secondary system is in crisis. The trends that we observed at that time are accelerating. The chickens are coming home to roost, as we have seen with the recent announcements of dozens of programs being cut from more than six colleges in Ontario. York University – which has the third highest undergraduate enrollment in Canada – became the first university to announce significant cuts, with over 18 programs being cancelled. McGill University, one of the most prestigious institutions and the one with the highest undergraduate enrollment in Quebec, stated that it will continue its hiring freeze and asked individual departments and offices to come up with a plan for cuts, with 500 positions slated to be eliminated. The fact that two large prominent universities in the two largest cities in Canada are making such significant slashes to their operations is only the start. These announcements are the canary in the coalmine and will only be the first dominoes to fall. Post-secondary institutions in the rural areas, the north, and francophone communities outside Quebec are sure to be next on the chopping block.
Universities, colleges, and a growing number of private institutions had been using international students as a replacement for dwindling public financial support, since international students paid higher tuition fees. Now, with the cap on international students, these institutions are turning to layoffs and cuts in programs offered.
Reducing international student enrollment will help manufacture a crisis in post-secondary education, so that it can undergo corporatised restructuring and accelerate the commodification and exclusivity of education as we have already seen at Laurentian University. This is a sign of coming privatisation of all social services including education.
As we know, the Canadian immigration system is designed to maintain an abundance of temporary immigration statuses in order to ensure a steady supply of precarious, non-union, low-wage workers to tamp down wages and working conditions for all. The international student cap has been introduced because the ruling class no longer needs to expand the reserve army of labour in this way to put a downward pressure on real wages, as the Canadian state’s ‘fight against inflation’ does the same thing.
During the pandemic, the cap on the hours someone on a student visa could work was lifted. Many young people who came here to study were subjected to the unsafe practices of hiring agencies. Now, inflation is getting the job of reducing wages done for the ruling class.
In the economic base, the ruling class wants to manufacture a crisis. The state and monopolies will attempt to manage a process of creative destruction of capital. The over-accumulation of capital needs new places to invest.
NDPers, Liberals and Conservatives all support some form of privatisation of education, particularly through student loans, which treat students as if they are installment plan customers. Banks and private corporations benefit from this further privatization of education, making money off of the student loans that students take.
Outsourcing secondary and elementary education is already a reality in some provinces with charter schools or online courses from for-profit corporations. Trudeau’s tax credit to teachers for classroom supplies recognises the problem and spits in their face.
We know the privatisation of education is being sold to us with empty phrases like ‘quality’ or ‘specialized’ education. As Young Communists, we fight for a holistic education, not just degree mills or corporate training. We want barrier-free and quality education for everyone willing to take their studies seriously.
Post-secondary education (PSE) is a significant industry in the country. The majority of people in Canada have received some form of post-secondary accreditation. According to the OECD, Canada’s population has the highest rate of tertiary education completion in the world. PSE accounts for more than $40 billion in government revenue annually or approximately 1.2 percent of the GDP of Canada. In Ontario alone, it is estimated that the economic impact of its 21 public universities and 24 public colleges is more than $120 billion a year. The PSE sector in Canada directly employs more than 440,000 people across the country and contributes another 300,000 indirect jobs. That is why we say fighting for free education is also fighting for quality unionised jobs, for a life with a future.
As the crisis in PSE deepens, we know the only way forward is struggle. We must double down on our efforts in building a genuine student movement rooted in universality. It is necessary to reiterate what we said one year ago, as it is even more relevant now than ever:
As the YCL-LJC, we must put forward the demand for a public monopoly on PSE that provides free education for all. Our clubs that are based on campuses must work to build up a student movement that can stand with workers and their unions against cuts in classes and services; that can fight against tuition hikes; that can mobilize students in the hundreds of thousands like we have seen before in this country.
Ultimately, our role is to build the fight for socialism, which will provide a real barrier-free democratic and emancipatory education for all that work for it.
“The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.” (Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels)