Student Day of Action - Nov 5

ecopinko wrote:

Getting back to the topic, though, I think what is important is to remember that the provincial MB NDP and the federal NDP are different creatures. For that reason, Fidel, posting the stated goals of the fed NDP is kind of irrelevant to the actions of the prov NDPs.

Why should we consider provincial governments to be singular entities when that is exactly what federal Conservatives and Liberals have tried to do since devolution of federal powers and slashing social transfers, downloading of program funding since this experiment in whacky neoliberalism began? We have been told, for example, that $7 dollar a day child daycare is inexpensive in Quebec compared to anywhere else, and it's because that second-largest province with a large tax base is "committed" to social spending.  And yet there is a shortage of affordable daycare spaces in that province, and prairie provinces actually have even lower daycare rates on average. Paris-based OECD says Canada is bottom of the 30 country list for spending on children.

 Similarly, Canada's PS institutions have fallen behind U.S. universities in terms of overall funding since the 1980's. And,

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"Since the early 1990s, Canada's funding for universities also has outpaced that of Britain and Australia, although recent policy changes in those countries have all but eliminated that difference."

We have more people choosing higher education in the neoliberal countries because job and wage prospects in the expanding service sector economy are not so appealing. Canada's youth understand that what they need are either both sides of the coin that a university or college education provides, or an apprenticeship leading to a skilled trade. People can live on a waiter or waitress' income in countries like Germany and France and Nordic countries. That's not the case in Canada and U.S. People dont live well here on minimum wage and facing a lack of affordable housing. For various reasons of pursuing neoliberal ideology and abiding by NAFTA and GATS promises, Canada's feds have chosen to forego billions and billions of dollars in tax revenues that could be used to fund PSE and a number of vital social programs and infrastructure. PSE is just one more area that's been starved of funding. Provinces and  municpalities are hurting for money. The City of Vancouver can't afford to replace aging waterworks, and Toronto can't afford a world class metro transit system. All in all the federal Liberals legacy is a $130 billion dollar infrastructure deficit and lack of job training and a really shitty situation wrt PSE. Paul Martin cooked federal accounting books for years before announcing that billion dollar surpluses would be spent unnecessarily on debt service payments and tax cuts for people who didn't need them. Today that party continues to support skeletal levels of taxation and corporate welfare payments as per Harper's Conservatives. The two parties are identical in many ways that count.

I put it this way: Between the 3 parties, the choice between post secondary education policies is like choosing what to eat at McDonalds or other fast food joint. If burgers were policies they would taste salty, be the wrong diet, and cheap but expensive in the long run.  The NDP may be the best of the bunch, but has become more and more like the others.  We keep getting greasy slimy burgers (or generic KD for that matter) when we need (insert your metaphor food here).

So why would I eat a burger as advertised when I'd rather go home and cook myself a real meal?  I have other choices even if it means doing it myself. 

The MB NDP swear that they will not let tuition fees rise above 10% per year.  The tories say they believe that 4-5% is reasonable.  !!!???

NDP are so progressive on education, grassroots is pissed and the NDP will fall like the Rae government in Ontario.  And we know the rest.  So That is why the NDP should get it together.  But I suspect that NDP MLA pension funds are full at this point so therefore....we're out of luck.

Oh and cueball that is it.  just an observation. I vote, but the hell with Liberal and NDP scare tactics and strategic voting. 

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

bush is gone happy happy happy wrote:

So true.  But The NDP in Manitoba is just Phucking us with a condom and the cheapest bidder. 

You'll never get me to agree that the NDP is in league with the two Stalinist old line parties in power and sharing power forever and a day in Ottawa and for twice as long as Stalinists actually ruled the USSR. And now that you mentioned it, higher ed was actually freely accessible in the FSU, so student loan debt sentencing with repayment schedules of 20-25 years or more for students from low income families in this Northern Puerto Rico is quite repressive. According to experts on higher ed, core funding is what's missing in Canada, and no provincial government has been able to make up that shortfall since this experiment in neoliberalism began under old line party rule in Ottawa. More is lacking in Canadian PSE than just subsidized tuitions, a lot more. Credit where credit is due, I always say.

bush is gone happy happy happy wrote:

Fidel wrote:

You'll never get me to agree that the NDP is in league with the two Stalinist old line parties in power.

Stalinist? [scratches head..considers for a moment gets a coffee, heads to class.  Comes back.  logs on to rabble. bites] Okay. Fine. Lets run with your argument.  Is the NDP a trot party? then why is the NDP state capitalist in Manitoba?

Trotskys? That group will argue til the cows come home that the FSU was a state capitalist setup. They make a few miinor valid points, but that is all. But there are nuanced diffs between state capitalism and what the USSR practiced, a version of state socialism.

The truth is, Canada used to follow the U.S.-style model for state-capitalism formerly known as laissez-faire capitalism, to some degree, until the late 1930's. Global capital was all powerful under laissez-faire capitalism then, and it wouldn't be as dictatorial again until post 1971-74, and after 1991 in  Canada. But our's are still mixed market economies in the U.S. and Canada, and probably the reason why this version of laissez-faire, "neoliberalism", didn't collapse years before doing so again in the late 2000's. The NDP has consistently opposed neoliberalism since the Mulroney era. If the NDP appears to be going along with neoliberal agendas today, there are some things even the NDP cant reverse at provincial levels, like the gutting of federal social transfers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, or renegotiating unfair and undemocratic trade deals at the federal level, or going along with Crazy George II on the road to quagmire in Afghanistan. That takes strong central government to resist political and economic instruction by Ottawa's imperial masters. Think of Canada's federal leadership as one long-running stoogeocracy whose only real colonial administrative tasks are collecting taxes from the poor and middle classes to give to rich people - supplying the vicious empire with cheap raw materials and energy -  and running military errands for Warshington the odd time.

bush is gone happy happy happy wrote:

okay NDP is God and can do no wrong. 

Bait taken. 

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Very well, let's play blame the feds.  Using that template to argue with health care, Tommy Douglas would never had brought universal healthcare to his province because the feds were against it and would not fund it.

The feds under Diefenbaker? paid justice Emmet Hall to study socialized medicine before deciding after several years. In the end the coverage wasn't as comprehensive as what Douglas' CCF called for, which was to include dental and eye glasses.

But the feds had no choice. Pearson could either implement medicare nation-wide or let the next government do it for him.

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However instead of top down like you suggest.  I prefer bottom up as history proves.  People get pissed, province bring in medicare and other goodies, Feds freak out, panic and follow suit. 

Douglas' CCF didn't implement medicare inside of one term either. They needed to pay off a $15 million dollar "forgivable loan" to the previous Liberal government in Saskatchewan, which suddenly became due and payable after winning election. And Tommy's government wasn't curtailed with public sector expansion and "unfair subsidies" as is the case today with CUSFTA and NAFTA. As well, SaskCCF were faced with borrowing money from stingy banks to finance quite an array of public works projects, but then a there would be revenue from the public corporations to pay it back. There was no neoliberalism then with conservatives selling off family jewels and silverware at pawn shop prices to rich Americans and friends of the party, and then shares inflated in value by stock market pyramid schemes. Things were so much easier in those days when money supply wasn't entirely privatized as it was after 1991.

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I blame the province for being yellow instead of orange or red. Feds cut transfers.  MB NDP cuts corporate taxes.  continues to freeze welfare rates, lifts tuition freeze.  Pathetic.  When The Manitoba Chamber of Commerce said it wanted welfare rates increased because it would be good for the province, yet the NDP still would not listen I call it sick.

And yet Liberal B.C. own the highest rate of child poverty. Liberal Ontario is home to hundreds of thousands of children living anywhere below  loosely defined federal poverty lines, far more than any other province. Ontario is the only province creating more public sector jobs than private for several years running and now experiencing net outmigrations of citizens. Be careful what you wish for at the provincial level.

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So there should be no reason the province should not take the lead in education.  Manitoba has resources up the river-hydro profits, tax powers, useless ad campaigns to cut like spirited energy (spirited away to the states).

I don't believe so. They don't have the same ability to tax and spend like provincial govs used to as I alluded to above. Things could be different with a few federal policy changes. Ottawa is where the real purse strings are for seriously funding a range of social spending short-changed since what was a really nasty federal Liberal budget of 1995. I think you underestimate the depth to which the Liberals sank in the very neoliberal 1990s. I think Canada's Whigs were really slimey and scummy for what they pulled on Canadians back then. Apparently I loathe the federal Liberal record far more than you.

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Cuba has less resources and has free tuition, socialist Sweden, and Capitalist Ireland have free tuition.  And Canada? A university of winnipeg that thinks it is CentreVenture and International Correspondence Schools in the making.

Cuba is still what we might refer to as an absolutely  poor country and cutoff from an historically vital and natural geographic trade partner due Nord. But yes, they have made certain commitments to socialism ... at the federal level, I agree. Cuba has strong central government, whereas Canada has had a string of weak and ineffective colonial administrativeships on the take from big business and marauding multinationals.

Sweden and Nordic countries plough a third of their GDP's back into social programs... again due to national levels of funding. Canada is nowhere even near the overall federal tax take as a percentage of GDP that those countries are. If Ottawa pulled in tax revs at just the OECD average as a percentage of GDP, there would be another $35 billion to throw at things like health care, vital infrastructure, and PSE. At the EU-15 average, again as a percentage of GDP, the feds would have another $75 billion dollars to fund all kinds of vital programs.

And the EU injected billions of Euros into "capitalist" Ireland for various social needs. Those investments in peopel and infrastructure are what made Ireland attractive for international capital and tech investments. Deep pockets come in handy, once again. 

But you say that's not necessary, and that each province has the ability to do whatever it wants fiscally and wrt jigging provincial share of corporate taxation. I strongly disagree for reasons I've laid out before you and the poster above. 

Bait snatched and swimming away with breakfast.

Maybe Manitoba should aspire to be another Quebec, with its piecemeal $7 dollar a day childcare funded with one of the largest and most profitable hydro-electric utilities in the country in Canada's second largest province.

And you compared Canada with a specific Nordic country providing freely accessible PSE, Sweden. A better comparison would be oil and gas exporting Norway with no university tuitions, well-funded socialized medicine*, national daycare,  a high standard of living, and a net creditor nation long before Ralph Klein cleaned out Heritage Fund to paydown what were highest per capita provincial debts in Canadian history until recent years. Norway's Petroleum Fund today is worth more than CPP investment fund(and now they just announced a $10B dollar loss) and Heritage Fund combined. Even Russia's oil stabilization fund is worth more than those two funds combined, and Putin only created that country's oil fund in 2004 after a decade of unprecedented corruption in Russia. Meanwhile Canada has nearly 30 years of neoliberal ideology to show for our massive, simply massive amounts of oil and gas and total energy exports to the USSA.

Instead of creating well-funded social programs, Conservatives and Liberals racked up over $590 billion dollars worth of national debt since the 1980's, and then strangled the economy with unrealistic inflation targeting in order to feed our deregulated banks with enormous debt service payments sooner than simply allowing the economy to grow like other countries. Fidel Castro and other world leaders might wonder how Canada's long-time stoogeocracy in Ottawa could achieve so little with so much at their disposal. It's really quite breathtaking.

Michelle wrote:

Wow.  So, um, can we get back on the subject of the Student Day of Action?  Which isn't about Russia or the EU or Liberal shills or whatever else this thread is getting derailed into?  Thanks!

The ideology practiced by Ottawa like few other countries for the last 30 years is very much at the heart of why provinces can't afford so many things that other countries do for their citizens. The trend in this and several other threads on the same subject have tended to focus on one single province for what is a problem shared by every other one. Last time I checked, students are protesting for lower tuition fees nation wide not just in Manitoba.

Fidel wrote:

. Apparently I loathe the federal Liberal record far more than you.

I love Paul Martin!

Not for his bloodbath. But because he had more guts than the lame duck

NDP.  Gay Marriage anyone?  And Boy could he cut programs!

Now if we had some party that could cut tuition like that.  Not the traitorous NDP in MB obviously.

 I think you just hate the Liberal party.  If they brought in free education, and nationalized the country (if only!) you would still hate them.  Mark of a NDP hack. 

 Right!...back to the topic I find this article follows what I witnessed at the rally:

http://www.themanitoban.com/news/student-rally-calls-government-reduce-t...

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

Fidel wrote:

 Manitoba NDP must have done  something right to have been elected three times by voters.

 Yes, they are expert liars.  And voters stay home or vote with a clothes pin on their noses.  I wouldn't be envious.  Doer is a Tony Blair wannabe and it is poison for the NDP's chances in the future.

What happened in Saskatchewan is going to repeat in MB.  We'll get real tired real fast with the NDP. 

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

Fidel wrote:

You have no argument and are both overly protective of second-hand ideology emanating from the USA's colonial outpost in Ottawa. That's a  weak spot for both of you trying to suggest to babblers that Manitoba's  NDP is unique in its inability to replace billions of dollars stolen from the federal social tranfer by our two old line parties since the infamous federal Liberal budgets of 1995 forward. You guys should sit down and try counting up to even one billion. And take your time, I'll be back when you're finished.

 1...2...3...4......5........6..........

Now I see why they call this forum babble. "Fidel Castro is noted for his hours long speeches." I rest my case.

 I may be protective of my opinion that MB has conservative parties in both the government and opposition.  But you are guilty of being a NDP hack.  The proof is above this post up there among the stars...mostly the dim ones.  This thread is crazy long AND off topic.  The students are learning more about the NDP and politics than they ever will in a classroom. 

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

bush is gone happy happy happy wrote:

Now I see why they call this forum babble. "Fidel Castro is noted for his hours long speeches." I rest my case.

Red baiting will get you nowhere fast, like your ill-conceived comparisons of Canada with small resource-poor countries in Europe and the Caribbean. 

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  But you are guilty of being a NDP hack.

What is this, the inquisition? I've since confessed to being an NDP supporter, so burn me at the stake already. And I can smell an old line party schill from a mile away. They're the misinformed ones who'd be barefoot all the time, if shoes were clues.

genstrike wrote:

Right, because if small, resource-poor countries can afford free education, it is probably way too expensive for large, resource rich countries.

No it's not too expensive for federal governments giving away their unparalleled in the world natural resource wealth for a song. That was but one of the counterpoints I made with Bushwhacker. Pay attention, if you can afford to. I do realize you're paying highest interest rates in the world on student loan debt, but bear with us if you will.

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This is why threads go off topic.  Because we always feel we have to defend ourselves from Fidel's ridiculous accusations and insinuations.

FYI, I'M the one who is being red-baited and called an "NDP hack", not you two babblers who absolutely refuse to recognize that Ottawa still adheres to an obsolete political and economic ideology costing provincial governments more than just well-funded PSE. And that includes all those crappy provincial Liberal and Conservative governments also struggling with skeletal levels of federal funding. How much more unbiased can I possibly be? Jeez you two are loyal slaves to the mother party.

...7..........8.............9.........10..........11....... 

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

genstrike wrote:

[

Wait, the guy who constantly redbaited me in the oil nationalization thread is now accusing others of redbaiting?  Heck, the comment in question wasn't even redbaiting, it was a pun on your screenname and tendency to make threads which are even mildly critical of the NDP to drag on for dozens of posts.

Let's be clear, I seem to be the only real red in this thread attacking the rightwing neoliberal ideology so deeply engrained and pervasive in Ottawa since the 1980s , not you and not Bushwhacker.

But then in the other thread on the NDP, yes you did claim to be providing what you said were valid criticisms and suggestions for Canada's federal party of social democrats to swing to the left. And all the while you were misinformed and unaware of just how far left Nordic countries social democrats are today in comparison with the three or four  English speaking countries and last bastions of political conservatism in the world. Youre one mixed up lefty if I ever. You must try harder

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And you are the one who refuses to recognize that the Manitoba government has any responsibility for anything because it suits your interests not having to defend Doer's failure on any issues.

But Doer's failures are the failures of every other provincial guvmint in Canada to provide affordable and accessible post-secondary together with several other key aspects of our dilapidated social safety net. From your point of view as well as Canada's two oldest political parties, PSE is no longer a federal issue but a provincial one. I think we can understand now why you and Bushwhacker are so careful to make zero references to the overall conservative neoliberal ideology falling down around everyone's ears world-wide. tsk tsk

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And seeing as you seem to know more about the political affiliations of babblers than the babblers themselves, exactly which "mother party" am I a slave to?

I couldn't care less, and I think Fidel Castro couldn't care less. But enough about Fidel, let's talk about you and your personal vendetta with gary Doer and the Manitoba NDP for creating this rotten situation with PSE across Canada, shall we? 

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And again, I find it absolutely hilarious that you call other people "slaves to the mother party"

Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Steven Harper - those are the ideologues who so slavishly followed the rightwing economic ideology emanating from the U.S., which maketh desolate around the world today. But don't speak their names aloud for fear of seven years bad luck an' all that. Gary Doer and the MNDP are the root of all evil, we know.

12..13..14..15..16 

I like my pet troll, so much fun to debate with! 

Fidel wrote:

And the other two are true blue through and through. Be careful what you wish for in the mean time. You kids are fabulous. Keep up the good work

 True blue? Ya Got me! by the way ya wanna buy the National Post off me?  

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Let's be clear, I seem to be the only real red in this thread attacking the rightwing neoliberal ideology so deeply engrained and pervasive in Ottawa since the 1980s , not you and not Bushwhacker. 

Mr. Bushwacker says: Have you not been following what has been going on!!! very twisted.  are you the minister of plenty?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words

You want some red baiting? Communist Poland had strikes against its government, are you a tankie?  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tankie

Are you against what happened during Prague spring?  a state or the people?  Well, the people in MB want drops in tuition.  And where do you stand?

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But Doer's failures are the failures of every other provincial guvmint in Canada. 

Ah hah! a grain of truth is out. Failure is failure. sorry mate.

*turns to rest of folks* What in hell were we talking about?

Oh, right.  I think students should keep hammering away, and take it one step at a time.  We can't be adventurist.  In Quebec one student union demanded free tuition or nothing.  Sounds great, but union members bickered with other student unions and did not work together why? because they did not have the same views and were considerd sell outs.

Being divisive did not work.

demand to no fees and grants not loans, but allow for a freeze as a first step.  The government should have received the message by now that more is to come.  I hope it does if nothing improves.    

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

genstrike wrote:

It is difficult to threaten Doer because his personal popularity is so
high, and enough progressives will grudgingly vote NDP no matter what
(sadly, the only party even remotely leftist or supportive of student
issues in Manitoba are the Communists), if only to stop a McFuckhead
government.

It's a tricky path to take, since we can't really threaten Doer with any left alternative (oh, Manitoba Solidairè, where are you?), and as you said, the alternatives to the right are, well, to the right, which obviously makes them unacceptable.

genstrike wrote:

I think we need to really build on this to both ramp it up, and mix it
up.  Next time, lets do a fax bomb, then an occupation, then a banner
drop, then picket Gary Doer's and Diane McGifford's houses, then a
prank, then another rally, etc.

And we can't wait until next year, and really can't wait until
2011.  We need to keep the pressure on, becuase the government can
handle one rally a year.

We also need to confront neoliberalism and global capitalism head on, which will help in coalition building.

I think you're right that keeping up the pressure is a good idea. It keeps the core group of people together, and definitely helps give people some on-the-ground experience. 

My worry is how this is connected to that last point, on confronting neoliberalism and global capitalism. Obviously, not everyone involved is going to be anti-capitalist, and is going to come from a variety of tendencies - that's something any movement is going to have to successfully handle, and is part of why I think the Quebec example bushwhacker raises is a good example of this.

I think there also needs to be some educational aspect to this movement, though (surprise, surprise). The recent Activist Assembly could have been a good example of this, but there were a number of problems with the execution, central to this being that it was a bit too ambitious. Something smaller would have been a little more practical.

I would recommend involving some folks from the SAWG, specifically, to a discussion group/circle around some of the issues related to goals of the movement, and not just the standard 'why tuition is bad' quick explanation most people in the movement get from the CFS. Although I recognize the difficulties in getting people to show up to educationa/discussion events (having attended/organized more than a few of them myself).

Also, with regards to this:

genstrike wrote:

Guaranteed public funding so university administrators can shut the
fuck up about how they think the freeze is starving the universities of
cash while jacking up their own salaries and pissing away money on pet
projects 

I support this too, but we need to recognize this devolves the focus further from the province to the university, as we would have to start organizing on campus even more to ensure they don't take their guaranteed cash and spend it stupidly.

And finally...

Fidel wrote:

Something about us hating Canada, Democracy, and (Orange-coloured) Apple Pie

Tuition Fees and Funding - Canadian Federation of Students

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In the early to mid-1990s, the federal [LIBERAL] government made massive cuts to post-secondary education transfer payments to the provinces. Most provinces passed on the cost of those cuts to students in the form of higher tuition fees. At the time, the Federation articulated the view that rising fees would result in reduced access to post-secondary education. Now, in 2003, a wide variety of studies substantiate the view that an increase in fees precipitates declining rates of participation among low and middle income Canadians.

In 2002 Statistics Canada reported a pronounced drop in participation rates from students from low and middle-income families. For the purposes of this study the cut off for low and middle income is household income of less than $60,000. The decline in participation rates, recorded in 1999, was the first recorded decrease since Statistics Canada began tracking this data in 1965. In addition, several studies have been undertaken to examine the deregulation of tuition fees in Ontario. In each study, the investigators found a startling decline of students from lower and middle-income homes.

The Federation’s efforts have met with some success. Tuition fees in British Columbia were frozen between 1996 and 2002. In Newfoundland and Labrador, fees for all public post-secondary students have been frozen since 1999. In addition, fees for undergraduate and graduate university students were reduced by 10% each year in 2001/2002 and 2002/2003, with a further 5% reduction promised for 2003/2004. In Manitoba, fees were reduced by 10% in 2000/2001 and have remained frozen since. Tuition fees in Québec have been frozen (for Québec residents) for close to a decade.

In addition, the federal government has ceased cutting and has begun restoring transfer payments.

Unfortunately, some provinces such as Ontario and Nova Scotia have continued to increase fees. BC recently deregulated tuition fees resulting in fee hikes of up to 100% and Ontario has deregulated graduate, professional, and some college fees. In addition, the hard-fought freezes and reductions that have been won in some provinces are under attack by those who would have students shoulder more of the funding burden.

...what is that barking? 

Goebbel's Big Lie theory aside (see above), I am wondering why I haven't heard form other provinces on here, I am sure they are as active as in MB.  Unless they think like Fidel and are tempered by NDP promises (which I doubt, I still have hope outside of MB). 

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why is it that polling booths look like cattle chutes?

bush is gone happy happy happy wrote:

...what is that barking?

That'd be students crying poormouth in Liberal BC and Ontario and across Canada after several decades of old line party rule

Yap-yap-yap yip-yap Youre just disappointed because CFS, the largest student union in Canada supports the NDP and not Libranos or Conservabrals. What's that Lassie? You say the Liberals have fallen down a mine shaft? And they need help? Good girl!! Now go home Lassie.