The following is a message sent by Canadian students to students in Australia and New Zealand struggling against attacks on education. The message was received through Bruce Cronin from the New Zealand University Students Association.
The Communist Party of Canada, University of Toronto Club, extends our solidarity for your mobilisations. Many of your struggles have an impact as far away as Canada and we have watched in dismay as education has been dismantled and privatised first in your part of the world, and now in Canada, especially in the province of Ontario.
In particular Ontario students are now facing deregulated fees and the Income Contingent Loan Repayment Plan (ICLRP), or "mortgage style student loan" as the federal Liberal Party termed it, the blueprint for which were tested in your schools.
Indeed our struggles are linked, and in our first campaign against the federal ICLRP we were repeatedly exchanging faxes from schools in Australia and Aotearoa. We won that campaign, when 100,000 students and supporters marched in the cold of January. Tens of thousands marched in Toronto, 15,000 in Montreal, and similar numbers in Vancouver.
We wish you much success and look forward to exchanging more detailed information about what is happening on our local fronts.
In Solidarity
James Hoch
Organiser, Communist Party of Canada, University of Toronto Club
Communist Party of Ontario, Youth and Students Commission.