They should charge 1$ more for beer & cigarettes and take that surplus to pay for education, we’d be walking on golden campuses. But then it’d just be university students paying for themselves again, wouldn’t it?

When the money is taken from you unwillingly for the benefit of everyone its “ridiculous” but if your getting charged a little extra for some commodity that you want to buy then no-biggie, you deal with it.

Anyways, your always going to have people whining and complaining about getting taxed they should just enforce it.

Just think, Canada’s population is about 33million. If each person spent one dollar with a 24% tax, that would be $7.9million going to the government to spend on programs. Times that by how many dollars each Canadian spends and you see a massive influx of money. The GST of 5% now only would yeild $1.65million if every Canadian spent one dollar. That extra $6.25million would be a massive amount and would get us amazing programs.

But then we would have to basically be state controlled and people would have to accept paying 24%. We can’t educate people on politics now in this country so good luck trying to get people to understand why them being taxed is better off.

I agree if undergrads were to strike or protest in some form or just refuse to pay tuition fee’s we might get some results. I wouldn’t count on it though. The idea has been ingrained that higher education isn’t a right but a privilege – the graduate students have gotten a lot of negative comments regarding this.

That being said it would require a majority of students to be okay with the possibility of loosing a semester or a year. Money may be a problem but so is time and not a lot of people are willing to sacrifice it.

It’d be nicer if the government woke up one day and just said “alright, so we’ll make it free” – Europe seems to be ahead of us in this regard (i’m not sure how they attained it though, maybe it was always free?) Anyways makes me wish I was born Scottish.

Since we care so much about the economy, every major University in Ontario shutting down would be a massive hit to an already hurting, bleeding economy.

Now – Queens Park enjoying a nice cushy vacation till February. 300 million dollar deficit, manufacturing sector tanking, unemployment rate rising. Job losses are the absolute worse in Ontario. In a province of 11 million, there are far bigger issues to deal with then the plight of 50,00 students at the moment.

Yes, it might be absurd to say never…which is why the Government won’t say anything more then We’re keeping an eye on it.

And Lola, if this is about avoiding 2010, why would the Government step in now? They would have to legislate every single union back to work separately in an effort to prevent this and it isn’t even a province wide issue at the moment. Why not wait till 2010, when they all strike simultaneously crippling Ontario wide Universities, and legislate them back in one shot?

I think you raise some excellent points.

This strike is not just about York, it is about whether or not we get a province wide strike in 2010. York can interrupt the unions plans or let it happen, either way York plays an integral role.

This is just about job security and wage increases.
And that is what’s really making me concerned at this point.