Please read through the information below. The link to vote is at the bottom of the page. The ballot is open until Saturday May 12th at noon.
On the 5th of May, the Government of Québec signed an official document with representatives from all four Quebec-wide student associations, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ, or Quebec Student Roundtable), and the Coalition large de l’Association pour un solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE). This document is available here.
This agreement in principle adds 2 elements to the previous offer made by the government in April.
1) A provisional committe would make recommendations to the Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports, by December 31st 2012, regarding the composition and mandate of a permanent council on universities, to be legislated into existence in the future.
The provisional council would consist of 6 rectors from the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec, 4 representatives from FEUQ, FECQ, CLASSE, and the Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ), 4 trade union representatives, 2 members of the business community chosen by the education minister, 1 representative of the Fédération des cégeps, 1 representative of the education ministry, and one president chosen by the education minister.
2) From Fall 2012 onwards, a $127 per semester fee increase – amounting to $254 per year – would be offset by a temporarily setting aside an equivalent $127 in ancillary fees from students’ bill. (Ancillary fees are all the extra fees charged to students by universities, for example the Student Services Fee or the Athletics and Recreation Fee; see below for links to more info.) This $127 offset would be conditional to the amount of savings the provisional council would be able to find when looking into ways of reducing university spending.
Using the fiscal regulations of the Minsitère de l’Éducation, des Loisirs et du Sport (MELS) as a tool for this purpose, the provisional council’s recommendations would be made to the Minister by 31 December 2012. Those recommendations would be based upon analysing the following parts of universities’ budget :
The creation of satellite campuses;
Advertising expenses;
Issues regarding estate;
Administrative staff;
Accountability;
Transfers in between university funds.
Upon recommendation from this committee, it would be determined if recurrent savings can be made, and those savings would then be transferred to students as an offset using ancillary fee reductions to “compensate” for tuition fee increases.
The other measures announced in April 2012 would be additional to these proposals. The other measures of the global offer to students from April 2012:
A. The government offers to spread the previously announced fee increase over seven years instead of five.
The annual increase would drop from $325 to $254 (or 127$ per semester). In fact, since this increase would be adjusted to inflation, it would actually mean an 82% increase over 7 years instead of a 75% increase over 5 years, bringing the increase to $1778 in 2018 (instead of the previously announced $1625 increase).
B. Adding $39 million in bursaries
This is an enhanced version of the earlier proposal (April 5th) and has to do with the Quebec financial aid program (AFE):
• It increases the family income threshold of family revenue free from parental contribution from $ 35 000 to $ 45 000 during the calculation of scholarships. That means over 44 000 students will see their financial support increase. The last offer being for loans only, this one also offers more scholarships.
• For students whose parents earn $60,000 or less, a family contribution will no longer be a requirement for loan eligibility.
The cost of this measure is 39 million.
C. Linking loan payback schedules to income after graduation.
As it is done in Australia and other countries, the repayment of loans would be contingent to income, meaning that the more you make, the more you would be asked to payback in a year after graduating. No further details are provided.
D. Evaluating the effect tuition increases are having on students
The Advisory Committee on the Financial Accessibility of Education would be mandated to periodically assess the impact of rising tuition fees with regard to access to education. There are no further details on how this would be implemented.
For more information – announcements from the Quebec government (in French)
MELS – Tuition increase to be spread over 7 years – The annual increase will drop from $325 to $254
MELS – An additional $39 M will be made available to 44,000 students as bursaries
MELS – Improvements made to financial assistance, as announced on April 5, 2012
Information on Ancillary Fees at McGill
Which fees do you pay? (search according to your faculty and student status)
SSMU’s Analysis & Critiques
As prepared by SSMU’s Political Adviser & Executive Committee
1) No guarantee of a fee freeze
There is no guarantee that a provisional council would find recurrent savings based on the government offer as it stands. It is still possible that student would never see any money transferred to reduce their ancillary fees.
2) The president
The president of the provisional council would be appointed by the Minister. Since they would be asked to decide on a tie in the council, at there is no guarantee this person would be neutral and/or named by an independent body, this may prove problematic.
3) The balance of power
The student representatives would be out numbered by all other representatives on the provisional council, so there is no guarantee that they will have their say or that their voice will really be heard.
4) Powers of the provisional council
At the end of the process the provisional council would only make recommendations to the minister, who would then decide what course of action is to be taken.
5) Unclear impact of reducing ancillary fees
It is unclear how reductions to ancillary fees would affect students at McGill; ancillary fees currently fund many services for students.
THANK YOU FOR READING! VOTE HERE NOW.
All SSMU members have been notified of the opportunity to cast their vote via email.
While over the summer it is difficult for SSMU to host a Legislative Council meeting, General Assembly, or Referendum, the SSMU Executive wanted to solicit the student body’s feedback. While not binding, the results from this survey vote will inform the position that SSMU will present to the Quebec Student Roundtable (in French, TaCEQ) and the provincial government.
The ballot is open from now until Saturday, May 12th at noon. SSMU will participate in a TaCEQ meeting on Saturday afternoon. Detailed comments and feedback are welcomed at external@ssmu.mcgill.ca and/or president@ssmu.mcgill.ca.
The inclusion of other non student unions in all of this is unacceptable. It is not a display of solidarity, they are using students as a trojan horse and the CLASSE was stupid enough to take their money allow them to dictate the terms of the negotiations to support their infiltration further into parts of government and society where they do not belong. This agreement has nothing to do with student fees. If people truly care about fiscal responsibility, they need to look at the monumental waste which will soon occur in Quebec City with the construction of the new 500 million dollar hockey arena (for which there will be no team, not that this was an excuse to begin with).
Ironically enough the money being spent on Quebec’s new arena is more than what would result from a tuition increase. But an arena will only serve corporate interests whereas education benefits every one. In addition, professional sports associations would build an arena themselves if there really was money to be made. It is one of the biggest industries in the world, and they pulled out of Quebec in the past for a reason.
Thanks for this analysis!
I would also like to point out as a critique that “ancillary fees” does not sound like a good way of dealing with the problem even if it was guaranteed, first of all and second of all, this supposed Advisory Committee’s assessments are “ben beau” but that does not address the potential to actually intervene if said assessments result in poor outcomes for student quality of life, among other things. Debt for education is not a good policy no matter how you look at it.
I would just like to say that I think that raising tuition fees by the government is extremely reasonable and the original proposal should have been accepted right away. It is ridiculous to complain about a $250/year increase when we currently have one of the cheapest university education systems in the world. I would also like to say that if ever a vote is passed to put my faculty on strike, I will be the first one to organize anti-striking protests as I do not in the least support the stupidity of what is being done by the students who have refused the proposals made by the government.
We do not have one of the cheapest fees in the world. We have the cheapest in North America but our tuition is above the average of OECD countries.
In the 90′s, when Quebec increased tuition fees there was a significant drop in attendance and it took close to 10 years for us to reach the pre-hike levels. Having an educated population through accessible education benefits society as a whole..
Alex, In the 90′s the habs won the stanley cup, perhaps people dropped out to become hockey players? Correlation does not imply causation.
You are correct that an educated populace is good, but one that is immensely burdened with debt is hardly better off.
Once again, I find myself intervening on the “informative” message headlining.the actual page. Once again, included among the facts and numbers was an analysis made not by a third party observer but by someone with vested interest in the cause. As a representation of the. student body, it defeats the point of democratic assembly if the institution that organizes it vehiculates an opinion on the matter at hand, especially in the guise of “political analysis”. These though legitemate are not yours to raise, simply because you have been and continue to be biased as demonstrated by the numerous messages sent in this same spirit. If you are to amount to any credibility you must cease lobbying your ideals through the platform that election has provided you, to the exclusion of other factors. Sincerely, Alex
From quickly reading the offer it would be easy for some one to make an uninformed decision. Their clarifications are very much justified as the minister purposely tried to play us with this deal. Elected officials are meant to represent their electorate, id say that justifies their slight subjectivity.
I think that this survey does not represent the right kind of questions you should be asking McGill students to vote on. First off – there should be a question “Do you think tuition should increase?” Because I think it should. The way the questions are worded make it impossible to answer subjectively. Do I think that spreading tuition over 7 yrs is better than 5 yrs? No – number one, we end up paying more because of inflation, and number 2, I think 5 years is good enough! So if I say no, it will be interpreted as “I don’t think that’s good enough, I want them to NOT make it go up at all”. How will you know what my no vote is based on? This is incredibly biased.
I think making this council gives students a say in the decision-making process, which we would not have had otherwise. If we live in a democratic society, and there is enough resounding force about a topic in discussion, then the minister will listen because it is an established council! But I am more afraid that the representatives of STUDENTS won’t really represent the majority of students, but the minority who are extremists against tuition increases and government actions.
If you have problems with how the government manages their money, bring it up in an election. If you want your post-secondary education to improve, you will have to pay for it. We should fight for the government to invest more in our PRIMARY school education system, and create a better foundation for learning at a young age, so when they grow up they know the value of an education.
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you are absolutely correct
The offer is nowhere near good enough. Several European countries have entirely free university education (France, Germany, Sweden, etc). Switzerland has one of the strongest universities in the world, particularly in the sciences, engineering and mathematics, ETH Zurich. At ETH, the fees, both for domestic and international students are 1000-2000$ Why not us? Oh wait, I forgot, quality. Because under the phenomenal management of HMB, McGill has surpassed Zurich in quality and we must therefore pay more…
And this is, of course, before taking into account several cornerstones of international law, such as the Declaration of Human Rights, which consider education a right, not a commodity. But that’s irrelevant. The Charest government never had a problem with criminality, why stop now?
My relative positioon to the tuition hike or even the offer is irrelevant to my previous comment. Should our student body inform us, yes. Should it give us an analysis made by a party that has a vested interest, no. If it is to analyse, or in other words, offer an interpretation, then it should not be leading, or made by people who have an interest in it being leading. Why? Because then they cease to be a legitimate information source, one that can be trusted. Once again, they are very much allowed to do this, but it is at the expense of their credibility and apparent integrity. Analysing to avoid other people’s confusion is paternalistic and manipulative as conclusions can be reached on different points that may or may not nullify the points chosen to emphasize by the party doing the original analysi, party wich in this case has a vested interest Sincerely, Alex
It’s well known that SSMU has a vested interest in this, as was made clear by their pro-strike declarations when the strike started. This isn’t news. If you want a pro-tuition hike website, try the one put together by the Green Squares. Also, it’s not exceptional that SSMU takes sides on the issue. Every student body of every CEGEP and university in Montreal has taken sides on this. I’m not aware of anyone remaining neutral.
Also, to emphasize my previous point. In most OECD countries, education is less expensive than in Canada (including Quebec). In most countries, it is free and this doesn’t affect quality. This is also true in countries outside the OECD but which are developing quite quickly, such as Brazil. So, the students protesting in the streets are a minority (or extremists or whatever you want to call them) only with respect to North America. Globally, they are part of a crushing majority.
“Because they are clearly biased and have consistently been so, this is acceptable.”
“If you would like to view the opposing biased opinion please go here”
” Everyone else is biased so this makes the fact of being biased an acceptable one”
” Argument supporting my cause”
I agree with some of the dissenting voices here. This is not a good poll. It’s prejudging the outcome and not allowing students to express their true positions. I think tuition should go up and that students should play no part in allocating funds for education. SSMU is messed up enough as it is. If we can’t manage our own affairs, how are we going to do any better managing the affairs of the university, which are infinitely more complicated?
The striker’s position is that twentysomethings cannot find a way to pay $6 a day more for their education. What makes these same people think that those same twentysomethings will be able to find millions in savings for the education system as a whole?
In most OECD countries tuition is not free… absolutely not… even if it would appear as such on the surface (such as in Germany), the system will always raise capital through hidden fees and costs associated with services that we take for granted. Also, I really think that you should look into the cost/ quality judgement that you made as I do not believe this to be the case. With the exception of a relatively small group of exceptions, “free” universities are peripheral on the international stage… University of Fribourg ain’t no Harvard or Yale.
I also wanted to agree with the comment made earlier about the flaws in the questions posed and wanted to express my disapproval with a union which overtly takes a stance which is opposed to the majority of the student body (as evidenced by the SSMU votes which have been held regarding the strike).
Is it just me, or is it starting to look like Hungary ca. 1948 around here?
Anyone desiring “free” tuition must first understand that such a policy either requires the many (taxpayers) paying for the benefits of the relatively few (students), or a complete doing-away-with of admission standards. I for one would prefer to pay what I can and get what I pay for.
Additionally, I’d currently like to commend Charest’s government from avoiding one easy, yet reprehensible, solution: hiking tuition for out-of-province students while maintaining disproportionately low rates for Quebecers. We’ll see how long this altruism lasts.