Tax credits or upfront grants?

In October, Ryerson student representatives went to Ottawa to lobby federal parliamentarians through the Canadian Federation of Students. One of the demands contained in the document they submitted, titled Canada’s Education Action Plan, called for tax credits that students can get, to be changed into upfront grants so that students can benefit from them.

While opposition to such a request was minimal, there was a dissenting voice from the President of the Post-Graduate Student Society (PGSS), who’s claims that such a move would hurt graduate students. He wrote an article that appeared in the McGill Daily, the independent student newspaper at McGill University.

To respond, the following letter was written and submitted to us. As we’ve done in the past, we decided to publish this letter that was, for whatever reason, not published by the McGill Daily. Below is a response to the claim that turning education tax credits into upfront student grants would somehow hurt graduate students.

Amy Cox: PGSS President (2007-2008), PGSS VP Academic (2006-2007), PGSS Senator (2005-2006), and current McGill graduate student

Melanee Thomas: Graduate student representative to the CFS National Executive (2008-2009), and current McGill graduate student

We were left both confounded and in disbelief after reading the recent article [in the McGill Daily] submitted by the President of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), Daniel Simeone. Therein, he criticizes the Canadian Federation of Students’ (CFS) position that federal tax credits and tax breaks are less preferable to needs-based, up-front grants for students. Simeone further asserted that the CFS membership was not consulted on this position. Both positions are indefensible.

It is clear that this letter is an example of losing the forest for the trees. While this appears to be the favourite activity of the PGSS Executive these days, it is also clear that current leadership prefers to rant about and criticize the positions of others without fully understanding, researching, or analyzing these positions and their alternatives.

The CFS membership has maintained its position – a preference for needs-based, up-front grants over tax credits and breaks – for years. The CFS has produced a fact sheet on this exact topic (available on their website) and has published a document called “Strategy for Change,” where this position is outlined as part of a model for increasing access to post-secondary education. This document is freely available and is easy to find with a google search. That this position is so readily accessible, and the supporting documents so easy to find, suggests that the PGSS President either chose not to, or is incapable of, doing basic research on the facts prior to writing a polemical rant against a national student organization

Incidentally, the organization’s membership proposed, adopted, and has since stood by said position. In fact, the CFS membership passed a motion at the last Annual General Meeting supporting the continuation of this policy position. Now, we’ve sifted through the list of the 40-odd motions that the PGSS Executive has taken upon itself to submit to the CFS’ upcoming General Meeting (also found with a simple google search), and found no motion dealing with tax credits, tax breaks, or tax policy of any kind. We can’t help but conclude that Simeone is more concerned with scoring a few points than actually advocating for the best interests of his constituency in a consultative and democratic manner. Did he ever present the polemical position he advocates to the PGSS Council before sending it off to the press?

The graduate students we know at McGill who receive large scholarships have mused aloud that it’s odd they don’t pay taxes on the income they receive from their large scholarships, and they wouldn’t mind if they did – especially if it meant for more equitable funding for fellow students. This is because our colleagues who are talented (and lucky) enough to win these awards (5,000 total in Canada) all have equally talented colleagues who are not lucky enough to be directly funded by the Tri-Councils.  These 130,000 grad students who do not receive funding directly from the Tri-Councils would certainly benefit from the needs-based grants the CFS is lobbying for. Such grants would help many of these students pay tuition fees and rent. Taxation, on the other hand, certainly won’t prevent these bills from being paid by a major award winner.

We submit that the PGSS President should check his facts prior to launching a polemical debate. And rather than de-contextualizing one aspect of a much larger, comprehensive position on graduate funding, start standing up and fighting for the interests of real graduate students. His rosy picture of graduate student life does not represent us.