Live coverage of the RSU SAGM

On Nov. 11, the RSU’s SAGM was covered live by David Thurton and Nora Loreto.

Read the proceedings here.

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.

Hadewijch takes FIPRESCI at TIFF

Angela Walcott

The Prize of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) for Special Presentations was awarded to Bruno Dumont for Hadewijch (France) at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Described as a hypnotic study of the possibilities and consequences that arise from an absolute belief in God, unusual dynamics begin to emerge. When the film credits were rolling by after and advanced press and industry screening of the film, critics were scratching their heads saying, “Huh?

Set in France, Hadewijch tells the story of a young woman, Céline, who is studying theology. She prays regularly and seems to be an all around good person until her superiors advise her to take a break from her studies, to discover her true self in the world. It is not that she doesn’t have enough faith, it is that she has too much. Religion in film has been explored in many different ways. Some directors choose to handle the topic from a symbolic standpoint while others are blatant. Dumont’s film is the latter.

Religion is a delicate topic. From a historical perspective, it has divided countries and caused nations to wage war. But for all the bad that people do in the name of religion, there are many good deeds as well. Religious organizations have helped the needy. Religious institutions comfort us in our deepest moments of despair, bringing people together through a common belief system.

What Dumont chose to do with this movie is examine the “what if” scenario of the consequences that arise once a young impressionable girl becomes consumed by religion. What separates her from other teens who would typically worry about boys, clothes or makeup is the lengths she will go to for her beliefs. Dumont takes common adolescent themes that have become cliché, such as coming to terms with one’s own identity or romantic feelings for another, and reworks them on a grander scale. This is not just a phase especially when the depth of the main character’s devotion becomes troubling.

Céline sobs uncontrollably and laments about a world that doesn’t understand her. What exactly is wrong with Céline? It is hard to say. She comes from an extremely privileged home, the daughter of a minister in the government, and still there is this steady decline. She is unhappy or as a male friend who is interested in Céline simply puts it, “you are weird”. She is a young woman who believes in something but while something as strong as faith is meant to bring comfort and reassurance, she becomes misguided and it leads her to further despair.

Dumont whose films L’Humanité and Flandres both won Grand Prix awards at the Cannes Film Festival, forces us to ask the question, how do will I know when too much of a good thing has become bad for me? If you even have to ask yourself that question to begin with, then I think you are well on your way to finding the answer.

RSU SAGM wrap up

• the RSU’s new campaign to ban sale of bottled water on campus
• the union’s call for administration to create a fall reading week
• RSU’s call for both a permanent campus memorial be established by the university administration and the renaming of the Queer Bursary fund after former openly gay Ryerson Student Christopher Skinner. Skinner was murdered in October thiis year and it’s alleged he was the victim of a hate crime.
  

LIVE COVERAGE OF THE RSU SAGM