Sandy Shaw, the Member of Provincial Parliament for Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, has returned home from a stint at Queen’s Park. Before the winter break, the Conservatives drove Bill 124 through the House on Nov. 8, a move that has been widely criticized.
“It’s been a long week of fighting for hardworking people in the province of Ontario,” said Shaw.
As a member of the New Democratic Party and the representative for the riding in which McMaster sits, Shaw knows student issues are important for her constituents. According to Shaw, Bill 124 was just the latest in a series of Conservative attacks on students’ funding, freedom and future.
Bill 124, also known as the “Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act,” limits wage increases for public sector employees to one per cent per year, among other things. This does not keep up with inflation in the province, which fluctuates between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent yearly.
In a press release, Ontario Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy explained the rationale behind the Bill.
“The legislation would allow for reasonable wage increases, while protecting the province’s front-line services, restoring the province’s financial position and respecting taxpayer dollars,” he said.
However, the Bill has also been criticized for its effects on workers.
“Bill 124 . . . caps the wages of a million workers of families in the province of Ontario. At the same time, this government is giving themselves promotions and raises,” said Shaw.
“Bill 124 . . . caps the wages of a million workers of families in the province of Ontario. At the same time, this government is giving themselves promotions and raises,” said Shaw.
Despite the pushback from Shaw and the NDP, the Conservative government sought to pass the Bill.
Although Bill 124 was announced in early June, soon after, the provincial government entered an extended summer recess ending in late October. As a result, despite the intense controversy surrounding the Bill, the debate period lasted for less than two weeks. Shaw was concerned the Bill had been passed too quickly.
“I personally did not support this exceptionally long break. I mean, there’s a lot of work that we need to get done in the province. And this is a government that doesn’t take the time to study legislation, to get legislation right,” said Shaw.
Unions across Ontario have launched complaints against the Bill, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Ontario Nurses Association.
According to Shaw, the Act will impact the most vulnerable workers in the province, many of whom are women and marginalized community members. The Act also has specific impacts for McMaster; it caps the wage increases of McMaster teaching and research assistants at one per cent, despite efforts by the Canadian Union of Public Employees 3906, the union representing McMaster teaching and research assistants, to increase wages.
“Students need to be recognized for what they are, which is contributors to the province, contributors to their communities, and that they are struggling under all kinds of burdens imposed by this government … it’s just cruel and heartless,” said Shaw.
“Students need to be recognized for what they are, which is contributors to the province, contributors to their communities, and that they are struggling under all kinds of burdens imposed by this government … it’s just cruel and heartless,” said Shaw.
The provincial government is defending the one per cent wage cap by citing the province’s need to balance its budget. Shaw disagrees.
“Essentially what they’re saying is [that] the deficit is the fault of frontline workers in the province of Ontario, [that] it’s their responsibility to fix the deficit ... And so the reason I think the break was so … wrong [is] because when we came back after five months, the government ran this legislation through the house in two weeks,” said Shaw.
Shaw views the province’s actions as an all-out attack on students. Bill 124 was preceded by budget cuts for schools at both the elementary and post-secondary levels, which include the now unlawful Student Choice Initiative and reduced funding for the Ontario Student Assistance Program.
“In what world does this make sense? In what world does it make sense that students that struggle just to pay this increasing tuition burden, that students [that] struggle with part time, precarious, low-wage, minimum wage jobs, if they can find them at all, now are losing jobs [where] they can earn money on campus,” said Shaw, referring to the SCI and other Conservative education policies that impact education.
Announced on Jan. 17, 2019, the SCI gave post-secondary students the opportunity to opt out of “non-essential” student fees, which included and thereby endangered on-campus organizations and student media. In response, the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario and the York Federation of Students took the directive to court, labeling the SCI as unlawful and criticizing the unjust procedure that led to its passing.
The Divisional Court of Ontario ruled in favour of CFS-O and YFS on Nov. 21, 2019, stating that the bargaining process between autonomous universities and student unions did not fall within the jurisdiction of the provincial government.
But where do we go from here? Shaw says that we all have to play our part. While Shaw is on the house floor holding the government accountable, students can lend their voices too.
“Students have shown, historically, time and time again, that when they mobilize, that when they speak up, that’s powerful. And this is a government that does not want to hear powerful voices. They want to shut down debate. They want to shut down dialogue,” said Shaw.
While mobilization may be possible, McMaster students have diverse political views, as does the rest of the province. Despite differences, there is one thing that all students may have in common.
“Every student I’ve ever met is concerned also about the world in which they’re going to graduate into,” said Shaw.
For Shaw and the NDP, slashing student services isn’t a solution for balancing provincial budgets. As she returns to the legislature, Shaw pledges to fight for student interests, aiming to ensure that the world we graduate into is one where the needs of vulnerable workers are prioritized.
By: Michelle Nakansah
As classes draw to a close, for many, concerns over exams are mixed with concerns over future housing.
For those looking for housing, there is a new game changer in the Ontario housing market that may be extremely beneficial for McMaster’s off-campus community.
Finally, in our favour, the Ontario government has introduced a standard lease which will be required to be used in nearly all rental agreements beginning April 30, 2018.
A simple lease should be a right to both landlords and tenants and awareness and education of leasing rights should be provided in an understandable manner. We all know how difficult it can get to understand leasing agreements at times.
Until to this decision by the Ontario government, there was no standardized form of rental agreements, leaving both tenants and landlords confused and forced to rely on online or secondary sources as a template for leasing agreements.
Deciding between difficult leasing agreements can be a struggle. The confusing language and long readings have often caused difficulty and worry while signing leases. We will struggle no longer.
For those of us interested in renting after April, this new form would be required for most privately, on the market residential tenancies including tenancies in single, and semi-detached houses, apartment buildings, rented condominiums and secondary units including basement apartments.
For those looking for housing, there is a new game changer in the Ontario housing market that may be extremely beneficial for McMaster’s off-campus community.
You, as students, are now able to understand most leasing agreements.
In addition, the new standard lease form must contain three portions; “Mandatory Fields” including names of landlord and renter, the tenancy term and other terms.
Although the renting market in Ontario is quite large, including several university and student towns such as Hamilton, with McMaster and Mohawk. Ontario is one of the later provinces to join in on the standard leasing effort. In addition to several other provinces in the Canada, the Standard Lease is an effort to eliminate confusions in leases and make the terms clear to both the landlord and the tenant.
Under this new act, previous leases that do not fit in the template may still be used however it must comply with the Residential Tenancies Act.
However, beginning April 30, if you as a student renter were to request the new Standard Lease, landlords must provide it.
Failure to provide a tenant with the new standard lease within 21 days gives the right to withhold up to one month’s rent.
If a landlord still does not provide a standard lease after 30 days of the 21-day threshold, tenants are no longer required to pay that rent back.
Look at that, because of someone else’s negligence, you could get free rent.
I feel that introducing this new standard lease is a step towards improving conditions in housing market specifically between landlords and tenants.
To start, this new standard lease makes the language found in leasing forms easier to understand, to avoid any confusions that may arise.
For me, the absence of a standard lease causes me to bypass many illegal terms to appear on leasing agreements, including “banning pets and guests, or demanding post-dated cheques.”
The introduction of this lease is a win for all students including myself, who have often been forced into buying into illegal leasing terms, simply because we know no better.
We all know about the stresses that come with searching for student housing, and this lease should not be an additional one.
The Ontario government’s effort to develop a standard lease is a bold attempt to protect landlords and tenants from any issues that may arise due to the confusing wording of leasing agreements.
By introducing the standard lease, the Ontario government seeks to help both parties by clarifying each of their rights, making the lease easy to understand and eliminate some of the confusions that have arose in the past.
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Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
McMaster will be receiving over $2 million to expand learning services offered to students and to gain insight into educational needs based on recorded project outcomes.
The funding was provided by the Government of Ontario’s Productivity and Innovation Fund, a $45 million fund that will be supporting 120 different projects at various colleges and universities in Ontario.
PIF has three main goals: restructuring courses to utilize online and multimedia resources, helping colleges and universities focus on their individuality (for instance, certain academic programs) and inspiring cooperation between Ontario universities and colleges to provide opportunities to access services such as data storage, libraries and procurement.
Ted McMeekin, the MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, told McMaster’s Daily News, “It is critical to keep our postsecondary learning environments current to student needs and economic demands. These investments will put [McMaster] on sustainable financial footing while improving the learning experience for our students.”
McMaster University can now use the funds to make several major changes relating to those three goals.
McMaster will be using $1,170,000 for a Graduate Professional Skills Portal. The portal will have a number of training modules for graduates from across Ontario, and that can later be used in an academic environment for online and in-person learning.
Another $500,000 will be applied to creating a new first-year experience program. The program will be student-targeted and dedicated to providing services for students, including creating new foundational courses, redesigning older courses, and providing support for students.
The final $575,000 will be used to develop a common utility consumption database and benchmarking system among McMaster, Waterloo, Laurentian, Carleton, Ottawa, Windsor, Trent, Lakehead, Brock, Queen’s and Guelph. The database and benchmarking system will be used to record, and eventually reduce, student emission and consumption costs.
“Ontario’s universities are always striving to improve the student experience,” said Bonnie M. Patterson, President and CEO, Council of Ontario Universities.
“A highly educated workforce is key to Ontario’s economic recovery and international competitiveness. The government’s investment in productivity and innovation will help universities deliver a world-class education with even greater efficiency.”
