On Sept. 27, hundreds of Hamiltonians gathered in Gore park to raise the alarm bell on climate change and urge leaders to take action.
The climate strike came as part of a week of mass climate actions from Sept. 20-27. Hamilton’s climate strike was one of many general strikes around the world, in which people walked out of school, work and their homes to raise the alarm on the climate crisis.
According to Global Climate Strike, an organization helping to coordinate the strikes, 7.6 million people around the world took part in actions around the world.
Since March, students from schools across Hamilton have been holding regular demonstrations at City Hall to bring attention to the climate emergency. They have been working alongside the Fridays for Future movement, in which students from around the world walk out of their classes to showcase the severity of the climate emergency. By missing out on classes and thereby making sacrifices to their education, they aim to demonstrate how deeply the climate crisis will affect their futures.
A 2018 report from the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change highlighted the severity of the climate emergency. According to the report, it is of critical importance to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 45 per cent in the next 11 years. The report found that failure to do so will result in ecological degradation and major loss of life.
Climate Strike Canada, an organization coordinating climate strikes across Canada, provides a list of demands for protestors across the country. The list includes a just transition to a renewable economy, the legal entrenchment of the right to a healthy environment, biodiversity conservation, rejection of all new fossil fuel extraction or transportation projects and the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies.
Makasa Looking Horse, a youth leader from Six Nations spoke at Hamilton’s climate strike. She described how Indigenous people are disproportionately affected by environmental issues, noting that only nine per cent of the community has access to a water treatment plant.
https://twitter.com/iancborsuk/status/1177622768600436736
“In Six Nations – only 30 minutes away from here – we’re having a water crisis . . . And that should not be happening when we’re surrounded by Toronto and Hamilton. Everybody else has simple rights to electricity, to clean water, those are all human rights that we should have,” Looking Horse said.
Speakers at Hamilton’s strike presented different perspectives about the best ways to address the climate emergency.
Lily Mae Peters, a student at Westdale secondary school and one of the strike’s organizers, urged people to change their consumption patterns and make sustainable lifestyle changes.
Lane O’Hara Cooke, co-founder of Fridays for Future Hamilton, urged people to look beyond individual solutions to the climate crisis. She noted that the climate crisis is a systemic issue that requires systemic solutions.
“It is the one percent, it is the fossil fuel industry, that is doing the most damage. We need to stop giving tax cuts to these fossil fuel corporations, we can’t do it anymore,” she said.
Peters stated that the purpose of the climate strike was to raise awareness of the climate crisis and educate the public. According to Peters, the organizers of the strike wanted protestors to remain in the park.
“Fridays for future needs to be a peaceful movement, we need to bring people to an understanding about how climate change is, rather than blocking roads and creating inconvenience,” she stated.
However, many activists believe that in order to make change, it is necessary to disrupt public life. By shutting down traffic, protestors disrupt the status quo, thus giving people no choice but to pay attention.
Acting against the orders of police, hundreds of protestors marched down James Street south to Jackson Street west, eventually arriving at City Hall. A student-led group then marched into City Hall and demanded to speak to the mayor about how the city of Hamilton is going to combat the climate crisis.
The group occupied the building for approximately 20 minutes. Initially, police officers asked for a few representatives from the group to speak to the mayor. However, people were wary of “divide and conquer” techniques and wanted him to address everybody at once.
Eventually, protestors left the building and Mayor Fred Eisenberger addressed the crowd on the steps of City Hall. He thanked the protestors for pushing the city to make changes and urged them to keep pushing for change.
After a brief address, police officers escorted Eisenberger back inside. He did not answer questions from the crowd.
A group of approximately 20 protestors stayed after Eisenberger’s address and tried to enter City Hall, but were blocked by police officers.
While protestors had different ideas about tactics, their message was clear: Hamilton’s youth are demanding action on the climate emergency, and they are dedicated to holding leaders accountable to secure their futures.
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In late 2017, Ontario experienced its longest college labour dispute when the Ontario Public Service Employees Union went on strike.
Representatives from the student associations of multiple colleges penned an open letter to members of provincial parliament, speaking on behalf of their respective student bodies.
One of these representatives was Nicola Lau, president of the Seneca Student Federation at the time. She led 2,000 students in a protest that gained attention from media outlets such as Global News and CBC — a fact with which she introduces herself in the Facebook description of “OSAP CUT 2019”, a group she created on Sept. 7, 2019 as a means of reaching out to students severely affected by the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) cuts.
Too bad your cuts to #onpse & #osapcuts will make it impossible for many students to experience the great opportunities offered by @McMasterU and other institutions across the province. Your funding changes in 2020 will make it even worse. #cutshurtkids #handsoffmyeducation
— AJ (@MacGirl2002) August 10, 2019
The provincial government announced their planned OSAP cuts in January 2019; this constituted the end of reduced tuition for low-income students and a change in the guidelines for OSAP grant and loan eligibility. In response, student advocacy organizations such as the Students for Ontario, March for our Education and the Ontario Student Action network hosted a march toward Queen’s Park, with student activists and MPPs expressing their intolerance for consequences stemming from OSAP cuts.
When the OSAP changes came into effect in the summer of 2019, another wave of outrage emerged across Ontario as students reported that their OSAP estimates were much lower than previous years. This led to an additional round of protests from several Ontario universities, with some taking to social media to show their frustration.
Lau, now a second year Health and Aging student at McMaster, points out that the protests have since trickled into near non-existence. She feels that the level of outrage has faded into a quiet reaction, a change that she does not believe adequately represents the struggles that students continue to experience every day as a result of the cuts.
“I think that the problem is that when Doug Ford came out last year [with the OSAP cuts], a lot of people were really angry, right? A lot of people were like, ‘Okay, I need to stand up right now. We have to do something about it.’ But quickly, all these actions and things just stopped,” said Lau.
As a student impacted by OSAP cuts herself, Lau is determined to provide a platform for students to voice their concerns. She started “OSAP CUT 2019” with the hope of raising awareness until she has gathered people for a protest similar to what she did as president of the Seneca Student Federation.
Since the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, the Facebook group has amassed more than 100 members. Most members are students who cannot afford textbooks and school supplies or are on the verge of dropping out because they are no longer financially equipped to continue. The Facebook group has also attracted concerned parents, who are worried about their childrens’ future post-secondary experiences as the full extent of the OSAP cuts gradually become clearer.
Lau is particularly disappointed with what she perceives to be the lack of action on behalf of McMaster students and the McMaster Students Union.
“Why is McMaster, such a big school, not caring about [the OSAP cuts]? Why are we not having protests? I don’t get what they [the MSU] is doing. I don’t get what they’re doing with our student money,” said Lau.
However, Shemar Hackett, vice-president (Education) of the MSU, says that students have indeed reached out to the MSU with concerns about OSAP cuts. As a member of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) steering committee, he has also encouraged McMaster’s participation in OUSA’s letter writing campaign, an initiative that calls for students to write letters to Premier Ford’s office to highlight how the cuts have affected them thus far.
“Students aren’t always aware of the issues that involve them, and what they can do about it,” said Hackett, when asked about the student-led advocacy scene in McMaster.
Financial accessibility is one of Hackett’s priorities for the school year, according to his year plan. Much of this, according to Hackett, revolves around gathering as a student community and lobbying for change.
Despite the overlap between her intentions and the MSU’s, Lau questions what has really changed. She does not believe that change is happening quickly enough, she noted that students are beginning to struggle with juggling multiple part-time jobs in order to stay in school and other students having to scavenge rent money on top of their academic responsibilities.
Lau fears it might soon be too late to change the new status quo.
As a response, she has taken it upon herself, as well as the many others involved in her Facebook group, to form a voice on behalf of all those affected by the OSAP cuts. Lau hopes for the group to continue growing and, through its growth, to persuade the government to listen to them before it is too late.
In the group’s Facebook description, Lau writes, “Let’s not [let] these politicians change what will not even affect them … Let’s make a difference together.”
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By Wei Yan Wu, Contributor
On Sept. 27, thousands of Canadians took to streets and parks to participate in the Global Climate Strike to raise awareness on the climate emergency.
On a request by students calling for cancellation of academic activities in order to make time for strike attendance. In response, McMaster Students for Climate Change Advocacy created a petition on Change.org. To date, more than 2,000 people have signed the petition, without a public response from the university. Classes and evaluations continued to be scheduled at McMaster during the strike.
Although the university showed no support for the petition, various climate change combating initiatives and programs exist at McMaster. The university’s energy management program, for one, strives to manage utilities and facilities in a way that improves energy efficiency.
“McMaster is very research-intensive. We’ve been working with a third party to reduce air volumes to the labs which reduces our carbon footprint,” said Joe Emberson, director of energy management and utilities at McMaster.
The university’s energy management staff has also worked on reducing water use on campus. They audit buildings to check where the water is being used, investigating if there might be alternative solutions to using water.
McMaster also offers The Sustainable Future Program (SUSTAIN) and the Interdisciplinary Minor in Sustainability to its undergraduate students.
The main pillars of the SUSTAIN program, according to Kate Whalen, current senior manager of McMaster’s academic sustainability programs, revolve around providing opportunities for students to learn about sustainability. However, they also have opportunities specifically for interdisciplinary, student-led, community-based and experiential learning.
Within their five courses, the program aims to scaffold specific skills that give students learning opportunities to prepare for tackling more complex issues in upper-year courses. On the other hand, the program’s lower-year courses have observation-based experiential excursions, projects in the community and lectures on sustainability theory.
“I expect a lot of our first-year students will be attending the climate march [on] Friday. They’ll go and participate, so they’re very much in the community in terms of project implementation and experiential learning where they’re working directly with the community,” said Whalen.
The upper-year courses focus more on community engagement and tackling city-based issues through sustainability projects. Whalen’s students, for example, are each completing a full ethics application for environmental practices. They conduct research and interviews, working with members of the community and city staff to understand environmental issues most prominent in the community and to seek solutions to these challenges.
The SUSTAIN program has garnered a great amount of interest from the student body.
“When we started the Sustainable Future Program, we had one course and I think we had just under a hundred students enrolled in it. Now we have more than five courses and we have just under a thousand students enrolled this year. We’ve seen rapid growth in the demand for our program,” said Whalen.
She attributes the success of the program to its timeliness, interdisciplinary characteristics, community-based experiences and the overall way sustainability education is being delivered at Mac. For her, it shows that Mac students are aware of the sustainability issues they face and are motivated to understand and engage with them.
Outside of academics, other McMaster students have also taken the initiative to promote sustainability across campus. Zero Waste McMaster is a new club on campus this fall.
“I decided to start the club because I thought there was a gap in the clubs at McMaster. There wasn’t really any club organization working towards conscious, sustainable, low-waste living for students,” said Josephine Agueci, president of Zero Waste McMaster and student in the SUSTAIN program.
The club is in the process of planning its activities for the year, with goals to hold monthly workshops and discussions on sustainable living. The club also aims to encourage students to attend environment awareness events like the Sustainability Walk in Hamilton happening at the beginning of October.
“Right now we’re focusing on individual impact, but from there we definitely want to work towards helping McMaster be more sustainable as a school, not just on an individual level. So whether that be working on a composting system or working with different food options or waste disposal on campus,” said Agueci.
Zero Waste McMaster also aims to collect feedback from the student body. They want to know what students want to change and what sustainability issues they see on campus.
Though the university did not support students who wished to attend the climate strike on Sept. 27, academic programs continue to find ways to contribute to efforts against climate change. While many of them were not able to skip their classes or evaluations on Sept. 27, McMaster students are nevertheless finding ways to engage in sustainability initiatives on campus.
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By Anonymous
On Sept. 22, the Student Representative Assembly decisively voted to revoke club status for the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, ending months of disgraceful inaction from the McMaster Students Union board of directors and clubs department.
As a Chinese student, I applaud the SRA’s decision to stand up for student safety. The CSSA — which is linked to the Chinese Communist Party — has openly admitted to reporting people on campus to the Chinese government. By policing people and reporting them to a totalitarian dictatorship, the CSSA seriously endangered students who criticize the Chinese Community Party — especially Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur students with family in China, given the Chinese government’s extensive human rights violations.
Many of us oppose the genocides in Tibet and Xinjiang, object to police brutality and rising authoritarianism in Hong Kong, and ultimately yearn to one day see freedom and democracy in our ancestral homelands. For us, the SRA’s monumental decision represents a strong affirmation of our right to exist safely on campus, and a rejection of Chinese Communist Party attempts to surveil and intimidate students.
Beyond my own opinion, the SRA has received sweeping praise. Rukiye Turdush, the Uyghur speaker condemned by the CSSA, applauded McMaster student representatives for standing up for our rights. Zhou Fengsuo, a famous Chinese human rights activist, called the vote momentous. Former Canadian ambassadors to China, David Mulroney and Guy Saint-Jacques, strongly commended the SRA’s move.
However, we should not let widespread approval obscure an important nuance: the SRA’s decision to de-ratify the CSSA was long overdue because of inaction from the MSU board and staff.
The SRA’s decision comes seven months after international media first reported on the CSSA in February. However, the MSU board and staff caused most of the delay, as they were occupied with speculation about lawsuits and fretting over potential backlash, instead of actually addressing the issue.
For starters, at the March 24 SRA meeting, then-MSU President Ikram Farah stunningly claimed that there was mere “speculation” about what happened — despite numerous detailed reports from international media and Human Rights Watch.
“We look at federal, provincial, municipal, and university [policies], and … based on the information we currently have, none of that had been infringed upon,” stated Farah in the Mar. 24 SRA meeting, oblivious the reason why international media sounded the alarm in the first place.
Beyond replying to SRA members who questioned them, the MSU board of directors did nothing to address concerns. There was no public response to the international news articles or Human Rights Watch recommendations. Meanwhile, the clubs department took no action either.
Finally, even immediately prior to the vote, the board of directors continued trying to avoid the issue in the SRA meeting on Sept. 22. Alexandrea Johnston (vice president finance) suggested moving the CSSA motion to the next meeting. Sarah Figueiredo (vice president administration) and Shemar Hackett (vice president education) refused to vote on the deratification motion. MSU President Joshua Marando had conveniently left the meeting earlier.
The board’s persistent attempts to avoid touching the CSSA fueled rumours of intentional efforts to hush this issue, or self-censor, due to pressure from university administration and fear of Chinese government retaliation. Although these rumours are speculation, the MSU’s ominous silence on social media so far (in contrast to Marando’s dramatic public statement excoriating the Dominion Society, another de-ratified MSU club) does nothing to reassure concerned students.
Faced with such cowardice from the MSU board and staff, the SRA cut through the nonsense and did what’s right. While the board and staff buried their heads in the sand for seven months, it was SRA members who gathered evidence, made a presentation, and motioned to de-ratify the CSSA.
Moving forward, SRA members should continue to keep the board in check. Evidently, the board’s approach is not always correct, so having the SRA hold the board accountable makes for a better MSU.
Marando, however, needs to show better leadership. Similar to his strong condemnation of white supremacy, Marando should publicly and unequivocally make clear that the MSU will not tolerate attempts to police marginalized students; efforts to surveil and control Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur students on campus; or the hateful ideologies that enable genocide in Xinjiang. His silence so far on these concerns is deeply worrying.
The SRA has taken a bold first step in making campus a safer place, especially for students with family in China. Now it is time for Marando and the rest of the MSU board to stop twiddling their thumbs, match the SRA’s courage, and speak out against the threats and intimidation that students face.
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This article will hit newsstands on the same day as Ontario’s 42nd general election. I’ll be making my way to the polls, but a large number of Ontarians, specifically younger adults, won’t be.
Ontario’s election turnouts are among the lowest in the country. A dismal 51 per cent of Ontarians showed up to the 2014 Ontario vote, not terribly far off from a frankly embarrassing 43 per cent who cast their ballot in the 2011 election.
To make matters worse, only 34 per cent of young people, aged 18 to 24, said they bothered to vote in the 2014 election. While new reports have found that millennials are becoming more mindful of their democratic right, only about 43 per cent of young Ontarians said they were “extremely likely” to vote in the 2018 provincial election.
This will the first provincial election in which more millennials will be eligible to vote than baby boomers. That means young people have a significant amount of power to take issues that are important to them into their own hands.
The fact is, a large portion of the issues at stake in the June 7 election are ours to lose. Transit plans, talks of student debt relief, health and dental coverage and environmental impacts are among the many issues that will affect young people this election, and for that matter, voting is integral.
So, why aren’t young people voting?
There are several reasons why young people may think their vote doesn’t matter, or that they’re lacking the information to properly exercise our democratic right.
Young people are reportedly twice as likely to believe that they can’t cast their vote because they don’t think that they’re registered on a voter list. They’re also 51 per cent more likely to say that we lack enough information to make an informed decision during an election.
Some reports say that the explanation behind this mentality may rest in the lack of exposure to traditional mainstream media. 40 per cent of young people say that they rely on social media as a political news source, while roughly 57 per cent of all adults say they rely on mainstream media, including newspapers, and TV for their political coverage.
At this point, these are genuinely insufficient excuses.
There are various initiatives that are pushing the youth vote. Elections Ontario launched an e-registration platform that allows users to check and edit their information online. The McMaster Students Union held an all candidates debate on May 29. Various organizations are coming together to encourage young people to get informed.
As for the lack of knowledge regarding candidate information, it is genuinely easier than ever to review a candidate’s platform online. Some outlets have even compiled and organized information from each major candidate’s platform, making research a simple task.
For democracy to work properly, people need to cast a ballot. With stakes as high as they are in this election, it is more important than ever to let your voice be heard. On June 7, vote as you please, but please vote.
[CORRECTION: on June 7, we published that McMaster University hosted an all candidates debate on May 29. However, the debate was fully funded by the McMaster Students Union.]
Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, Reza Moridi, came to McMaster this afternoon to announce an additional $6-million investment in accessibility programs at Ontario Universities.
“McMaster University is a fitting place for today’s announcement. This is an institution committed to creating and supporting a learning environment, and has put a lot of thought and planning into ensuring that students with disabilities have access to the services and support they need to thrive and prosper,” said Moridi.
The province will be investing $4.5 million to help students with disabilities through an Accessibility Fund for Students with Disabilities, and a Summer Transitions Program. Similar to McMaster’s Shifting Gears program, the Transitions Program will offer workshops and courses for high school students with disabilities coming into postsecondary education.
Jama addresses the crowd on the importance of increased accessibility
“It’s very hard for students sometimes to transfer from high school to university without this kind of support, because often, students with disabilities are not taught to self-advocate and speak up for themselves.
“Programs like this, and funding like this, will teach students that they matter, that they belong here, and that there is a space for them and a voice for them at McMaster,” said Sarah Jama, McMaster student and Ontario Director of the National Educational Association of Disabled Students.
This announcement comes on the heel of Jama’s recent presentation to the Student Representative Assembly’s June 21 meeting, on a proposed increase to the services provided for students with both visible and invisible disabilities. Jama, also a member of the SRA’s Social Sciences Caucus and Abilities Ad Hoc Committee, addressed the need for a peer-based program that will allow students with disabilities to help one another, at this past Sunday’s meeting. Today’s announcement will hopefully lead to meeting the clear need and demand for increased accessibility services on campus.
The remaining $1.5 million of the investment will be going towards a variety of programs including: note-taking services for students with visual impairments; interpreter services for deaf, deafened and hard of hearing students; learning assessment services; and computer and tablet applications that change text-to-speech and vice versa.
Previous investments in accessibility on campus have lead to the creation of the Accessible Campus website, the Innovative Design for Accessibility, or IDeA, competition for students, among other campus-based initiatives across the province.
Moridi explained that Ontario universities and colleges have seen close to a doubling of students with disabilities since the first implementations of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act in 2003, thus making accessibility on campus an even more pressing issue.
“Your success matters to all of us. Together we can build a more accessible, more enlightened, more inclusive, and more economically prosperous Ontario.”
Some students eagerly participate in elections in a partisan way by going door to door or campaigning through social media. Other students earn money by working for Elections Ontario as a Poll Clerk or Information Assistant. But when it comes to voting, it is well-known that students are one of the demographics with the lowest voter turnout for both provincial and federal elections, with only 2 out of every 5 eligible 18-24 year olds casting a ballot in the last federal election.
What is being done about it?
To combat voter apathy, the MSU has created the MacVotes campaign, aiming to both educate and engage students wishing to vote in any riding. MSU Vice President (Education), Rodrigo Narro-Perez explained, “We want students to vote regardless of where they are, whether it’s here in Hamilton or back home anywhere across Ontario.”
The MacVotes website includes a video summary of local candidate platforms and a series of FAQs for students wanting to participate in the election. On May 28, the MSU also hosted an all-candidates (from the Ancaster-Flamborough-Dundas-Westdale riding) debate on campus that was live-streamed by the Silhouette 15 days before the election. As Narro-Perez explains “the summer time is an obvious barrier but we have focused our efforts through social media to compensate”. Though the campaign is dynamic and presents a useful guide for students to vote, it is unclear whether these types of campaigns are enough to get students to actually register on the voters list and go to their local polling station to vote on election day.
The apathetic province
Ontario in particular seems to have an epidemic of voter fatigue. Less than half of eligible Ontario residents voted in the last provincial election. Dr. Katherine Boothe, a McMaster political science professor, describes how theorists like Mancur Olson (1971) argue this problem stems from the nature of democracy, “rational individuals know that their potentially significant effort to contribute to a collective or public good (like saving the environment or electing a government) will only advance the cause a small degree, and they will share the benefits whether they contribute or not”, which is coined by social scientists as the “collective action problem”.
Voting campaigns targeting youth might not provide sufficient incentive to overcome this problem. As Dr. Boothe said “recent research by Goodman (2012) suggests that young voters’ changing perceptions of citizenship and civic duty have an important role in their willingness to participate – and you probably can’t affect those with more convenient polling places or better buttons.”
The challenges of navigating the voting system are exacerbated by the Elections Ontario website. As McMaster student Sara King explains, the website is difficult to navigate “The website is problematic, it’s very hard to find what you’re looking for and the explanations are very confusing.”
Furthermore, the youth section in particular contains no compelling information or any attempt to address issues that youth in particular may face when it comes to voting, like voting in their University riding versus their home riding. As King said “The youth section is a joke”.
The initiative must be yours
If you are 18 years or older on election day, a Canadian citizen and a resident of Ontario, you can vote in the provincial election and you can choose which riding to vote in, whether that be McMaster’s riding or a home riding. However, it will be up to each individual to take the initiative to vote. Despite the MacVotes campaign, the lackluster Elections Ontario programming raises the question of how many students will end up turning out on June 12.
Ted McMeekinLiberal Party
Climate change, McMaster University, social work, Chapters bookstore and public service were all topics of conversation with local MPP Ted McMeekin, who is running for re-election after 14 years of representing the ADFW riding.
McMeekin was born and raised in Hamilton and has a deep connection with his riding. He spent two terms as a Hamilton City Councillor and as the Mayor of Flamborough, and has served in the cabinet as Minister of Government Services, Minister of Consumer Services, Minister of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, and most recently, Minister of Community and Social Services. He received his Bachelor of Social Work from McMaster University and has also attended Wilfrid Laurier University and Mohawk College.
The upcoming election has introduced debate around a number of issues, but when asked which one is the highest priority for our area, Mr. McMeekin responded with climate change.
“I think one of the most important issues that we face is one we are facing around the world, and that’s climate change,” McMeekin said. “I think we need to be doing everything we can to educate ourselves about what we can do to curb climate change and what kind of investments we can make, be they in public transit, bike paths or with the Cootes to Escarpment Park.”
But climate change is not his only concern. A veteran of the education system, Mr. McMeekin is determined to place emphasis on education. “My first love is McMaster,” he said. “I have a series of advisory committees but the one I enjoy the most is the advisory committee about post-secondary education. There are 16 students and I meet with them four times a year and get advice from them on all kinds of issues. That makes me a better representative for students and generally the McMaster community.”
He also addressed the Progressive Conservative Party’s threat to dispose of the 30% tuition rebate, stating that the Liberal Party will keep the tuition rebate if re-elected.
Mr. McMeekin has represented ADFW as the MPP for almost 14 years, and in that time he has worked with students and the administration to bring in approximately $170 million in capital investment to the university to fund projects such as health sciences expansion, the Nuclear Research Building, the Centre for Spinal Cord Injury and the new L.R. Wilson Hall Humanities building.
A lifetime resident of the area, Mr. McMeekin has held many positions including the Mayor of Flamborough, the owner and operator of the original Chapters bookstore, a professor, a community worker with the United Church of Canada, and has worked in many other positions in government.
With a background in social work, Mr. McMeekin places an emphasis on helping people in the community. “The promise I made when I was first elected was that I would put together the best constituency team in the province. And I did that,” McMeekin said. “As of last week the three women in my office have responded to over 548,000 requests for information and assistance. […] So I think all of that together equals being a pretty good MPP.”
Alex JohnstoneNDP
You can see the contribution Alex Johnstone has made to the community through initiatives like the declaration of Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) as a living wage employer and the organization of the Elect More Women conference.
As a current School Board Trustee for HWDSB, member of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction’s working committee on Shifting Attitudes, and board member for the Quest Learning Centre United Church in Westdale, it becomes even more obvious that Alex Johnstone is dedicated to the city and its people.
Education is very important to both Johnstone and the NDP. The party promises a tuition freeze for university students, and is looking to make student loans interest free. For students in medical school, a credit of up to $20,000 for debt reduction will be given for employment in rural communities.
“I’m still paying down my student debt, actually,” Johnstone admitted. “I graduated in 2008 and I still have three more years to go.” NDP policies like tuition freezes and interest free loans will help manage the debts incurred from attending post secondary school.
Johnstone is also an advocate of improving the education system, especially for special needs students. “I was a special needs student myself – I actually failed grade one,” said Johnstone. “But I had really amazing teachers and resource staff that changed my whole trajectory. I was able to go ahead and earn two University degrees. That to me really demonstrated that with the right supports, you can change a child’s path.”
In addition to improving the education system, the NDP is looking to attract businesses to Ontario by lowering hydro rates. Their plan involves merging four of Ontario’s hydro agencies to minimize duplicated management costs.
In the business sector, NDP plans to reward businesses that create jobs by giving a tax credit of up to $5000 per employee hired. They also plan to cut back small business tax to 3% to help small businesses thrive.
“I have a record of working hard on behalf of families, certainly as an elected school board trustee this past term. I’ve worked very hard to get results for families,” said Johnstone. “I always start by saying that I can’t promise you’ll get 100% of what you’re asking for but I will try my hardest and we will look towards a compromise, always. It has worked out really well that way. I think that my track record alone demonstrates that I’m an excellent person to fill this role as MPP.”
Donna Skelly Progressive Conservative Party
Donna Skelly describes herself as an extremely hardworking person and a strong supporter of the community. She lives in Ancaster, and is highly involved in the non-profit sector and in local sports. Skelly was a journalist for 22 years at CHCH Television in Hamilton, and has moved on to become involved in politics with the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
Skelly’s platform focuses largely on job creation and the economy. She has seen a worry in the community about a lack of well paying jobs and avidly promotes PC leader Tim Hudak’s plan to create one million jobs if elected in Ontario.
“I grew up in Northern Ontario, north of Sudbury in a tiny little town,” Skelly said. “I’m a journalist and I knew back then – I knew when I was 14 – what I wanted to do. I also knew that when I graduated that as long as I wanted to work hard I could work anywhere in Ontario. I knew I could get a job in any field anywhere in Ontario and that is simply not the case anymore.”
“If you end up graduating from university with debt and can’t get a job it’s devastating,” Skelly said. “We have to turn the province around by creating high paying, full-time jobs.”
The Progressive Conservative Party’s plan encourages students to look to the trades for apprenticeships that will promise high paying, stable jobs in the future. Other sectors they say will assure high paying jobs are science, technology, engineering and business.
The plan emphasizes strengthening the private sector in order to create more jobs. This includes making the tax rate for business the most competitive in North America, as well as reducing rising hydro bills that may deter businesses from settling in Ontario. This comes at the cost of the lost 30% tuition rebate, and reductions in numbers of teachers and education staff under Tim Hudak’s plan to cut 100,000 public sector jobs.
Skelly described the plan as “tough medicine,” but necessary to balance Ontario’s budget.
“It’s a good solid plan and it’s going to give you hope, it’s going to give you an opportunity to grow up in the Ontario that I grew up in – where taxes were low and where jobs were so prosperous and readily available across Ontario,” said Skelly about the PC plan.
“I’m the right choice because I’m extremely motivated,” she said. “This is my second time running, and trust me, if you give me an opportunity to represent you I will work really, really hard. But more so, you have to have the right plan. We have the right plan.”
Raymond DartschGreen Party of Ontario
http://www.gpo.ca/riding/3/candidate-0
Rayond Dartsch is a registered nurse, a political and environmental activist, and a McMaster and Mohawk graduate. He is the MPP candidate for the Green Party of Ontario.
Dartsch identified the most important issue in southwestern Ontario as transportation and gridlock.
“I was wondering: who is going to fix this problem?” Dartsch said. “That’s one of the things that drew me into politics in the first place.”
The Green Party believes expansion of GO service to communities such as Ancaster, Dundas, and Waterdown, as well as light-rail transit in Hamilton, will help solve the gridlock program.
“There’s all this crazy talk of highway 401 having to be expanded to 10 or 16 lanes out to Kitchener,” he said. “But if you have extended GO service…that’s where your solution to gridlock is.”
In terms of education, the Green Party of Ontario’s biggest proposed change is the merging of the Catholic and public school boards. Having two school boards duplicates services such as bussing and wastes an estimate of $1.2 to $1.6 billion each year.
Along with merging the school boards, the party aims to support youth through the creation of a Social Innovation Fund. The fund would give grants, loans and mentorship to young entrepreneurs in order to offset the high youth unemployment rate.
“As someone who is still paying off his own student loans, I am very aware of the affordability issues facing students, and that has to be addressed, not just by making student loans more available and making people go deeper into debt,” Dartsch said.
Another strategy to create jobs is to double the health tax exemption for employers with payrolls of less than $5 million. “Cutting small business pay roll taxes, as far as I’m aware, is very helpful to someone considering hiring because it lowers the cost for that,” Dartsch said.
Many have been skeptical of the Green Party, but Dartsch thinks Canada is ready for Green Party leadership. “We’ve had a century or more of experience with the Liberals and the Conservatives, we’ve even had a NDP government for a few years,” Dartsch said. “I think looking at the Green Party platform, it is a fresh look at a lot of old problems and fresh solutions to problems that exist today that didn’t exist before.”
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Make sure to visit the polls on the 12th and decide who is going to represent the riding you live in.
On May 28 in the MUSC Atrium, the McMaster Students Union hosted an all-candidates debate with four candidates in the Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale riding for the upcoming June 12 provincial election.
The participants were Raymond Dartsch of the Green Party, Alex Johnstone of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Ted McMeekin of the Liberal Party, and Donna Skelly of the Progressive Conservatives (PC). Libertarian Party candidate Glenn Langton and Freedom Party of Ontario candidate Barry Spruce were absent.
It was an engaging and well-attended debate. The candidates had the opportunity to offer their perspectives on important issues within the riding before focusing on post-secondary education (PSE).
Opening Statements set the tone for the debate
Raymond Dartsch began by sharing his hopes for the GP’s success in this election. “It’s not a far-fetched idea that a candidate of the Green Party gets elected,” he said.
Donna Skelly, as might be expected from a former TV journalist, was always smiling and unmistakeably confident, but addressed the student audience too formally.
Johnstone, a former school-board trustee, began by highlighting her community experiences at McMaster and Hamilton. She was evidently the most nervous of the four, but recovered steadily.
Both Skelly and Johnstone made remarks about the state of provincial employment and debt rates under Liberal leadership.
Ted McMeekin combined personal anecdotes and past achievements as the incumbent MPP. McMeekin appeared as the most comfortable of the candidates, aiming to relate with the audience on their shared love of McMaster and the MSU.
McMeekin and Skelly: head to head on almost everything
In most of her answers, Skelly attacked Liberal governance, and on numerous occasions directed her accusations at McMeekin. Skelly spoke many times about the Liberal’s “blunders,” “corruption,” and “mismanagement.”
McMeekin concluded some of his own responses by rebutting PC platform points that Skelly hadn’t brought up.
While Skelly emphasized PC’s fiscal discipline, in particular in terms of cutting public sector jobs, McMeekin criticized the Tory plan as standing on “the backs of those who need us most.” Skelly stated that we have to “bite the bullet” with regards social cuts, while McMeekin countered that Ontario can only rebuild through investment, not cuts.
McMeekin responded well to criticism. A veteran to the area’s politics, he handled attacks against him and the Ontario Liberals calmly and maturely.
His responses to questions pertaining to PSE and to the criticisms of Skelly and Johnstone included a fine level of detail and knowledge of McMaster, its funding, and current projects. There is no doubt that McMeekin is well-informed on these issues given his incumbency.
McMeekin laughed off a number of Skelly’s attacks, though he did respond to Skelly’s accusations about the public investigation of officials in the Premier’s office. He told the audience, rather passionately, that he thinks if someone in Queen’s Park has done something wrong, the “bastard ought to pay for it.”
McMeekin conceded that Skelly’s attacks about the Gas Plant closure were fair, but that this didn’t pose a big problem for his overall performance in the debate.
The majority of Skelly’s statements were about issues unrelated to PSE. Skelly’s strategy might have worked for a different audience, but her repetitive attacks did not appear to have any effect on university students who wanted to hear about tuition and employment.
As much as Skelly liked to attack the Liberals’ platform, she failed to respond to McMeekin’s criticism of the Progressive Conservatives’ plan to tie marks to OSAP funding, Dartsch’s remarks about her support for the Niagara-GTA highway back in 2011, and Johnstone’s claim that the PC platform makes education inaccessible.
Johnstone garners audience support
Johnstone’s energy and natural tone, along with her emphasis on accessible education, garnered her support from the audience throughout the debate. The majority of the audience’s applause went to her.
She criticized both McMeekin and Skelly on their respective party platforms, while agreeing with Skelly on the Liberals’ fiscal irresponsibility and with McMeekin on the PC’s attack on social services.
She jumped into some of the more heated points of the debate, but overall came across as a constructive critic instead of a relentless attacker. Johnstone focused far less on attacking the Liberal government and more on bringing forth NDP’s tuition plans.
She did not miss a chance to remind the audience to vote for the NDP this election.
Dartsch emphasizes the importance of fresh ideas
Although Dartsch didn’t have a strong presence and seemed tired during the debate, he captured the audience’s attention with his honesty and refreshing approach to the election. He did not push for himself or his party, but for open debate and new ideas.
However, Dartsch was stumped by some questions, noting that he’s been too busy being a working parent with five kids to keep up with post-secondary news – a comment that might have left a bad taste in the mouths of some of the most involved students on campus. Dartsch went back and forth between making impressive, well thought-out points, and repeating previous statements and admitting to a lack of knowledge on some topics.
Final Remarks
There was no clear “winner” in Wednesday’s debate. Overall, Johnstone and McMeekin out-performed both Skelly and Dartsch.
Skelly’s performance appealed to strong PC supporters, yet failed to engage undecided members of the audience due to her forced delivery, which at times sounded patronizing and too rehearsed.
Dartsch missed the opportunity to make a strong impression on McMaster students.
Johnstone and McMeekin gave the most natural and relatable answers. Both were friendly, and unlike their opponents they appeared to understand the purpose of the debate, and used this to their advantage.
For the past couple of weeks, elections in Ontario have been the one of the most discussed topics in the media. Promotional material for all the major parties has flooded television, newspapers and various online forums. While the message each party presents is different, a number of similar issues are being discussed, including job creation, transportation, health care, and public tax dollars. However, in my opinion, something crucial is not being discussed about as often as it should : issues relevant to young adults. Political parties rarely address issues that are most important to youth, especially post-secondary education issues, and whenever these issues are talked about, they are not presented in an accessible way to thier intended audience, compounding the issue.
The public is under the impression that ‘students don’t vote’. This is a statement that needs to be corrected. The reality is that students do vote, but the percentage of students who vote relative to the provincial average is lower than those in other demographics. In the 2011 provincial election it is estimated that youth (aged 18-25) had a voting turnout of 35%. This turnout is estimated to be less than 10-20% than in other demographics, but one must also remember that the provincial turnout was 49% and that there has been a steady decline in these numbers over the last decade. Accusing students as being the only disengaged audience during elections is wrong; low voter turnout is a province wide issue, not just a student one.
In an effort to increase student awareness and engagement during this election, the MSU has lauched an information campaign entitled ‘#MacVotes' as an offshoot of the MSU website. All the information that a student will need to be able to vote has been compiled in one easy to access source, with links for those who wish to explore further. The provided information is meant to be non-partisan in order to ensure that students are educated about what each party has to offer to post-secondary education, in turn allowing students to make an informed vote. Promotional material for this campaign has been placed throughout campus; however the bulk of the information is online. We encourage all students to discuss the elections by using the #Macvotes hash tag on Twitter and Facebook in order to start the conversation and keep youth engaged.
This past Wednesday, May 28, the MSU hosted an all-candidates debate for the riding of Ancaster- Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, the riding that McMaster resides in. This debate was attended by many students, faculty, and staff as well by community members. Candidates from the Green Party of Ontario, the Ontario Liberal Party, the Ontario New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario were present and answered various answers pertinent to post-secondary education and the Hamilton community. This debate was recorded and is available on the MacVotes webpage as well as The Silhouette Livestream site.
On June 12, Ontarians will be headed to the polls to elect a provincial government. We encourage all students and the public to get informed and get out there and vote. For more information be sure to check out msumcmaster.ca/macvotes and remember to make an educated choice this election!
