The YCL-LJC stands in full support of Ontario Students’ walk-out set for March 20th by the CFS Ontario, calling for free education, grants not loans, and an end to the Ford Government’s attacks on students’ rights to organize. We also call our members and all progressive organisations to support, promote and help organise this important action taking place in the context of dangerous attacks by the Ford government against social and democratic rights for which the youth, students, labour and people’s movements harshly fought for for years.

This walk-out, although directed at the Student’s Choice Initiative, is not about student unions’ capacity to provide services such as dental or health plans (which should be covered by public services anyways). The role of student unions is not to co-manage our universities along with corporate-led Board of Governors. Their purpose is to fight for the interests of the majority of the students. As such, their task is to organise the student fight, to keep students mobilised for free, accessible, quality, democratic and public education, and to ensure students stand in solidarity with any victim of imperialist or neo-liberal attacks. This work has been at the core of student organisng for decades, and this is how the student movement can now say with pride that it contributed to the mobilisations against the war in Vietnam or in Iraq, and that it was a crucial component in the struggle against Free Trade and Globalisation. Right now, it is also an active force in the fight against racism, the rise of the ultra-right and for environmental justice.

The student movement has the potential to be a strong resistance movement once again. This is precisely what Doug Ford is attacking by imposing “right-to-work”legislation crafted for student unions. This is an attack on the capacity of the student movement to stay organised, united and mobilised.

However, the Student Choice Initiative isn’t only about union dues. It also encompasses 600 million dollars in cuts to our grants, which will impact working-class and low income students the most. Also, it would be a mistake to look at this situation from the sole point of view of students.Ford’s agenda isn’t to simply attack students but to attack the ability for all progressive movements to organise against the austerity and anti-people measures. While he is attacking students, he is empowering the ultra-right which is increasingly organised, including on our campuses.

There is a lot at stake, and the youth and students have a heavy responsibility. Our work might start as a student movement, but it has to become a popular struggle, much like the 2012 Québec student strike. If we fail to mobilise, this will not only mean a major step back for the student movement, but it will also set a clear signal to the Ford government that he can further attack people’s movements.

Time is running short. We don’t have time to waste trying to convince MPPs to challenge Ford at Queen’s Park. The only language the ruling class understands is one of numbers. Unless we can prove our strength through massive actions, our message will mean little in the balance of forces. This is why we need to prompt up the mobilisation and ensure that on March 20th, we will not be walking out just for the sake of it. The walk-out is a move to bring more people into the fight, and to build more coalitions. Our campuses should be bubbling with activities leading towards the walk-out every day, but we should also be setting up plans for afterward. In the end, the success of the movement will rely on our capacity to bring more people into the fight and keep them mobilised.

It is easy to call for a walk-out, for a strike or any similar action, but it takes a tremendous amount of student-to-student outreach to build towards a walkout, and build on-the-ground student movement momentum afterward. It is too easy to stay at the margins of the movement when the priority is to convince people that the forces exist to force Doug Ford to capitulate on the Student’s Choice initiative. It is easy to sound revolutionary, but a real revolutionary’s priority is to earn respect from the movement and the people they work with, regardless of the existing limitations of said progressive movements.

It might be the case that on March 20th, we won’t get as many people as we would like. It might be the case that the demands of the walk-out aren’t radical enough. But, this is a beginning that we have to build on. Progressive students know the value and potential of an organised and united student movement, and we must commit to building it. We know that for Doug Ford to be defeated, unity isn’t simply a slogan, but a core necessity. As young communists, we also know that history has proven that when people mobilise is when they learn about the struggle and gain in consciousness by a more rapid pace than by any other means.

All out on March 20th! Let’s make sure that this is not the end of the battle, but the beginning of a struggle.