10 Years Later we Continue to Demand Justice for Ayotzinapa

Ten years ago, on September 26, 2014, 43 students from Ayotzinapa were forcibly disappeared. This is as a result of a State policy that has resorted to systematic repression to suffocate the organization of students from rural schools. Since then, the search for justice has been systematically blocked, evidencing the impunity that has protected those truly responsible. Neither the government of Enrique Peña Nieto nor the current one has given a satisfactory response or acted firmly against the culprits. The truth points to the high command of the army and other structures of state power, which have been untouchable.

The López Obrador government, despite its promises of transformation, has reproduced patterns of impunity and militarization. Far from clarifying the facts, it has chosen to consolidate military control in strategic areas of the country, ensuring that those responsible remain beyond the reach of justice. Militarization, far from responding to security needs, serves to protect the interests of monopolies and maintain repression against organizations that fight for justice and dignity. The State’s response remains the same: guarantee the impunity of the high military commanders.

With the arrival of Claudia Sheinbaum to the presidency of Mexico, it is clear that there will be no real change in the policies that have allowed impunity. This government will represent the continuity of a State that represses and silences, instead of addressing the demands of justice and truth.

Faced with this reality, the communist youth of Mexico and the world rise up in solidarity with Ayotzinapa and the Federation of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico (FECSM). The fight for justice for the 43 is inseparable from the fight against impunity and militarization. 10 years after the Crime, we reaffirm: It was the State!

Organizations that signed in solidarity:

Communist Youth Federation – Argentina

Youth Front of the Austrian Labor Party

Young Communist Union, Brazil

Communist Youth of Bolivia

Young Communist League – Canada

Youth Vanguard, Costa Rica

Communist Youth of Ecuador

Young Communist Union, France

Communist Youth of Greece

Workers Party Youth, Ireland

Communist Youth Front, Mexico

Popular Socialist Youth, Mexico

Communist Youth Front, Italy

Palestine Young Communist Union

Paraguayan Communist Youth

Union of Socialist Youth, Romania

Revolutionary Communist Youth League (Bolshevik), Russia

Communist Youth Collectives, Spain

Communist Youth of Sweden

Swiss Communist Youth

Communist Youth of Türkiye

Communist Youth of Venezuela

Solidarity with the Student Encampments!

Freedom for Palestine!

The Young Communist League – Ligue de la jeunesse communiste (YCL-LJC) extends our solidarity and militant greetings to the students on campuses across the country fighting for freedom in Palestine.

The YCL-LJC welcomes the continuation of the solidarity struggle with the Palestinian people.

The world demands a ceasefire, a political and diplomatic solution to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response, Canada and the imperialist countries continue to reaffirm the myth of Israel’s right to defend itself. Let us be clear, there is no right to occupation, let alone a right to commit genocide. The imperialists do so in a context where the danger of globalized conflict is growing daily, particularly in the Middle East, but also elsewhere in the world.

The mainstream corporate media in this country says the conflict that has killed 40,000 people, including 20,000 children in Gaza, began on October 7th. They do so to obscure more than a century of struggle for national liberation. The ruling class tries to criminalize any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle. The YCL-LJC denounces the attempts by the bourgeois media to frame international solidarity by peace loving forces as anti-democratic and war-mongering.

We condemn the repression and use of force against peaceful protestors.

The struggle of the Palestinian people is neither ethnic nor religious. This is a fight of national liberation directed against the plans of Western imperialism in the region and against its global hegemony. It is a fight for peace and international solidarity, and that is why it disturbs the warmongers, especially in a context where Western imperialists such as Canada are called to increase their military budgets.

Students, faculty, and campus workers have long been mobilized for solidarity with the cause of Palestinian liberation. A significant resurgence in the movement on campuses began in the 2007/8 school year when several local assemblies at university and Cégep campuses across Quebec voted to support the Boycott Divestment Sanction (BDS) campaign against Israel. The organized campaign was supported by Fédération nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ) Quebec’s largest college level teachers union. The campaign reached a new level when the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), the historic student union that led the 2005 and 2012 student strikes, voted to support the international BDS campaign at a Quebec-wide level in 2008.

Students in English speaking Canada followed the lead from the Quebec student movement, with at least 16 student unions in the rest of Canada passing resolutions in support of the Palestinian people’s cause and some if not all aspects of the BDS movement from 2012-17.

The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario assembly in 2014 (CFS-O) representing 300 000+ members passed a resolution endorsing the BDS campaign. This was followed by a winning motion at the CFS annual general meeting in 2018.

In 2022 alone students at Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, McGill, Concordia, and University of Toronto passed resolutions in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people and against the apartheid and occupation of Israel. This included motions calling for boycotts and/or divestments of Israel.

This year, the Université du Québec à Montréal became the first university in Canada to have all of its student unions adopt BDS mandates.

The resolutions and motions have required immense levels of organization from students. Passing BDS endorsements have led to attacks from administrations on student democracy, including the withholding of dues in some cases. But with the brutal war on Gaza and the increased drive for settlements in the West Bank, students across Canada have answered the call and once again began to mobilize for the liberation of the Palestinian people.

We reiterate our statement from October of last year: “We recognize ourselves in neither the ideology nor the methods of Hamas. However, we understand that its popular support is the result of decades of Zionist colonization, invasion, occupation and blockade, with the tacit support of Western governments, the manifest failure of the Oslo Accords and an ossified Palestinian Authority riddled with internal contradictions … We therefore denounce all forces that try to shift the burden of these attacks onto the Palestinian resistance, and reiterate our demands for the creation as soon as possible of a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, the guarantee of the 1948 refugees’ right of return, and the dismantling of all Zionist settlements (illegal under international law). These demands may not solve the entire Palestinian problem, but they are the only ones that could pave the way for a lasting solution to this conflict. Finally, we offer our full solidarity to our sister organizations in Palestine and throughout the region”

The YCL-LJC as a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the largest anti imperialist youth organization in the world, reiterates the demands from our sister organisations in Palestine, such as the General Union of Palestinian Students. At our 2023 Central Convention, the highest decision making body of the YCL-LJC, we prioritized building the BDS and solidarity with Palestine movement in Canada, and exposing the profiteering of the Canadian capitalist monopolies in occupied Palestine. We commit ourselves and call on all democratic, working-class forces, unions, progressives; all supporters of true lasting world peace from coast to coast to intensify this fight and to demand:

– The creation of a viable and independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with UN resolutions;

– The guarantee of the right of return of the refugees of 1948;

– The denuclearization of Israel and the end of the apartheid regime;

– The severance of commercial and diplomatic relations between Canada and Israel, starting with an embargo on the shipment of weapons and military equipment, and including academic boycotts, as long as the occupation continues;

– Canada’s positioning in favor of an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on the part of Israel;

– Furthermore we call for Canada to withdraw from all military alliances such as NATO and NORAD and to end the senseless arms race by slashing the military budget by 75% and investing the savings into universal public social services such as free post-secondary education for all

Palestine will live, Palestine will win!

Post-Secondary Education is in Crisis

Our Generation Needs to Take up the Fight for Education for all!

Central Executive Committee YCL-LJC

“A schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation.”

Das Kapital, Karl Marx

Post-secondary education (PSE) in Canada has reached a crisis point. This crisis is demonstrable by the recent announcement by the federal government of a cap on international student enrollment in addition to the news that many PSE institutions are running substantial budget deficits.

Notably, Queen’s University in Ontario announced that in response to their projected budget deficit, they will introduce major cuts. Queen’s Provost Matthew Evans stated at a December town hall, “I’m concerned about the survival of this institution. Unless we sort this out, we will go under”. The cuts include eliminating all undergraduate courses with less than 10 students next year, introducing a hiring freeze, and laying off adjunct professors. The cuts at Queen’s are being introduced despite the university having the fifth largest university endowment in the country, valued at over $1.4 billion. Additionally, Queen’s has $600 million of accumulated surplus compared to a $62 million projected deficit pre-cuts or $48 million post-cuts.

Nearly half of universities in Ontario, 10 out of the province’s 23 public universities, are facing fiscal deficits this year.

In October of last year, the Quebec government made the controversial decision to increase tuition for Canadian students from outside Quebec from $8,992 a year to $17,000, while international students would pay a minimum of $20,000. The move was made under the auspices of protecting the French language. However, the impact will not just be on the out-of-province students at the three English-language universities in Quebec, but first and foremost on Franco-Canadian students who rely on the Quebec PSE system due to inadequacies in their home provinces.

The Canadian immigration system is designed to maintain an abundance of temporary immigration statuses in order to ensure a steady supply of precarious, non-union, low-wage workers to tamp down wages and working conditions for all. Universities, colleges, and a growing number of private institutions have been using international students as a replacement for dwindling public financial support, since international students pay higher tuition fees. The international student cap has been introduced because the ruling class does not have the same need for expanding the reserve army of labour to put a downward pressure on wages. Now inflation is getting the job of reducing wages done for them. Reducing international student enrollment can help manufacture a crisis in PSE so they can undergo corporatised restructuring and accelerate the commodification and exclusivity of education as we have already seen at Laurentian University.

The ruling class will have us believe the roots of this crisis lay in tuition fees not rising fast enough or ‘inefficiencies’ such as workers salaries. But the truth is the crisis stems from the general crisis of capitalism. We are in this position because of decades of underfunding from provincial and federal governments of all political stripes as well as the corporate leadership of PSE institutions pushing for a commodification of education.

The expansion of for-profit colleges and universities, including their partnerships with public schools, leads to an unacceptably low quality of education. It also changes the dynamic from a merit-based system to a consumer-oriented one, where students see PSE as a financial investment that opens the door to a higher salary, rather than viewing PSE as an opportunity to develop critical thinking as well as important technical skills.

We have already seen provincial governments in Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba introduce “performance-based” funding in which public funding would be pinned to labour market needs. Under this scheme, PSE institutions would no longer receive funding based on enrollment, an arrangement that is already inadequate especially for smaller institutions and those in areas outside major urban centres. Instead they would be financially supported according to student outcomes such as hiring rates and employment earnings. Without a doubt, this will benefit professional programs and those that are linked with specific industrial entities at the direction of the school’s board of governors who come from Bay Street and big business. Performance-based funding will come at the expense of a huge range of liberal arts, humanities and languages programs, and critical intellectual inquiry.

This crisis will not only affect current and future students. PSE is a major industry in all provinces. The economy of Canada relies on having an educated pool of labour. The majority of people in Canada have received some form of post-secondary accreditation. According to the OECD, Canada’s population has the highest rate of tertiary education completion in the world. PSE accounts for more than $40 billion in government revenue annually or approximately 1.2 percent of the GDP of Canada. In Ontario alone, it is estimated that the economic impact of its 21 public universities and 24 public colleges is more than $120 billion a year. The PSE sector in Canada directly employs more than 440,000 people across the country and contributes another 300,000 indirect jobs.

What is needed now is a serious investment of public funds into PSE. The reliance on tuition fees, particularly from international students, over public funds has created an unsustainable funding model that is leading to a major contraction of the PSE sector.

Public funding to PSE in Canada has been slashed from 80 percent 30 years ago to under 50 percent today. Public funding for PSE has been stagnant or decreasing for more than a decade, despite soaring inflation. From 2008 to 2020, student enrolment increased by more than 20 percent whereas income from tuition rose by nearly 70 percent across Canada. Big business, which dictates most of government policy, has made it clear that it is not concerned with expanding access to quality education in Canada. The capitalists are lobbying hard to limit access and take direct control over universities and colleges.

We must fight for an expansion of quality and accessible education for all. The layoffs and tuition hikes being proposed by administrations across the country will exacerbate the crisis, not resolve it.

We cannot fall for the cynical traps offered by the bourgeoisie — the argument that liberal arts education is a luxury, that only “employable” studies should be offered, or that free education will subsidize the wealthy by taxing workers.

Our role as young communists in the broad student movement is to build unity in action, inject ideas of class struggle, and try to navigate away from adventurous or reformist dead ends. Student unions and their federations have been moving away from their necessary role as fighting bodies to becoming service providers for dental plans or ISIC cards. As the YCL-LJC, we must put forward the demand for a public monopoly on PSE that provides free education for all. Our clubs that are based on campuses must work to build up a student movement that can stand with workers and their unions against cuts in classes and services; that can fight against tuition hikes; that can mobilize students in the hundreds of thousands like we have seen before in this country.

Ultimately, our role is to build the fight for socialism, which will provide a real barrier-free democratic and emancipatory education for all that work for it.

“The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.”

Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels

Young Communist League Stands in Solidarity With Student Unions at York University / La Ligue de la jeunesse communiste est solidaire des associations étudiantes de l’Université de York

We condemn the Statements of Jill Dunlop, Anthony Housefather, Michelle Rempel Garner, and other elected officials/ Nous condamnons les déclarations de Jill Dunlop, Anthony Housefather, Michelle Rempel Garner et d’autres élus.

Le texte français suit.

The YCL-LJC expresses our full solidarity with the York Federation of Students, York Graduate Students’ Union, and Glendon College Student Union in the face of attacks by the York University administration and members of the Provincial and Federal Parliament.

The students’ unions at York issued a statement on Thursday, October 12 in solidarity with the Palestinian people and defended their right to resist. Subsequently, they have come under fire from the University administration; the bourgeois media; the Ontario Minister of Universities, Colleges, and Training; the Canadian Minister of Justice; and other federal and provincial elected officials.

This attack is first and foremost part of the broader attack on the Palestine solidarity movement; the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment on Israel (BDS) campaign; and the broader anti-imperialist peace movement. For years the government and the monopolies they represent have been attempting to crush the Palestinian solidarity movement in Canada to support what they see as an ally against anti-imperialist movements in the Middle East, similar to Canadian military and diplomatic support for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Recently, we saw attacks on students’ unions at McGill and the University of Toronto for democratically passing BDS motions. In Ontario, Doug Ford and the Tories tried to ban Al-Quds Day events in 2018. They also passed an Order-in-Council adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) definition of anti-Jewish racism which wrongly equates criticisms of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism. The federal Liberals in 2016 passed a motion in Parliament to officially condemn the BDS campaign; in 2019, the Liberals adopted the IHRA definition.

However, government officials have been silent when the Israeli “Defence” Forces illegally set up recruitment events at universities across the country. In fact, the Canadian Embassy in Israel has even hosted events honouring and celebrating the “contributions” those with Canadian passports have made to the occupation of Palestine. When Canadian physician Tarek Loubani was shot by an IDF sniper in Gaza while clearly identified as actively providing medical care, the Canadian government pressed the International Criminal Court (ICC) to not investigate Israel for crimes against humanity. In a 2020 letter to the ICC, the Canadian government stated, “Canada’s longstanding position is that it does not recognize a Palestinian state and therefore does not recognize the accession of such a state to international treaties, including the Rome Statute. In the absence of a Palestinian state, it is Canada’s view that the Court does not have jurisdiction in this matter.”

The position of the Canadian state is in contravention with numerous United Nations General Assembly resolutions and with the position of the vast majority of member states, most notably United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236. The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236 clearly recognizes “that the Palestinian people are entitled to self-determination” and affirms “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including: the right to self-determination without external interference; the right to national independence and sovereignty; […] the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

Furthermore, the York Federation of Students is the largest undergraduate student union in Canada. The students of York University have democratically elected their representatives and the joint statement by the three students’ unions is well within their mandate to represent and organize students at their university, and in line with the democratic decisions of their annual general meetings. This attack on the York student unions is consistent with a rising trend of university administrations interfering with student democracy. Students’ unions are autonomous and independent from the institution, and this attack on the YFS’s autonomy is reminiscent of the Student Choice Initiative that the Ford government attempted to implement in 2019, but was defeated in court. The affairs of students’ unions, both political and internal, are not to be interfered with by the administration, nor the government. Students have the right to have their voice and to collectively make decisions. The YCL-LJC says hands off student democracy.

Around the world this week we have seen attacks on the Palestinian movement, from the white phosphorus bombing of civilian targets including hospitals in Gaza by the IDF to the banning of Palestinian flags and demonstrations in many countries. The YCL-LJC reiterates our support for the Palestinian people’s right of return, its right to self-determination, and its right to resist occupation. In the face of Zionist aggression we must give strength to the solidarity movement here in Canada, in particular the BDS movement. We must identify and isolate the Canadian capitalist monopolies that are profiteering from the death and destruction in Palestine.

Palestine will live, Palestine will win!

La YCL-LJC exprime son entière solidarité avec la York Federation of Students, le York Graduate Students’ Union et le Glendon College Student Union face aux attaques de l’administration de l’Université de York et des membres des parlements provincial et fédéral.

Le jeudi 12 octobre, les associations étudiantes de York ont publié une déclaration de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien et ont défendu son droit à la résistance. Par la suite, elles ont essuyé les tirs de l’administration de l’université, des médias bourgeois, du ministre ontarien des Universités, des Collèges et de la Formation, du ministre canadien de la Justice et d’autres élus fédéraux et provinciaux.

Cette attaque s’inscrit d’abord et avant tout dans le cadre d’une attaque plus large contre le mouvement de solidarité avec la Palestine, contre la campagne de boycott, de sanctions et de désinvestissement contre Israël (BDS) et contre le mouvement pour la paix anti-impérialiste dans son ensemble. Depuis des années, le gouvernement et les monopoles qu’il représente tentent d’écraser le mouvement de solidarité avec la Palestine au Canada pour soutenir ce qu’ils considèrent comme un allié contre les mouvements anti-impérialistes au Moyen-Orient, à l’instar du soutien militaire et diplomatique du Canada à l’Arabie saoudite et à d’autres États du Golfe.

Récemment, nous avons assisté à des attaques contre des associations étudiantes à McGill et à l’Université de Toronto pour avoir adopté démocratiquement des motions BDS. En Ontario, Doug Ford et les conservateurs ont tenté d’interdire les événements de la Journée Al-Quds en 2018. Ils ont également fait passer un décret adoptant la définition du racisme antijuif de l’Association internationale pour la mémoire de l’Holocauste (IHRA), qui assimile à tort les critiques d’Israël et du sionisme à de l’antisémitisme. En 2016, les libéraux fédéraux ont adopté une motion au Parlement pour condamner officiellement la campagne BDS ; en 2019, les libéraux ont adopté la définition de l’IHRA.

Cependant, les représentants du gouvernement sont restés silencieux lorsque l’Armée de « défense » d’Israël a illégalement organisé des événements de recrutement dans les universités du pays. En fait, l’ambassade du Canada en Israël a même organisé des événements pour honorer et célébrer les « contributions » des détenteurs de passeports canadiens à l’occupation de la Palestine. Lorsque le médecin canadien Tarek Loubani a été abattu par un tireur d’élite de l’armée israélienne à Gaza alors qu’il était clairement identifié comme fournissant activement des soins médicaux, le gouvernement canadien a fait pression sur la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) pour qu’elle n’enquête pas sur Israël pour crimes contre l’humanité. Dans une lettre adressée à la CPI en 2020, le gouvernement canadien a déclaré : « La position de longue date du Canada est qu’il ne reconnaît pas un État palestinien et, par conséquent, ne reconnaît pas l’adhésion d’un tel État aux traités internationaux, y compris le Statut de Rome. En l’absence d’un État palestinien, le Canada est d’avis que la Cour n’est pas compétente en la matière. »

La position de l’État canadien est en contradiction avec de nombreuses résolutions de l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies et avec la position de la grande majorité des États membres, notamment la résolution 3236 de l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies. La résolution 3236 de l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies reconnaît clairement que « le peuple palestinien a droit à l’autodétermination » et affirme « les droits inaliénables du peuple palestinien en Palestine, notamment : le droit à l’autodétermination sans ingérence extérieure ; le droit à l’indépendance et à la souveraineté nationales ; […] le droit du peuple palestinien de recouvrer ses droits par tous les moyens conformément aux buts et principes énoncés dans la Charte des Nations Unies ».

Par ailleurs, la York Federation of Students est la plus grande association étudiante de premier cycle au Canada. Les étudiant-es de l’Université de York ont démocratiquement élu leurs représentants et la déclaration commune des trois associations étudiantes s’inscrit parfaitement dans le cadre de leur mandat de représentation et d’organisation des étudiant-es de leur université, en exécution des décisions démocratiques de leurs assemblées générales annuelles. Cette attaque contre les associations étudiantes de York s’inscrit dans une tendance croissante à l’ingérence des administrations universitaires dans la démocratie étudiante. Les associations étudiantes sont autonomes et indépendantes de l’institution, et cette attaque contre l’autonomie du YFS rappelle « l’initiative de liberté de choix des étudiants » que le gouvernement Ford a tenté de mettre en œuvre en 2019, mais qui a été rejetée par le tribunal. Les affaires des associations étudiantes, tant politiques qu’internes, ne doivent subir l’ingérence ni de l’administration, ni du gouvernement. Les étudiant-es ont le droit de s’exprimer et de prendre des décisions collectivement. La YCL-LJC affirme : Ne touchez pas à la démocratie étudiante!

Cette semaine, nous avons assisté dans le monde entier à des attaques contre le mouvement palestinien, depuis le bombardement au phosphore blanc de cibles civiles, dont des hôpitaux, à Gaza par l’armée israélienne, jusqu’à l’interdiction des drapeaux palestiniens et des manifestations dans de nombreux pays. La YCL-LJC réitère son soutien au droit au retour du peuple palestinien, à son droit à l’autodétermination et à son droit de résister à l’occupation. Face à l’agression sioniste, nous devons renforcer le mouvement de solidarité ici au Canada, en particulier le mouvement BDS. Nous devons identifier et isoler les monopoles capitalistes canadiens qui profitent de la mort et de la destruction en Palestine.

La Palestine vivra, la Palestine vaincra!

Unissons-nous et luttons pour le droit à l’éducation! Les universités privées s’enrichissent et nous appauvrissent

Seule l’action éduque la classe exploitée, seule elle lui donne la mesure de ses forces, élargit son horizon, accroît ses capacités, éclaire son intelligence et trempe sa volonté.

— Lénine

Le gouvernement conservateur de l’Ontario a approuvé la création d’une université privée à but lucratif exploitée par Global University Systems et offrant des diplômes de maîtrise et de baccalauréat. C’est ce même gouvernement qui a mis au rebut trois campus universitaires publics prévus à Brampton, Milton et Markham, et qui a saboté l’ouverture de l’Université de l’Ontario français. Ce gouvernement a arrêté tous les plans d’expansion du système public d’enseignement postsecondaire et menace maintenant le système public avec l’introduction d’une université privée à but lucratif.

L’annonce de la création d’une université privée à Niagara Falls, en Ontario, constitue une attaque massive contre la prestation publique des services sociaux, les droits démocratiques et le droit universel à l’éducation. En 1976, le gouvernement fédéral a signé le Pacte international relatif aux droits économiques, sociaux et culturels des Nations Unies. En signant le Pacte, l’État a approuvé l’article 13, qui reconnaît « le droit de toute personne à l’éducation ». La clause 2(c), stipule que « l’enseignement supérieur doit être rendu accessible à tous en pleine égalité, en fonction des capacités de chacun, par tous les moyens appropriés et notamment par l’instauration progressive de la gratuité ».

Au lieu de « l’instauration progressive de la gratuité de l’enseignement », on a assisté à un désinvestissement massif, qui a rendu l’éducation inaccessible à un trop grand nombre. Les partenariats entre entreprises et institutions publiques étouffent manifestement la liberté académique et la démocratie. Il est pratiquement impossible pour les étudiant-es de la classe ouvrière de quitter l’école sans être lourdement endetté-es, la dette moyenne s’élevant à 28 000 $ pour un diplôme de premier cycle. Le montant total des prêts étudiants dus au gouvernement fédéral atteindra 22,3 milliards de dollars en 2020. Les étudiant-es issu-es de l’international font face à des frais de scolarité trois à cinq fois plus élevés que les résident-es et sont utilisés pour compenser les réductions de financement, les étudiant-es étranger-ères payant environ 40 % des frais de scolarité dans les universités canadiennes. Les profits records de plus de 7 milliards de dollars réalisés par les universités canadiennes en 2021 l’ont été sur le dos de la subsistance des travailleur-ses : les salaires du personnel non enseignant ont diminué de 1,6 %, contre une baisse de 0,2 % pour les salaires du personnel académique, les licenciements massifs ou le non-renouvellement des contrats du personnel non académique ayant permis aux profits de monter en flèche. Nous assistons au début d’une restructuration de l’enseignement supérieur pour mieux servir la classe dirigeante. Nous devons porter une politique de lutte des classes et d’unité avec les travailleur-ses au sein du mouvement étudiant afin de renverser la vapeur.

La classe capitaliste, à l’offensive à l’échelle mondiale, a décidé qu’elle n’était plus disposée à payer pour l’éducation publique au Canada. Le financement public de l’éducation postsecondaire au Canada a été réduit de 80 % il y a 30 ans à moins de 50 % aujourd’hui. Le financement public de l’éducation postsecondaire a stagné ou diminué pendant plus d’une décennie, malgré une inflation galopante. De 2008 à 2020, les inscriptions étudiantes ont augmenté de plus de 20 % et les revenus provenant des frais de scolarité ont augmenté de près de 70 % au Canada. Les grandes entreprises, qui dictent la plupart des politiques gouvernementales, ont clairement fait savoir qu’elles ne se souciaient pas d’élargir l’accès à une éducation de qualité au Canada. Les capitalistes exercent de fortes pressions pour limiter l’accès et prendre le contrôle direct des universités et des collèges.

La restructuration de l’Université Laurentienne, qui s’est détournée de son engagement triculturel à servir la communauté pour devenir un établissement professionnel au service des monopoles miniers ; les changements radicaux apportés au secteur collégial, qui dépend maintenant de personnel enseignant précaire à temps partiel et contractuel ; l’enseignement à but lucratif non réglementé et exploiteur, qui s’adresse principalement aux étudiant-es étranger-ères ou aux personnes appauvries ; la corporatisation de l’administration de l’éducation postsecondaire et l’augmentation embarrassante de la rémunération des administrateurs ; l’introduction du financement fondé sur le rendement dans certaines provinces — ce sont tous des symptômes d’un système public d’éducation postsecondaire à l’agonie au Canada. Nous ne pouvons pas tomber dans les pièges cyniques de la bourgeoisie — l’argument selon lequel l’éducation libérale est un luxe, que les programmes d’études doivent être choisis selon « l’employabilité » ou que l’éducation gratuite subventionnerait les riches en taxant les travailleurs. Notre rôle en tant que jeunes communistes est de construire l’unité dans l’action, de promouvoir la perspective de lutte des classes et d’essayer de s’éloigner des impasses aventuristes ou réformistes. Seul le socialisme offrira une véritable éducation démocratique et émancipatrice. Cependant, en attendant, nous devons nous battre bec et ongles pour empêcher le démantèlement des acquis de l’après-guerre et le retrait de l’enseignement supérieur des mains du public. L’éducation est un droit, mais la seule façon pour les jeunes et les étudiant-es d’avoir ce droit est de se lever et de se battre pour le défendre.

Unite and fight for the right to education! For-profit post-secondary enriches few and impoverishes many

Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.

— Lenin

The conservative Ontario government has approved plans for a private for-profit university operated by Global University Systems offering master’s and bachelor’s degrees. This is the same government that scrapped three planned public university campuses in Brampton, Milton, and Markham, and sabotaged the introduction of the public Université de l’Ontario français. This government has stopped all plans for the expansion of the public post-secondary education (PSE) system and are now threatening the public system with the introduction of a private for-profit university based in Ontario.

The announcement of a private for-profit university in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is a massive attack on public delivery of social services, democratic rights, and the universal right to education. In 1976, the federal government signed the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. By signing the Covenant, the state endorsed Article 13, recognizing “the right of everyone to an education.” Clause 2(c), states that “higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.”

Instead of the “progressive introduction of free education,” there has been massive disinvestment, which has made education inaccessible for too many. Corporate partnerships with public institutions have demonstrably stifled academic freedom and democracy. It is nearly impossible for working-class students to leave school without massive debt, with an average debt of $28,000 for a bachelor’s degree. The total amount of student loans owed to the federal government hit $22.3 billion in 2020. International students are faced with three to five times the tuition cost of domestic students and are being used to make up for cuts to funding, with international students paying approximately 40 percent of the tuition fees at Canadian universities. Record profits of over $7 billion by Canadian universities in 2021 came on the back of workers’s livelihoods: salaries and wages for non-instructional staff decreased by 1.6 percent, compared with a 0.2 percent decline for academic staff salaries, as mass layoffs or non-renewal of contracts in non-academic staff let profits soar. We are witnessing the beginning of the restructuring of higher education to better serve the ruling class. We need to bring policies of unity with labour and class struggle to the student movement in order to turn the tide.

The capitalist class, on the offensive globally, has decided that it is no longer willing to pay for public education in Canada. Public funding to PSE in Canada has been slashed from 80 percent 30 years ago to under 50 percent today. Public funding for PSE has been stagnant or decreasing for more than a decade, despite soaring inflation. From 2008 to 2020, student enrolment increased by more than 20 percent, and income from tuition rose by nearly 70 percent across Canada. Big business, which dictates most of government policy, has made it clear that it is not concerned with expanding access to quality education in Canada. The capitalists are lobbying hard to limit access and take direct control over universities and colleges.

The restructuring of Laurentian University from its tricultural commitment to serve the community into a vocational institution for the mining monopolies; the radical changes to the college sector, which now relies on precarious part-time and contractual instructors; the unregulated and exploitative private for-profit sector, which is predominantly oriented toward international students or impoverished people; the corporatization of PSE administration and the embarrassingly ballooning compensation for administrators; the introduction of performance-based funding in some provinces — these are all symptoms of a dying public PSE system in Canada. We cannot fall for the cynical traps offered by the bourgeoisie — the argument that liberal arts education is a luxury, that only “employable” studies should be offered, or that free education will subsidize the wealthy by taxing workers. Our role as young communists is to build unity in action, inject ideas of class struggle, and try to navigate away from adventurous or reformist dead ends. Only socialism will provide a real barrier-free democratic and emancipatory education for all that work for it. However, in the meantime, we need to fight tooth and nail to stop the dismantlement of the post-war gains, which would take higher education out of the hands of the public. Education is a right, but the only way for young people and students to have that right is to stand up and fight for it.

Stop the Insolvency! YCL-LJC Stands in Solidarity with Laurentian Students and Workers

Central executive committee, 16 May 2021

The insolvency of a public institution is a manufactured crisis by the ruling class. The company creditor arrangement and bankruptcy process in Canada is a tool to ensure that the big banks are paid off first while pensions and jobs are slashed. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling states Laurentian University, the third largest employer in Sudbury, can “permanently or temporarily cease, downsize or shut down any of its business or operations” and “terminate the employment of such of its employees or temporarily lay off such of its employees as they deem appropriate”.

Non à l’insolvabilité : la YCL-LJC en solidarité avec les étudiant-es et travailleur-ses de l’Université Laurentienne

Comité exécutif central, 16 mai 2021

L’insolvabilité d’une institution publique est une crise artificielle fabriquée par la classe dirigeante. L’encadrement de la faillite des entreprises, notamment par l’arrangement avec les créanciers, est un outil qui permet de s’assurer que les grandes banques sont remboursées en premier tandis que les pensions et les emplois sont supprimés. La décision de la Cour supérieure de justice de l’Ontario dispose que l’Université Laurentienne, le troisième employeur en importance à Sudbury, peut « réduire ou cesser ses activités de façon permanente ou temporaire » et « mettre à pied ou licencier les employés pour lesquels elle juge que cela est approprié ».

Immediately release our detained comrades! YCL-LJC stands in solidarity with TKG and students of the Boğaziçi University!

YCL-LJC CEC, 5 February 2021

On January 1st of this year the President of Turkey made an unprecedented intervention into Boğaziçi University. He blatantly violated the democratic rights of students and workers by installing a militant from his far-right Justice and Development Party (AKP) as head of the University in lieu of the scheduled elections. The provocative move was met with organized demonstrations of protest from students. The state security forces moved quickly, locking down the campus; sending in waves of armoured riot police to assault students and workers; infiltrating plain clothes agent provocateurs inside the locked down campus; and raiding the homes of students in the middle of the night to take them to jail, labelling the students as ‘terrorists’ as the police detain more and more each day.

NOUS ÉTUDIONS POUR NOUS ÉMANCIPER, PAS POUR NOUS ALIÉNER DAVANTAGE !

18 décembre 2020

Le Parti communiste et la Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Québec s’inquiètent du recours de plus en plus généralisé aux nouvelles technologies dans nos écoles. Alors que les universités ont commencé depuis plusieurs mois à basculer vers le numérique pour dispenser différents cours, à partir du 17 décembre prochain, les écoles secondaires et primaires, puis possiblement les CEGEPs feront de même. Si nous comprenons que la situation sanitaire force à employer des méthodes adaptées et que l’utilisation d’outils virtuels peuvent s’avérer utiles en ce sens, il n’en demeure pas moins que demander aux étudiant-es et aux professeur-es de dispenser leurs cours et de suivre le programme comme en temps normal représente une attaque grave contre nos conditions d’études et de travail.