Le 17 novembre prochain, des millions de jeunes à travers le monde célèbreront la Journée internationale des étudiant-es. Cette date marque les 80 ans après que Jan Opental et 9 autres dirigeants étudiants ont été assassinés par les forces nazies d’occupation de la Tchécoslovaquie. C’est cet épisode qui a marqué le premier acte de la résistance étudiante contre la barbarie fasciste sanguinaire. Dans la foulée, 1200 étudiant-es tchécoslovaques sont déportés dans les camps de la mort.
On November 17th, the whole world welcomes the International Day of Students. This date marks 80 years after John Opental and 9 other student leaders were murdered by the Nazi occupation forces in Czechoslovakia. This episode marks the first act of students’ resistance against fascism. In the aftermath, 1200 Czechoslovak students are deported to the death camps.
Students in every city, and in most high schools across Ontario are walking out and playing their role as an inspiring force to wake-up our collective fight against the Ford Government. The Young Communist League of Canada fully supports high school students walking out of classrooms today at 1:15 pm to protest against the Ford Government’s unprecedented attacks on public education.
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.
Student Commission of the YCL-LJC
January 2019
On January 17th, Doug Ford’s Conservative government announced that tuition fees would be reduced by 10% under the slogan “for the people”. This benign-sounding announcement heralds an attack on students’ political power and our access to a quality, public-funded post-secondary education.
Central Executive Committee
January 2019
The YCL-LJC condemns Doug Ford’s January 17th announcement on post-secondary education and calls for all progressive organisations, including student unions, labour and all kind of on-campus groups to mobilise against this attack aimed at weakening the student fightback and at going one step further in the direction of privatisation and commodification of our education.
In a vicious way similar to the ‘free speech’ directive (that was all about empowering hate and bigoted speech on campus), Ontario’s reactionary government is playing with words and presents this new attack as a benefit for students. It furthers the provocation to the point where it announces that students’ tuition burden will be lowered by 10%. However, a closer look to the numbers makes it clear that the real goal of this announcement has very little to do with a move towards public, free education.
La Ligue de la jeunesse communiste appuie la lutte de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne mobilisée pour la défense de ses droits linguistiques et appelle ses membres ainsi que les progressistes, syndicats, associations étudiantes, groups communautaires, etc. à affirmer leur solidarité envers les revendications des Franco-Ontariens.
The Young Communist League supports the struggle of Franco-Ontarian youth mobilized for the defense of their language rights and calls on its members as well as progressives, unions, student associations, community groups, etc. to affirm their solidarity with the demands of Franco-Ontarians.
With Doug Ford’s so-called “Free Speech Directive”, democracy on Campus is under severe attack.
Despite its name, purposely chosen to confuse people, this directive has little to do with freedom of speech. Instead, it is crafted to open universities’ doors wide open for ultra-right forces to propagate their bigoted and inflammatory speech, targeting progressive student groups and people, including student and labour unions on campus, and jeopardizing the independence of universities.
The YCL-LJC joins forces with organizations across Ontario to denounce the so-called “free speech” directive passed by Doug Ford’s provincial government and urges all progressive and democratic students to oppose and resist this directive by all means possible. We encourage young people across Canada to express their solidarity with students in Ontario.
Passed in August, this directive purports to defend freedom of expression in Ontario universities by denying funding to those who, by January 1, have not complied with the directive through bylaws, policies, or other mechanisms designed to counter any restrictions on this right; a fundamental principle already protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Those deemed to have violated said policies would also be subject to individual punishment by the school. The HEQCO (Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario) is tasked with auditing the performance of this resolution – if the school is deemed not to have sufficiently enforced these policies, the HEQCO may report this to the Ontario government, which will then threaten their funding. This use of funding as leverage for compliance with government policy is undemocratic and unconstitutional.