I work in the student housing department at my university. During one of my duty rounds, I was talking to a coworker about the OSAP cuts. She told me she has never been interested in politics, that she didn’t vote in the last election and voted Conservative in the one before that.
But as we continued discussing, she called the Ontario government thieves, and said that because of these cuts, she may not be able to afford school anymore.
I asked if she heard about what the Quebec students did in 2012, she said she hadn’t. As soon as I began explaining they went on strike in response to tuition hikes, she immediately cut me off and said “We need to do that!”.
I invited her to a rally on March 4, and she began thinking about asking our supervisor for permission to advertise a student strike to the residents on our floors.
Someone who describes themselves as apolitical immediately jumped on board with the idea of a student strike!
– Aytekin M., Waterloo
