Jacqueline Perlin
Assistant News Editor
The Canadian Federation of Students Ontario (CFS-O) released a report card last week grading each party based on promises and platforms, giving the New Democrat Party (NDP) the highest grade of B+ overall. The NDP took top marks for its promises on tuition fees, student debt, funding, and research.
The Liberal party, however, maintains that the attractive planks of the NDP platform have not been properly accounted for.
According to a media release sent out on September 26, the Liberals state that “according to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), the NDP have promised that, if elected, they will raise the per-student funding to more than the national average. That’s a $1-billion promise. Every year. But in the costing document the NDP released yesterday, there wasn’t a single penny set aside to back up that promise.”
Chairperson for the CFS-O Sandy Husdon, however, points out that all parties have made unfounded promises, and that this doesn’t change the NDP’s grade on the report.
“What the NDP stated to us when they made that promise was that, if elected, they would talk to each of the institutions about what kind of funding shortfall they have and what kind of funding they need and to develop a framework to get that money to the institutions,” she says.
Overall, Hudson says the goal of the CFS-O report cards are to “boil down […] what the crux of these parties really are.”
“We think it’s really important for students to know how the election will be affecting them, and what kinds of things can and might change as a result of the election.”
