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March of the penguin protest: Calgary students set up display to fight education cuts

Click to play video: 'Students stage frozen penguin protest at Alberta legislature'
Students stage frozen penguin protest at Alberta legislature
University students made around 800 snow penguins on the Alberta legislature grounds in hopes of turning up the heat on the UCP for their cuts to post-secondary education. Sarah Ryan reports – Feb 4, 2021

A snow penguin protest that generated buzz in Edmonton is now in Alberta’s biggest city.

Representatives in Calgary for the Council of Alberta University Students say they are setting up about 300 snow penguins outside the provincial government’s McDougall Centre to protest cuts to post-secondary education.

Late last month, students from Edmonton’s University of Alberta and McEwan University built about 800 penguins using snow moulds on the grounds of the legislature for the same cause.

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But groundskeepers destroyed most of them the next day, as the government deemed them tripping hazards.

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Marley Gillies, vice-president of University of Calgary Students’ Union, says they have been in contact with management of the McDougall Centre and hope their penguin display will last longer.

Gillies says students in Calgary want to do the same thing to bring attention to a 22.5 per cent rise in tuition over three years and cuts to Alberta’s post-secondary institutions.

“This is something we are all really united on,” Gillies said Monday, adding that the snow penguins may show up in Lethbridge, Alta., next.

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