The University of B.C.’s Alma Mater Society has lodged a complaint with the United Nations that Canada and B.C. are violating an international covenant signed in 1976, in which Canada promised eventually to provide free post-secondary education.
The complaint was sent this week to the UN high commissioner for human rights in Geneva by Pivot Legal Society lawyer Katrina Pacey, counsel for the AMS.
“It’s alleged that the governments of Canada and B.C. have violated the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Human Rights, which states that higher education will be made equally accessible to all … specifically by the progressive introduction of free education,” Pacey told a news conference Thursday.
“Not only has Canada and the province not met their commitments under the treaty, they’ve done the exact opposite.
“There’s been a progressive shift away from the introduction of free education. In fact, financial barriers have increased over the last several decades and in particular over the last five years,” she said.
Pacey outlined successive increases in tuition fees that students have faced since the covenant was signed.
“In the ’80s and ’90s we saw increasing tuition rates. In 1996 the provincial government responded by enacting legislation that froze tuition and the freeze was in place until 2002,” she said.
When fees were frozen, Pacey said, “We saw a regaining of access for students who might not otherwise have had access to university and colleges.
“A change of government in 2002 led to a lifting of that tuition freeze that handed control back to universities and we’ve seen universities taking advantage of that control by increasing tuition to what we say are exorbitant and unreasonable levels,” she said.
She said this has resulted in students from low-income families being unable to afford to attend universities or colleges.
Background information provided by the AMS stated that from 2002 to 2007, university tuition fees skyrocketed with undergraduate fees doubling and graduate fees rising by 184 per cent.
Pacey said the AMS wants to the government to step back in and control tuition and make it affordable. The government should also increase grants to universities “so the institutions themselves don’t have to rely on students to pay the overhead and cost of administering post secondary education.”
She said the AMS is also asking for non-repayable grants to students and increased bursaries to prevent them from sinking deeply into debt.
AMS president Blake Frederick said the average student debt in B.C. was $27,000, the highest in the country. The Canadian average is $24,000.
Pacey said the society was asking the UN to appoint an independent expert or “special rapporteur” to investigate “the human rights situation in Canada.”
A co-complainant in the appeal to the UN is former UBC student Tristan Markle, who graduated in May.
Markle said he had accumulated debts of $42,000 putting himself through university, and the debt was preventing him from continuing with graduate studies because he has had to take a job to pay off this debt.
Markle had to work at a number of jobs while attending classes and the effort of doing both stressed him out so that the financial demands “detracted from my education and well-being,” he said in an affidavit.
Pacey said the AMS decided to go to the United Nations after all attempts to lobby governments to reduce tuition fees had failed.
She said there didn’t appear to be any remedy using the Canadian court system as “at this time Canadian constitutional and human rights law does not appear to open the door for an argument that could result in an order compelling government to ensure the affordability of post-secondary education.”
gbellett@vancouversun.com
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