Doer Breaks His Tuition Fee Promise
Doer Breaks His Tuition Fee Promise

WINNIPEG--Today's announcement of the continuation for 2008-2009 of the tuition fee freeze is a victory for students. However, the Doer government also announced tuition fee increases of 11% in subsequent years, a clear breach of the NDP's May 2007 election promise.

The Canadian Federation of Students is also frustrated that the announcement included plans to create a Hugh McFadyen-style commission to review Manitoba's policy on accessibility, after pursuing a major policy shift.

"When students' unions learned last week of plans to lift the freeze in the 2008 Manitoba budget, we put a lot of pressure on the Doer government," said David Jacks, President of the University of Winnipeg Students' Association and Manitoba spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Students.

"Manitobans re-elected Doer on the basis of his promises, including a tuition fee freeze. The NDP government has announced a combination of Hugh McFadyen's post-secondary education review and Jon Gerrard's incremental tuition fee hikes. This is a betrayal of Doer's promise to Manitobans."

The government's release today on post-secondary education, which pre-empts Wednesday's budget announcement, included a plan to allow tuition fees to rise to 1999 levels over the remainder of the mandate, from 2009 to 2011, while adding $8 million to provincial bursaries.

"The Doer government's plan to charge higher tuition fees while increasing bursaries makes no sense: for every $1 in new bursaries, students will be paying $1.75 more in fees. Doer is playing a shell game, and the result will be a $6 million cut to student aid."

Concluded Jacks: "Students will continue to hold Doer accountable for his broken promise: he has no mandate to further download the costs of education onto students."The Canadian Federation of Students is composed of over one-half million students across the country, including more than 42,000 in Manitoba.

Spokespeople will be available on April 9, at the provincial Budget Speech.

Share