Media release: Despite outcry from students, the Board of Governors at Mount Saint Vincent University will vote to approve a budget today that includes a 6% tuition fee increase for the 2018-2019 academic year.
The Canadian Federation of Students-Nova Scotia (CFS- NS) has been informed that they are not invited to the first meeting the government’s newly reinstated provincial Sexual Violence Prevention Committee to address sexual assault on university campuses. This decision comes as continued retaliation by the Minister of Labour and Advanced Education, Labi Kousoulis, against the CFS-NS, after an op-ed was published in The Coast on March 15 that was critical of the Liberal government’s decision to vote down campus sexual violence legislation.
The Department of Education will no longer meet with CFS-NS representatives because it didn’t like a Coast op-ed written by its Chairperson, Aidan McNally. The editorial was critical of the government’s unwillingness to deal with sexual violence on campus. “It is our responsibility to hold elected governments accountable to students, not to placate them. If we are doing the latter, we are not serving our members’ interests. The decision of this government to shut students out of representative spaces due to criticism is unacceptable,” writes the CFS-NS provincial executive committee in an open letter.
Some ordinary people fighting environmental hazards in their backyards, and a bunch of students as well, showed up at the start of the fall session at Province House, and they aren’t very happy with the Liberal government.