Not Our Cup of Tea

OpinionsLaura Beeston — Published September 13, 2011

Hey students, have you read? Quebec has its own Tea Party.

We’re it.

At least, that’s what seasoned editorialist Henry Aubin opined in The Gazette when he wrote ‘A taste of the Tea Party in Quebec’ on Sept. 6.

“Militant members of these student organizations will recoil at being compared with the Tea Party, that far-right crusade south of the border,” he wrote. “The students will see Tea Partiers as stodgy, old and doctrinaire—the reverse of their own cool, youthful, broad-minded selves. Yet the two movements have much in common.”

While it’s true that I do recoil at the notion of grassroots education activism being compared to the Tea Party—and will admit to having a cool, youthful, broad mind—I take issue with the tenuous links Aubin makes between ‘us’ and ‘them.’

Tea Partiers demand lower taxes, while students are demanding lower tuition. His argument ceases to make sense beyond the surface financial similarities. Yet the difference of our prospective
governments, he writes, is “a nuance.”

However, there’s one group adamant that they are “taxed enough already”—putting their own short-term financial interests ahead of the long-term needs of the many—while the other is saying that affordable education is vital to the economic future of their whole province.

Aubin also comments that the Tea Party is similar to students because both groups are “electorally minded” and have “played the political system astutely.”

But have they really, Henry? “Astute” is not a word I would choose when describing Tea Party talking heads like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann or Glenn Beck.

Besides, the Tea Party is generally seen as incorporating elements that are homophobic, Islamophobic and their dislike for Obama often comes off as little more than thinly-veiled racism.

So give us some credit, please (and hold on, I’m just about to get to student debt); there is clearly more than one glaring difference between both groups and their goals for society, as he wrote.

While Aubin seems impressed that student groups are going to “try something extra” and flex our “new political sophistication” this year by pressuring elected officials in target areas to start thinking seriously about public education that is funded through a more-progressive taxation system, he goes on to write that this agenda will eventually weaken society.

Students, he argues, could even be responsible for bringing the university and provincial governments to fiscal crisis if we continue our political aggression of “ragtag demonstrations” and “war path tactics.”

As Obama told his Tea Partying critics when the US economy was on the brink of default, “We need to tighten our belts in an intelligent way.” So do we. We’re talking about access to education here; can our government make spending cuts in other areas? Access to education is a human right, enshrined on our very own university’s windows.

It is simply foolish to deny access to education to future generations, as everyone benefits from an informed and well-educated labour force.

And though $13,000 in student debt might seem like some paltry sum to a man who has a salary, he should take a hard look at the job market, rising inflation, austerity measures and many other realities facing us university students as they exit—or, increasingly fight to afford an entrance into—higher education systems.

Mr. Aubin, education is our only real chance in the real world, or the real job market, which is why we’ve become vocal and more politically savvy to stay in school. Investing in universities, in education, is an investment in growth.

These ideals do not make us the Tea Party!

Aubin’s insight—and he is clearly an intelligent man—has shown a lot of students another side of the tuition debate, but on a very basic level, comparing our movement to the Tea Party is unfair and seems to verge on willfull ignorance. If we are going to have any real dialogue, we have to keep our hyperbole in check.

“There’s a word for wanting to hang onto acquired privilege,” said Aubin at the end of his piece. The word was “reactionary.” It’s an interesting word, and one you could also use to describe the most basic premise of his opinions piece, which seems to stem from a fear on the part of older, middle-class citizens that if students aren’t footing the bill, they will.

At the end of the day, however, if university attendance drops significantly, or if future generations of young people are all graduating with unmanageable debt loads, everyone loses.
Deepening the divide between the generations and making inflammatory comparisons will not solve the problem of tuition funding.

Perhaps Mr. Aubin should show up to the planned province-wide Nov. 10 protest against tuition and speak to a few students on the ground floor of life.

And maybe then he’d see that we’re most certainly not like our “Get the government away from my Medicare” friends to the south.

This article originally appeared in Volume 32, Issue 03, published September 13, 2011.