Wynne wears responsibility for five weeks lost for students, faculty

The NDP is pleased colleges will start opening Monday, but say that Kathleen Wynne’s choice – to allow the strike to drag on for five weeks while doing nothing at all, then forcing faculty back to work without a deal – was the worst possible way she could have handled the strike.

“Kathleen Wynne underfunded colleges for years, then sat on her hands for five weeks and did nothing while the strike dragged on,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. “The law gives her the authority to step in and be active at that bargaining table, and she refused, letting down students and letting down faculty members.

“For Kathleen Wynne, this was never about students or faculty. This was about politics. It looks like she was just waiting – letting students wait – for the moment when she could legislate faculty back to work.”

A bill to legislate faculty back to work, apparently drawn up by the government after Wynne spent less than an hour with both sides late last week, will reach third reading today. The NDP will not support it, but it's expected to pass with the Liberal majority.

“There's no plan in place to compensate students, and no plan to fix the mess she created in colleges,” said Horwath. “College students have really been let down by Wynne, time and time again.”

Ontario’s colleges have the lowest per-student funding in the entire country, thanks to Kathleen Wynne’s underfunding. The majority of instructors are part-time, contract workers who are underpaid compared those few teachers and professors who have a permanent job.

Faculty often works two or three jobs to make ends meet, and students lose out on the help, support and mentorship their education should come with.