Ontario’s premier, Dalton McGuinty, will soon announce plans to legislate the CUPE 3903 workers – who have been striking since November - back to work. The government is hoping students will be back in class by next week.
MPPs have been called to Queen’s Park in order to pass a bill sending the strikers back to work and they will be meeting Sunday, January 24th, at 1:00 pm.
The mediator has stated that there is no hope of the two sides agreeing on anything and this appears like it is the only solution. Finally, the interests of the students will be considered and placed above those interests of the striking workers who have threatened the educations of 50,000 students with their strike.
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York University Picket Line

Since the start of November, students at York University in North York, Ontario have been sitting at the edge of their seats awaiting their classes to resume after a strike began with the re-negotiation of the Teaching Assistants (TA’s), Graduate Assistants (GA’s) and contract faculty contracts. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) started a strike after local 3903’s demands were not met by York Administration. The first semester has already been thrown out, exams could not be held, classes could not be finished, and students were given high hopes that after the holidays, classes would resume for the second semester.

Negotiations resumed on January 5th after the winter holidays with high hopes. A vote for their last offer was requested by York Administration, only to be denied by CUPE’s bargaining team to be brought to its members on January 7th. With York Administration and CUPE local 3903 butting heads, we are shown yet again that the value of education will always be undermined by the pursuit of profitability. As York University Administration continues to prove to us that it is no better than any corporation losing the trust of its consumers for the better good of maximum profits, we seem to be losing our hope in any kind of organization. Sure, it was easy to accept the fact that the gas companies were sky rocketing the prices of our fuel while brandishing a false 2% profit; that the big-three automobile companies dropped all kinds of innovation to save a few million dollars by not updating its factories to include the mass production of the electric car or the hydro-powered car – and thus probably sending them into oblivion; that the heads of banks in the U.S. cared less about the billions given to them by the government and wasting valuable tax payers’ money than the spa treatments they took as soon as the cheque cleared. Hell it was even easy to accept the fact that most charitable organizations only end up giving (maybe) 10 cents to every dollar given to them to those who need it. But when even those in charge of educating the future leaders of our world care less about resuming education promised to 50,000 students than the money they raised for their 50th anniversary celebrations (an estimated $180 Million), we know we have come to a very sad time.
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Sid Ryan Makes an Empty Apology

No, he did not apologize for his plan to ban Israeli professors from Ontario’s campuses. No, he did not apologize for his double standard against Israel; since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, thousands of Hamas rockets have been fired into Israel and have hit several Israeli schools.

What he apologized for is the part where he compared Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis during World War II. The Nazis who demolished learning institutions and burnt all religious books, compared to the Israel Defense Force who targeted a building allegedly housing terrorists. Canadians were outraged at such a racist comment and Ryan had no choice but to take his comment back.

While apologizing for this ghastly remark is a step in the right direction, Sid Ryan has not swayed his position at all. This empty apology leads me and all of my fellow Canadians to ask, “Now what?”
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CUPE is the Canadian Union of Public Employees that represents over 500 000 public employees across Canada. They have made headlines recently when the CUPE sector (CUPE 3903) representing the Teaching Assistants and many professors went on strike and displaced 50 000 students at Toronto’s York University.

If the outrage against CUPE, from this ongoing strike, is not enough, Sid Ryan, President of CUPE in Ontario, certainly decided to make matters worse. Tarnishing his own reputation and what was left of CUPE’s, Ryan released a press statement calling for a ban of any Israeli academics from speaking, teaching, or doing research work at Ontario universities. The only way Israelis can gain or retain employment is if they condemn the recent Israeli attack on the Islamic University in Gaza. On December 29th, Israel conducted an air strike on this university as part of their campaign to destroy the Hamas terrorist organization. Ryan then said that Israel is acting in the same manner as the Nazis by attacking an institution of learning. This ban on Israelis from campuses across the province will have a preliminary vote in February and if a majority is received, a final vote will be held in May.

HAS HE LOST HIS MIND?
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