‘That’s not right’: GFESS walks out in snowstorm to protest OSAP cuts

Rain may have delayed the protest, but an unexpected blizzard could not stop Greater Fort Erie Secondary School (GFESS) students from walking out of class Friday to protest provincial changes to post-secondary education funding they say will increase student debt.

Students organized the protest through conversations at school and on social media as part of a broader movement by high school students across Ontario protesting changes to grants under the provincial student aid program, OSAP.

Grade 10 student James Maloney, who described himself as a proud Indigenous student, spoke about friends already reconsidering whether they can afford university or college.

“I have friends who want to be doctors, nurses, and want to go out there but don’t have the money to, and they need grants like this. They don’t want to have to spend the rest of their lives paying it off,” Maloney said.

This comes as Ford recently announced student grants would be capped at 25 per cent of a student’s total OSAP funding and leave at least 75 per cent to be financed through loans. Previously, OSAP grants could cover up to 85 per cent of tuition for some students which many working-class families relied on to make post-secondary education possible.

The province also lifted Ontario’s freeze on tuition, so the cost of post-secondary education in the province is expected to increase starting September.

“For many of us this walkout is about being a voice for students who are worried but may be too afraid to speak up,” Zoey Bononno, a Grade 11 student and main organizer of the GFESS walkout, told Fort Erie Radio.

Students gathered outside GFESS after 11:40 a.m. despite heavy snow, temperatures reaching below zero, and wind gusts reaching up to 90 km/h, according to Environment Canada.

Passing drivers honked their horns in support as students held up signs. MPP Wayne Gates also appeared at the protest site to offer encouragement and joined their chants: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, OSAP cuts have got to go.”

Several students said the OSAP cuts will shape their ability to attend post-secondary and repeatedly raised concerns about the amount of debt they expect to carry.

“If we can’t afford our education going forward, how are we supposed to help our communities, become doctors or anything else?” asked Alexis Perron, Grade 11.

Ford defended the cuts, saying in an interview that students should pursue “jobs of the future” in fields such as STEM, health care, trades and tech, rather than what he called “basket-weaving courses.”

Grade 11 student Lillian Sullivan argued that Ford’s messaging does not add up, pointing to how the province is making post-secondary education harder to afford while Ontario still faces health-care staffing shortages.

“I think it’s quite rude that Doug said, not to go into ‘basket weaving’ and to go into healthcare, and yet his government cut $1.2 billion from healthcare. How are the doctors supposed to work if they’re in debt and they’re not being paid what they’re supposed to? It doesn’t make any sense,” said Sullivan.

Bononno detailed how finances in her own single-parent household shape how she thinks about the cuts to post-secondary education.

“Money doesn’t grow on trees for a lot of us. The loans being up by 60 per cent, and our grants going down by 60 per cent, will put us in debt for almost the rest of our lives, and that’s not right,” she said.

Grade 12 students Gabrielle Cudmore and Morgan Young, who recently wrote and directed the award-winning play ‘High School Is Killing Me,’ addressed the role of humanities and arts programs in higher education and the wider debate over which fields deserve public investment.

“Arts as a whole, even those ‘basket-weaving courses,’ they’re so fundamental and they’re a part of everyday life, and you can’t avoid them, so why are we cutting funding from them?” said Morgan.

Bononno said the goal of the protest was to bring attention to how provincial funding decisions are affecting individual families and teenagers planning for their futures.

Some students said they may reconsider certain career paths if post-secondary education leaves them with overwhelming debt. Others said they worry classmates from lower-income households may abandon plans for university or college entirely.

Bononno hopes the protest encourages broader discussion about the affordability of post-secondary education and prompts the provincial government to reconsider how the OSAP changes will ultimately hurt Ontario’s future.

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