Hi everyone,
This past month has been a busy time for us here at OUSA! To start, we published all three of the policy papers that were approved at our General Assembly! You can find them here:
We also wrote a letter addressed to Minister Mitzie Hunter, Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development, articulating our support of Our Turn, a national organization that promotes sexual violence prevention and response. You can read the letter here.
At the end of March, we attended the Throne Speech and budget lock-up where we saw the fulfillment of a previous commitment to decrease the amount of money that OSAP expects parents/guardians to contribute to their students’ education, increasing aid eligibility for students. The budget also proposes substantial investment in mental health services across the province through a whole-of-community approach, which was one of the recommendations in our In It Together report. Similar attention has been paid to mental health in pre-election campaign announcements and platforms by the two major opposition parties. It looks like mental health will be a big topic of conversation throughout the upcoming election campaign and OUSA hopes to make sure that students are part of this conversation!
Speaking of the election, our #StudentsVote campaign continues! If you haven’t already pledged to vote visit our website at ousavotes.ca - encourage you to invite at least 5 friends to do the same. You will receive a reminder to register and a reminder to vote, including polling station locations.
Finally, last week, we hosted our annual Partners in Higher Education Dinner, which is our end of year wrap up, where we thank all of the stakeholders in the postsecondary sector who make our work on behalf of students possible. At the dinner, we recognized 9 faculty members from our member institutions who truly excel at unlocking the potential of their students, as well as we presented Trevor Mayoh with our Distinguished Alumni award. John Stackhouse, former editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail and current Senior Vice President at the Royal Bank of Canada, also presented a keynote about the skills, internationalization, and the future of postsecondary education in Ontario. Thank you to all who attended the event.
We’re looking forward to wrapping things up as we prepare to transition next year’s team, equipping them with everything they need to continue to effectively advocate for ways to improve Ontario’s post-secondary sector.
#PSEout
Andrew