Give students a break

I suspect that L.S. Cattarini's justification for raising the price that students pay for post-secondary education is not that uncommon ["Tough love for students," Feb. 3]. Whether it is or not, the proposition that students in Quebec are "evad[ing] maturity" by not assuming the "financial responsibility" of allowing themselves to become more in debt is extremely flawed.

I have been teaching at the university level for 17 years and I can assure Cattarini that too many university students are already obliged to work too many hours per semester in low-end service industry jobs in order to meet their financial responsibilities. Not only does this have adverse effects on their studies, but given how predatory the credit card companies are, they are all too happy to make special offers to university students. Guess what happens too often as a result?

According to Cattarini, "‘the problem of debt' is... an ordinary fact of life" that students should simply accept. For me this attitude is indicative of just how pathetically naturalized wage-slavery indebtedness has become in our culture. More obliquely, it is also a sad commentary, perhaps, on how post-secondary education is too often perceived and experienced as being about fitting oneself into a circumscribed niche rather than challenging and bettering oneself and one's society.

Historically, one of the primary roles of the university was to preserve the knowledge of the past. People who concur with Cattarini would seem to want to update said function, or to at least recognize the paradigm shift that has happened: preserve the status quo at any cost (especially if it will further line and deepen the pockets of the banks, the insurance companies, finance capital).

If to resist becoming a pawn of legalized loan-sharking is a sign of immaturity, then more power to students who are retarded in this way.

» David Leahy

I would be interested to know who L.S. Cattarini includes in the category of "the rest of the adult world," who must face the economic burdens that are indeed a "fact of life" for so many.

Would it include the indigenous peoples, peoples of colour, women and youth who are so often the victims of this particular economic system? Is neo-liberal global capitalism and Western corporate greed really just a "fact of life" that so many must suffer under so that a handful of individuals may benefit? There are many - and the numbers are growing - who don't believe it is. Contextual understanding doesn't come easily, but it's well worth the money and time hundreds of thousands of students of all ages put into it. It would be nice if business and government would too.

As Tim McSorley's roommate and friend, and a fellow (financially strapped) university student, I can attest to the hard work he and everyone at the Canadian Federation of Students and other student representative groups put in to try and make our society a little more just, a little more responsible and a little more accessible for everyone in the "adult world." Is that really something to be attacked for?

» Cameron Stiff, Coordinator, The Sustainable Concordia Project

More adoptee adversity

Thank you for your article on Quebec's antiquated adoption disclosure policy ["Who's your mommy?" Jan. 20]. As an adult adoptee born in Montreal, I had to threaten to sue the agency that handled my adoption and the government in order to get them to effectively search for my birth parents.

They were never able to locate my mother (I later did that myself) but did manage to find my father in far-away Ottawa. We have been reunited successfully for five years now. I was lucky to have proof that the government allowed, if not outright facilitated, what was, even in 1970, an illegal adoption. If not for that fact, I might be in the same boat as the parents-seeking subject of your story, Bram Eisenthal.

» Terry Gardiner, Toronto

Yesteryear's fascists

Regarding your Jan. 27 Insect, "Holocaust ignorance." Pre World War II, Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King visited Nazi Germany and met with Adolf Hitler. Found him to be a "great human being."

During the war. Liberal Prime Minister to be, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Rode around on a motorcycle with a German insignia on his jacket.

Lionel Groulx: a fascist.

Jean-Louis Rioux: appointed Lieutenant Governor of Quebec. Cancelled when brought to public attention that he had a swastika on his lab coat during the war.

After the war, no posters from the Legion were to be put in classrooms for Remembrance Day, directed Premier Claude Ryan. Might upset the children. Where was he during the war? Certainly not in it.

In Quebec, we want to forget the Holocaust ever happened.

Can you blame them?

» John C. Underwood

Correction:

The former address for SubV Gallery was given in our Jan. 20 article on Other. His work can be seen at their current space, 5666 Sherbrooke W., in a silkscreen T-shirt show opening Thursday, Feb. 3.

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