In real dollars, Charest paid less for his university education than Québec students do today. Now, he wants his generation of baby boomers to pay less in taxes. The result is robbery of the young to pay for the old. It is hard to see how students are the entitled ones in this scenario.
Tuition fees drive social inequality and student activists know this. Ontario's higher education system has gradually moved away from enabling people to better their social standing through education, to further entrenching social inequality. Students who can pay their tuition fees and life expenses up front will pay less than half of what their poorer classmates will pay. Women, racialized students, disabled students and everyone else who makes less money on average, will pay more through compound interest on student loans.
Québecers know the value of education cannot be measured in user fees. They see Ontario with the highest tuition fees and the lowest per student funding and they know where they'll end up if they allow their government to open the door to fee increases, even just a crack.
Arguing that the fight waged by Québec students is because of entitlement is like debating philosophy while standing in quicksand. Québec students are fighting Charest's tuition fees to protect something else: a post-secondary education system that provides the opportunity for economic mobility and opportunity.
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