Graduate students rally for increased funding from Canada
Graduate students across Canada, including here on Vancouver Island, are calling out the federal government.
They say they're not getting paid nearly enough for their hard work and research, adding it’s been this way for decades.
"What do we want? A living wage. When do we want it? Now." That classic chant could be heard outside the University of Victoria Monday, expressing that need for more pay.
"As graduate students, we’re really trainees, and you can think of us as apprentices because we’re doing the work of our trade," said Emma Atkinson, a biology PhD student.
Meanwhile, mathematics postdoctoral researcher Micah Brush says this protest is a long time coming.
"There was a huge push to get this included in budget 2023 – to increase federal science funding – and it didn’t happen," he said. "And so this walkout is a direct response to it not being included in the budget this year."
Brush says students at dozens of Canadian universities participated in the walkout Monday, demanding the federal government boost the size and number of annual scholarships and fellowships.
"The federal funding for masters students is at $17,000, and the federal funding for PhD students is at $21,000, and that’s before their tuition," he said.
University of Victoria president Kevin Hall is backing the call to Ottawa, saying the value hasn’t changed in 20 years, with no inflationary index.
He adds that when he was a student in the 1980s, he was in Ottawa lobbying for the same thing.
CTV News reached out to the federal government for comment. In a statement, it said it recognizes students face financial pressures and is calling on the research community to increase the number and value of scholarships and fellowships.
It adds, in 2019, the federal government gave $114 million over five years to graduate students.
The government also proposed $813.6 million in the 2023-24 budget to increase Canada Student Grants by 40 per cent. This would mean up to $4,200 for full-time students.
Rallying students say they'll continue to live in the red while they wait to see if their message was received.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.