After more than five years of being thwarted by opposition parties, Stephen Harper will finally get his chance to reshape Canada’s justice system to become meaner, more bloated and less effective. There are, broadly speaking, two approaches to crime. One is to punish offenders for their misdeeds; the other is to rehabilitate them. Canadian courts have long favoured the latter. Yet, the prime minister’s party this week introduced its longawaited bill that will bring us more in line with the failed system of the United States, where increasingly punitive laws have ballooned prison populations and cost taxpayers billions. The introduction of
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(lowest increase) Brianna Whitmore
With a Conservative majority, only public outrage can stop Stephen Harper minimum sentences for certain crimes will give judges less leeway to consider the specifics of cases and instead force them to hand down one-size-fits-all punishments. The price of imprisoning more people for longer is a steep one. When the Tories took office in 2006, Canada spent about $1.6 billion per year on its prisons; by 2013-14 that number is expected to almost double to over $3 billion. The reasons for passing stricter criminal laws are emotionally satisfying, of course. People who break the law should be punished. “Hard crime deserves hard time” and the like. But this plays on the commonly held belief that crime is always rising when, in fact, crime is at its lowest point since 1973 and has been steadily declining for the last
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Average Graduate Tuition
Tories finally get to pass senseless crime bill
ISHMAEL N. DARO Editor-in-Chief
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$2,456
As Canadian universities try to balance their budgets in the face of a sluggish economy, students have seen their tuitions go up by eight per cent in the last two years. A four per cent increase for the 2010-11 year was followed by another 4.3 per cent hike this year, according to a recently released Statistics Canada study. The Canadian average for undergraduate tuition is now $5,366. Ontario students, who pay $6,640 on average, pay the highest tuition in the country. Nearby, Quebec students enjoy the lowest tuition in the nation, paying an average of $2,411. However, tuition isn’t the only way schools get more money from students. Tuition in Alberta is nominally capped to the Consumer Price Index, meaning it increased by only two per cent for the 2011-12 year. “However, that number is misleading,” said Farid Iskandar, University of Alberta Students’ Union Vice-President External. “Alberta has the highest mandatory noninstructional fees levied on students in the country: they’re $1,399.” Non-instructional fees pay for
such things as athletics programs and maintaining campus infrastructure. While Alberta has the highest fees, students in New Brunswick saw the largest increase over last year’s noninstructional fees for both graduates and undergraduates. That province is just leaving a three-year tuition freeze. Compulsory non-tuition fees went up for undergraduates by 21.5 per cent over last year, though they only jumped to $430. For graduate students in New Brunswick, noninstructional fees went up by 17.6 per cent. The national average for compulsory fees was a 5.5 per cent increase for undergrads. Graduate students in Nova Scotia were the only students in the nation to see a decline in compulsory fees; their fees went down by 7.5 per cent. In addition to compulsory fees, Alberta has instituted “market modifiers,” which allow certain colleges to increase their tuition by more than CPI. For this year Iskandar said the colleges of business, engineering and pharmacy were among the schools to receive approval. “The CPI cap is a good move,” Iskandar said. “But the CPI cap is not reflective of the actual cost of education.”
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TANNARA YELLAND Senior News Editor
These fees are another way for cash-strapped schools to close gaping budget holes while still adhering to tuition regulations. But the fees create problems for students, Iskandar said. “Alberta has the lowest participation rate out of all the provinces [for university attendance]. We don’t see things like breaking the tuition cap as helpful to increasing accessibility.” While Canadian undergrads are paying more each year, they are still significantly better off than either their international student counterparts or graduate students. International students, who represent a rapidly growing demographic of the student population, pay an average of $17,571 in tuition. This is up 9.5 per cent from two years ago. “We need to keep the tuition cap” and implement it where it is not already in effect, Iskandar said. “But we also need to regulate noninstructional fees… so students can expect and plan for the cost of education. “Things like academic materials [which have increased in price by 280 per cent in the last 10 years] and rent are harder to plan for when you don’t know exactly what your tuition will be.” Average undergraduate tuition at the University of Saskatchewan is $5,610 per year and increased 3.1 per cent over last year.
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Facing economic slowdown, universities struggle to pay bills
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Undergraduate tuition goes up eight per cent in two years
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The University of Saskatchewan student newspaper since 1912
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volume 103 • issue 7 • thesheaf.com
Sheaf the
Average Undergraduate Tuition
in this issue
Campus
Companies eschew traditional marketing in favour of ‘brand ambassadors’
Page 3
Environment
Proposed oil sands pipeline facing stiff opposition south of the border
Page 9
Football Harper hates crime, loves Canadian flag lapel pins.
two decades. Even the name of the proposed law, the Safe Streets and Communities Act, suggests that our streets and communities are currently overrun by violent criminals who are only running amok by the grace of our lenient court system. If only someone could lock these people up and throw away the key! Among the most disturbing aspects of the Conservatives’ view of crime is the emphasis
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on stricter drug laws. Far from common sense proposals like decriminalizing marijuana and other minor drugs, the Conservatives have been pushing to criminalize even more Canadians by adding the hallucinogenic drug salvia to Schedule 3 Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Violators would face up to three years for smoking the intense but harmless plant. Crime Bill cont. on
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Underdogs Manitoba Bisons steal a win from the Huskies Page 13
Music
20 years of Pearl Jam Page 14
Film
Ryan Gosling may just be the coolest man alive, and other revelations found in the sleek new Drive
Page 16