OUSA Student Advocacy Conference Recap

Each year, OUSA attends The Student Advocacy Conference at Queens Park, where selected delegates from each association meet with legislators and staffers. Here, these delegates are granted the opportunity to engage in meaningful discourse about the most important issues of post-secondary education. Throughout this week long conference, delegates highlight the recommendations that OUSA will be making to the government and ministries to the Members of Provincial Parliament.   

During the conference, WUSA delegates had the privilege of meeting with many prominent figures within the community. WUSA had the opportunity to chat with Minister Quinn about the importance of investing in UWaterloo and post-secondary education at the OUSA reception.  

MPP Clancy held a meeting that focused on responding to hate motivated attacks within our communities. This meeting also focused on thinking about how we can create more resources for student run food banks to combat food insecurity. 

Additionally, WUSA delegates at the OUSA conference had a productive meeting MPP Zee Hamid about the importance of removing interest from student loans and increasing government grants to universities.  

With MPP Hazel, we discussed the importance of affordable student housing, as well as continued the conversation about post-secondary funding. We continued this discussion with MPP Pasma, who spoke about the importance of investing in the post-secondary sector, putting rent control for student housing, and removing interest on student loans.   

We met with MPP Harden to talked about the importance of Institution-based mental health providers receiving training on providing accessible, trauma informed and culturally relevant counselling. This ensures that all students get the help that they need, when they need it, and allows them to have the best undergraduate experience with a healthy state of mind.  

Lastly, WUSA had the privilege of meeting with The Deputy Leader of The NDP, MPP Begum. After an insightful conversation, she agreed to taking action and working with us to get some of our asks implemented into policies. During this discussion, we spoke about student safety, affordability, and housing.  

The Recommendations from OUSA regarding the discussed topics include: 

• The provincial government should amend the Living Allowance under OSAP to allocate more funding for food expenses to account for inflation of prices and give students the resources to acquire the food options they want. 

• The Ministry of Colleges and Universities should mandate that all institution-based mental health care providers receive training on providing accessible, trauma-informed, and culturally relevant counselling and referrals to diverse populations. 

• The provincial government should introduce rent control/maximum rent increases between tenancies in high-turnover units as part of the rental increase limits described within the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. 

WUSA delegates were incredibly grateful to be a part of this informative conference, and to work alongside other representatives to make meaningful changes within the post-secondary sector. We look forward to attending future conferences and working towards a better undergraduate experience! 

Alexandra Minard 

Communications Coordinator Co-op