Thursday, March 13, 2014

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Game of language creation David Peterson, language creator for Game of Thrones, is coming to Western. >> pg. 4

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THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2014

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CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906

VOLUME 107, ISSUE 83

No Israel boycott planned for Western Julian Uzielli EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Despite a growing number of Canadian student unions calling for boycotts of Israel, there are no plans for an official Israel boycott at Western, The Gazette has learned.

BDS is generally an institutionalized boycott, so that would be something that would be passed overwhelmingly as Western, and we haven’t got any kind of campaign like that. It’s more individual consumer boycotts. — Marie Rioux

An SPHR organizer

The University of Windsor Students’ Alliance was the most recent student union to join the controversial Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, when students voted in favour of an institutional boycott of Israel in a referendum earlier this month. The

BDS movement, which has been endorsed by student unions at York, University of Toronto, Carleton and other universities, aims to divert funds from Israel in response to perceived human rights violations. In light of it being Israel Apartheid Week, the annual campaign run by Western’s Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights club, The Gazette asked SPHR if they had plans to initiate a BDS referendum at Western. Marie Rioux, an SPHR organizer and Social Justice and Peace Studies student at King’s University College, said while the club has been encouraging students to participate in boycotts on an individual level, they had no plans for an institutional boycott. “BDS is generally an institutionalized boycott, so that would be something that would be passed overwhelmingly as Western, and we haven’t got any kind of campaign like that. It’s more individual consumer boycotts,” she said. When asked if a BDS-style boycott at Western was an eventual goal for SPHR, Rioux said they had no firm plans. “I think, to be honest, all proPalestinian, anti-apartheid organizations do have that goal in the long run, but right now we don’t have anything actively working on it right now,” she said.

Kelly Samuel GAZETTE

BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, AND SANCTIONS. Students at the University of Windsor recently approved a boycott of Israel, making Windsor’s the latest of several Canadian student unions to adopt a boycott. Western’s Students for Palestinian Human Rights club, however, said they are not planning a push for a similar referendum at Western.

Western’s Israel on Campus club, the traditional rivals of SPHR during Israel Apartheid Week, strongly condemned the BDS movement. “BDS is a reprehensible tactic,” said Benjamin Green, president of Israel on Campus. “It’s hugely marginalizing […] There are better ways to be constructive than holding a group of students and state to a much higher standard than others.

Where is BDS Russia? Where is BDS Syria? Why is it just Israel?” “I have full confidence in the University Students’ Council this year and next year to recognize that there is no place for such divisive and hateful referendum and language at Western,” Green said. In Windsor’s referendum, there were 785 votes in favour and 585 against, out of a possible 14,000

students eligible to vote. Windsor’s referendum was pushed for by that university’s Palestinian Solidarity student group. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel last made headlines when the York Federation of Students passed a council vote in its support last March. — With files from Soheil Milani

Student loans expansion benefits students Iain Boekhoff NEWS EDITOR A Western study has found that the student loan system is severely flawed and recommends changes to be made to Canada’s Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) to help students repay the debts that they incurred for their education. The study, from Western’s CIBC Centre for Human Capital and Productivity, found that nearly 15 per cent of students defaulted on their student loans and low-income students were 10 times more likely to have some form of repayment problem. CHCP director Lance Lochner, who co-authored the study, said that there are challenges with resolving the issues with the loans system in Canada. “The real challenge is to come up with better ways to deal with students who have problems finding jobs and have lower earnings when

they leave school to provide them with some sort of relief while at the same time maintaining feasibility of the program or financial stability of the program,” Lochner said. The study found that expanding income-based repayment to automatically cover all borrowers would reduce average student loan payments, and program revenues, by roughly half for borrowers early in their repayment period. Lochner said RAP can be expanded, but there are fears that the program could start to lose money if reforms aren’t instituted. “I think what you’d like to do is provide more relief, in economic terms, more insurance against bad labour market outcomes for all those students that have trouble finding a job,” Lochner said. “They could be opening up lending less on a need basis, just opening it up to more students to borrow from,” Lochner continued. “You’re going to have more outlays, but the

types of individuals from middle and higher income backgrounds that might borrow from it are also probably more likely to be good bets to pay it back.” He said it is very hard politically to make reforms to RAP, such as changing the borrowing limits, but in theory it’s not hard to expand RAP. However, bigger issues facing reforms are the lack of data on some of the effects changes can make. He noted that families have a huge impact on loan repayment, whether parents help students or not, but that the effects of them haven’t been studied. He also said there was a lack of data on how students would respond to changes, such as expanding the program or offering relief in some payment periods. More and easier access to loans could affect where students attend school, what major they choose and what job they search for after school.

Canada Student Loans Program provided loans to approximately 425,000 full-time students in 2010-11 in all provinces and territories except Quebec.

The most recent official three-year cohort default rate in Canada is

1 in 4

borrowers

14.3% & in the US is 13.4% experience some form of repayment problem in their

first 2 years of repayment

Borrowers with less than

$40,000

/ year

are 10 times as likely

to experience a repayment problem Naira Ahmed GAZETTE


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Thursday, March 13, 2014 by Western Gazette - Issuu