The students were eager to talk about the controversial news that is flooding the air waves and internet– legalization of marijuana, doctor assisted suicide, the crisis in Attawapiskat and the beheadings of Canadians in the Philippines – and they eventually did discuss those topics.
But before doing so, Angus gave the civics students at Timmins High a dose of reality that will soon confront them in their day to day lives --- massive and unnatural levels of student debts.
“My name is Charlie Angus and I have been the MP for Timmins-James Bay Riding for 12 years,” he told the students. “I represent an area that is larger than Great Britain.”
“I have done a number of things in my life,” Angus continued. “I have been a writer – I am still a writer; I quit high school when I was 17 to play in a punk rock band, I still play music.”
“I have been a chimney sweep, I have built roofs, I have built houses, a negotiator, a journalist and a politician,” he added.
“You seem to like to talk about provocative things which good,” Angus opined before bringing the discussion to something much closer to the student’s own life – their plans for post secondary education, their future work life and the massive debts they will incur pursuing their goals in life.
About three-quarters of the class put up their hands to indicate they were going to go to university. Another quarter indicated they would be going into the trades.
“You are going to come out with massive debts of $30,000 to $40,000 and some are going to fall in love and get married and will need to buy a home and you will be accumulating even more debt - $60,000 to $70,000 to even $100,000 in mortgage debts,” Angus said.
“This situation is not natural, that you should be paying so much money in university debt,” Angus asserted.
“There is a reason why this cost has been downloaded to you and your future,” Angus explained. “Because this is not a sustainable cost.”
“This not normal, but it appears normal to us because that is how we have set the system up in Canada, the United States and Great Britain,” he said.
Angus further explained that once you finish university you have to immediately start paying back your debt and rely on getting a job to help back the debt.
However, the jobs that the previous generations of students relied on to pay back the student debts are no longer there.
“My friends who went to university, while I was playing in the punk rock band, worked at well paying summer jobs to help to pay for tuition so they wouldn’t get into debt,” Angus said. “Or pay off the debt a bit at a time.”
Indeed, Angus told the students that in those days back in the 1980s graduating students even had some extra money to invest in a house or a car.
Instead Angus explained the reality of today’s economy and also social policy of successive governments since the late 1980s that he said have unfairly burdened this generation of students with future unsustainable debts.
“The reason is that young people don’t vote in great numbers and in a democracy candidate for office will push for policy that benefits those who will get them elected,” explained Angus, in what amounted to civic lesson 101.
He encouraged students to get out and vote as soon as they turn 18.
“Over the last 30 years there has been a downloading of cost from older Canadians to youth,” Angus said
In addition, previous good paying jobs available to students as summer work have been lost to globalization and in its place has developed what he termed “precarious work.”
“Precarious work means you are going to less full time employment and more part-time or contract work,” explained Angus.
He added that as the graduating student struggles to pay off their debts there will be times when they will be unemployed because the contract has ended or their services are no longer needed.
He urged students who are disenchanted with politics to get re-connected because decisions are being made about their lives that will affect them and they should be aware so that they can stand up and be heard.
Angus pointed to the Rock the Vote movement that urged young people and voters in remote First Nations to get out and vote.
“For the first time in several elections the numbers of voters actually went up,” Angus told the students.
