By: Noemí Piñeyro Ormazábal
Edited by: Jobie Wayara
On April 23, 2026 a vote passed at OCADU for a student strike for the week of November 9, 2026 against the changes to OSAP, otherwise known as the Ontario Student Assistance Program. This program serves as a means to aid in-province students with post-secondary educational costs through both grants and loans. Beforehand, OSAP funds were grants based. However, with recent cuts and changes to the program, the new ratio puts many students at an even greater financial disadvantage through increased loans. I asked Sebastian Gorfinkel, the Student Union’s Executive Director of Campaigns and Advocacy, and co-founder of OCADU Community for Palestine (OC4P) to shed some light on and explain more about the upcoming strike.
Noemi: Hello Sebastian, could you explain the demands of the student strike happening in November?
Sebastian: The main demand of the student strike is an immediate reversal of the OSAP changes. For those who don’t know, the grants to loans ratio was changed from a maximum percentage of 85%:15% to a maximum of 25%:75%, making the program loans based. These changes hit the students who need the funding most the hardest, so that is our top priority. Stopping tuition hikes and abolishing interest on provincial loans are also important demands. Other demands vary campus to campus but some include abolishing differential fees for international students, elimination of institutional debt via proper funding for post-secondary institutions, disclosure of investments, and divestment from weapons manufacturing, fossil fuels, genocide, and exploitation of resources on sovereign Indigenous land without consent. For a more in depth list, see the original OCAD SU Strike Motion here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P5qMqy-_-kO8ZWAi_dB9Wjy0BhkHuemW/view?usp=sharing
Noemi: What can we expect to see in terms of preparation for a student strike in the coming months?
Sebastian: Students can expect to see activism and outreach on campus in the form of community events like movie screenings and potlucks as well as tabling to share information and important training like protest safety. The main focus up to and beyond November is building up the Governing Strike Body, a democratically run coalition of all students interested in pursuing the student strike tactic who will make decisions as a collective.
Noemi: What do you consider to be a successful strike?
Sebastian: A successful student strike can look many different ways. The baseline of success of the strike is having as many students as possible not attending classes or handing in work on the days of the strike. In the beginning, we intend on executing short stints of striking, beginning with a one day strike. For the first strike, success would look like having a considerable number of students outside or participating in activities with us, rather than in their classes. The goal right now is to build capacity for longer strikes through these shorter initiatives.
Noemi: The premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, has slandered art education, equating the fine arts to “basket weaving courses;” framing said education for these industries as seemingly “detached” from the future of Ontario. This is discouraging to hear as art students, what do you think the role of art is in the movement to save OSAP?
Sebastian: Doug Ford’s basket weaving comment is not just an attack on art and design students, but on Indigenous peoples. Understanding the role of arts and of specialized skills like basket weaving can help us decolonize our understanding of what labour is valued by the government and why. Arts institutions play a vital role in any political movement, usually holding the most progressive leadership in the administration or student unions and more politically involved student bodies. Right now, OCADU students have the chance to continue setting a precedent for acting as leaders in the fight for OSAP. Art is inherently political and creating outside of the means of productivity and profit is a radical act. Art is emotional and a vital part of the soul of many political movements. Students can utilize these ideas by creating protest art in the form of posters, banners, zines, films, photographs, written work and ultimately, across any medium.
Noemi: As a co-founder of OCADU Community for Palestine, could you talk a bit about the connection between colonialism in Palestine, and the recent changes to post-secondary education and OSAP here in Ontario?
Sebastian: OCADU Community for Palestine (OC4P) has done some really wonderful advocacy in the past for disclosure and divestment, much of it being quite successful. The ongoing colonialism, scholasticide, and genocide in Palestine needs to continue to be talked about. It hasn’t ended. To me, these movements are inherently intertwined because until all of us have liberation, none of us do. Palestinians have endured a scholasticide including the destruction of every university and the deaths of many renowned scholars, professors, and those who did not have the chance to pursue their educations. The colonial force in the SWANA, Israel, is now ultimately a Western power and an extension of the fascist government in the United States. The rise in conservatism in the U.S. has enabled governments like the Ford and Carney administrations to act in much more vicious ways. Geopolitically these events are all extremely intertwined. The tactic of these governments is to bombard people with so many issues which have extreme consequences that they cannot focus on organizing against the ultra rich, who are in the vast minority and vulnerable to mass uprising. As students, we won’t be fooled into being divided. We are here to fight for all of us and our right to a free education.
Noemi: Anything else you would like to add?
Sebastian: To stay up to date on upcoming actions and ways to get involved please follow @OCADUC4P, @OCADSU, and @OntarioStudentStrike on Instagram.
