DSU passes student strike motion with 64.2% in favour

By: Jonas May, news editor and Dylan Follett, assistant opinions editor

Members of the Dalhousie Student Union voted to join a province-wide student strike from March 16 to 21. 

It’s the first successful strike vote in DSU history. The vote passed with 64.2 per cent support, with 145 students in favour to 81 against. Maren Mealey, president of the DSU, says she will work to meet with Dal administrators to discuss the issues included in the strike motion.

“It’s really incredible to see students mobilize around issues that they care about,” says Mealey. “It really shows that students are not going to be walked over anymore.”

The strike asks students to not attend classes or submit assignments for the week. The DSU strike motion does not mandate or force students to strike, just that the DSU will support the students who do strike.

The strike is organized by Nova Scotia Student Strike, an organization that identifies as anti-tuition, anti-war and pro-Indigenous sovereignty. It is the beginning of their three-year plan, building to an indefinite strike in 2028.

The passed motion states that the DSU will actively pursue a one-week general student strike. The strike’s goals are a 20 per cent decrease in tuition at Dalhousie, the end of higher tuition and visa caps for international students, and divestment from entities which are involved with weapons manufacturing, fossil fuel extraction, genocide or the exploitation of sovereign Indigenous land.

Malcolm Mealey, who is a Dal student and an organizer for NSSS — as well as the sibling of Maren Mealey — said that “this is a major move to show that students care a lot and it’s not just a small group of us.” 

Malcolm says having Dal, the largest university in the province, join the strike, is a large step for the provincial movement, “it’s a major win that we’ve got such a superpower of a place and a superpower of a student body on the side of the strike.” 

Maren will be submitting an academic amnesty motion to the university senate chair to pardon students who choose to participate from receiving penalties for not fulfilling their academic responsibilities for the duration of the strike.

The motion will be discussed at a Dalhousie Senate Planning and Governance Committee meeting on March 13. If the motion proceeds, there will be an emergency senate meeting on Monday to determine if the motion will be passed. The amnesty motion would then go into effect on March 17 for the remainder of the strike. 

The King’s Student Union has also passed a strike vote with 49.7 per cent of votes in support, with 86 in favour and 83 against, but four abstention votes meant the motion passed. The KSU has also submitted an academic amnesty motion to their faculty. If passed, the motion will cover March 15 to 21.

The DSU joins the Student Union of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and Acadia University’s Students’ Union in supporting the strike, who passed their votes with 89 and 93 per cent support, respectively.

Mount Saint Vincent University’s Students’ Union and Saint Mary’s University’s Students’ Association have both announced they will not be supporting the student strike officially, though will still advocate for and support striking students in other capacities.

Students at MSVU, SMU and other universities across the province are also planning on striking, just without the support of their student unions or organizations.

The DSU called the special general meeting to vote on the strike for March 12 after receiving a petition containing 305 signatures from Dalhousie students in favour of the proposed motion. The student strike will be the first of its kind in Canada outside of Quebec.

More to come.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated there were 85 votes against the strike. The correct number was 81 votes. This changes the vote percentage from 62.3 per cent to 64.2 per cent; the Dalhousie Gazette has updated the article and apologizes for this error.