What is OPIRG and why should students fund it?
Have you ever heard of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group [OPIRG] Ottawa on the University of Ottawa campus? For those who answered no, this quick read will get you up to speed on how we’ve impacted the lives of students, what we’re currently doing for the community, and why a defund OPIRG question is even being considered.
OPIRG Ottawa has been a part of the University of Ottawa community for over 45 years. We’re a student-funded, student-led, campus-based organization with a mandate to “bring together and build upon a broad-based community dedicated to social, economic, and environmental justice”. If you haven’t seen us around, I invite you to take a closer look! We have been fundamental in many of what is now recognized as U of O success stories. For example, the Pride Centre and the Bike COOP began their journey on campus as OPIRG Action Groups. We helped advocate and implement the uOttawa recycling and composting program. The sustainability investments you see from the university administration? You guessed it, we launched the fossil fuel divestment campaign that made that happen. We sponsor and coordinate events with several campus groups, like our good friends at the Black Student Leaders Association [BSLA]. But our work is not only limited to campus, one of our larger achievements is successfully lobbying the City of Ottawa to implement the OC Transpo Equi-Pass, a transit pass option still available for low-income households and individuals who struggle to access public transit.
Needless to say, we’ve offered the U of O and the broader Ottawa community a radical space that propels social, economic, and environmental change. We’re proud to be a voice that challenges the status quo, and the work continues! Today you can find us in a coalition of community groups protecting your Charter Right to Freedom of Expression from OPSB overreach. Or on campus, creating solutions and facilitating conversations on critical topics in food insecurity, institutional racism, and the punitive injustice system.
At OPIRG, we nurture activists and facilitate radical organizing. As part of the extensive PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) network spanning campuses in Canada and the United States, we’re the largest PIRG in Canada and play a key role in connecting and supporting PIRGs across the country. Our funding has a far-reaching impact, benefiting PIRGs province-wide and supporting radical movements nationwide. Supporting OPIRG means actively contributing to local, regional, and global activist movements working for a better future today.
So, you are probably wondering, if OPIRG does all this amazing work and has been around for so long, why are we receiving a defunding referendum question? The University of Ottawa Student Union [UOSU] may have some answers for that, but we’ll save you the trip. In August 2023, the UOSU Board of Directors made drastic changes to their Elections Code. When we say drastic, we mean DRASTIC! They reduced their 32-page policy down to 8-pages. What could they have removed? Well, almost all the formal procedures around initiating and drafting referendum questions. Did you know that the originally proposed OPIRG referendum question sought to transfer the OPIRG student levy to a UOSU-controlled fund? Convenient timing in our opinion. We also found out that other essential independent student groups are facing similar defunding referendum questions. We believe it is essential to have multiple organizations advocating for students. This became an especially important responsibility since the former student union’s
(SFUO) dissolution. Groups like OPIRG played an essential role in prioritizing student voices during the transition from SFUO to UOSU.
While we’re here for T, we have more important things to focus on right now, such as maintaining our ability to advocate for students.
OPIRG offers semesterly refunds to all undergraduate students looking to opt-out of the student levy collected for OPIRG. To date, not a single undergraduate student has contacted us to opt-out. This tells us a few things:
(1) The changes that UOSU made to their Elections Code reduced the time requirement for proposing referendum questions and allowed an individual student, acting on their own behalf, the opportunity to threaten programs and services created by students, for students.
(2) There is clearly some shady stuff going down, regarding the efforts to limit the number of organizations advocating for students and the centralization of student funds at the cost of essential campus programs and services. This shade is not just directed at OPIRG, but at every single one of the independent, student-led, campus-based organizations that received a referendum question during this elections period.
All to say, this is not the first time OPIRG has undergone a referendum. Time and time again, students have voted NO to defunding OPIRG because of the essential and unique role we play on the Unversity of Ottawa campus.
So, if you want more radical social, economic, and environmental change on the uOttawa campus, VOTE NO in the upcoming referendum question, “Do you support stopping the collection of the $4.10 per semester inflation-adjusted levy collected on behalf of the external organization, the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG)?”.
In solidarity and appreciation,
OPIRG Ottawa Team
