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Eyeflashes: February 15, 1995

Commons committee recommends income contingent loans

On February 6, the Human Resource and Development Committee tabled its report in the House of Commons, which recommended cutting $2.5 billion in transfer payments to the provinces. The committee also advised the federal government to introduce income contingent loans.

“Instead of being beheaded, post-secondary education will suffer a slow death from a thousand cuts,” said Guy Caron, chair of the Canadian Federation of Students.

On January 25th, Over 70 thousand students across Canada took to the streets to protest cuts to funding. Caron says he cannot understand why government would dismiss students’ concerns.

“We will see on Budget Day whether government understands that accessibility is threatened by its proposals,” he said.

Signs, signs, everywhere

New silver and steel signs bearing the university’s name have been placed at the four entrance points to the Quad.

“We want to distinguish ourselves from the past,” said George Hume, Director of Campus Planning and Construction. “We’re saying to the public we are now Ryerson Polytechnic University.”

Ryerson achieved university status in June 1993. The signs, which are part of that change, cost 25 thousand dollars. Hume says the school could have kept the wooden signs, but he says the new ones “enhance Ryerson as a university.”

“I think if you look at the two (plywood and steel) side by side, you would agree that elegance and permanence is lacking in the old ones,” he said.

Smoker’s Edge

Smokers could be returning to The Edge as early as September.

The Ryerson Student Union voted unanimously to spend $2,000 to get an estimate on a new ventilation system for The Edge pub.

MCW Consulants Ltd. will evaluate building code requirements, and the cost of a modern, high power ventilation system. When a price is set, Ryerson administration will decide on whether to go ahead with the project.

“The RSU is willing to go to great lengths to prove to the administration that everyone will benefit from the project,” said RSU president Mike D’Angelo.

D’Angelo says that The Edge is barely breaking even this year, and he belives a new ventilation system will attract casual smokers from residences who tend to go elsewhere at night.

The proposed system will be powerful enough that the amount of smoke in the bar will be negligible and no smoke will escape into the rest of Jorgenson.

“No one will even notice that it is a smoking environment,” D’Angelo said.

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