National Federation of Canadian University Students - Middle Years: 1940-1963

Middle Years: 1940-1963

In 1940, NFCUS shut down operations so that university students could concentrate on Canada's prosecution of the Second World War. NFCUS restarted in 1946 (with a false start in 1944 and 1945). In Nigel Moses’ Ph.d. Dissertation, he suggests that the influx of veterans with working class origins is related to the re-emergence of NFCUS in 1946-1947].

After the Second World War], service men and women received the Veterans Affairs University Training Allowance and the subsequent increase in presence of veterans is thought to have changed the social composition and customs of university life. Their presence in post secondary institutions was significant; during the 1945/1946 academic year some 30,000 (roughly half the Canadian university student population) veterans attended university, 23,000 in 1948-1949, and 14,500 in 1949-1950. The numbers of ex-service men and women tapers off by 1955-1956. Most of the veterans were older, many were working class, and they were reported to have commanded respect from peers and professors. According to research by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Professor of History at Smith College), these veterans, after fighting a world war against fascism, challenged the elitist norms and customs of the university and had an ever-lasting effect on the university system in Canada.

NFCUS reemerged after the war in 1944 and 1945, however there was disagreement over continuity from 1940). However, by 1946 a conference was organized and held at the University of Toronto where Maurice Sauvé was elected president. By the mid-1950s, with university enrollment down which resulted in low funds, student councils pulled out of NFCUS, putting its existence in danger. By 1953, tensions with Quebec were becoming apparent as delegates disagreed over questions of federal aid versus Quebec students’ prerogative to lobby their provincial government. In March 1956, McGill University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, Université de Montréal and University of Manitoba had left NFCUS. NFCUS recovered in the late 1950s after it invested considerable time convincing local student councils of the ‘usefulness’ of the Federation. Also, enrollment crept up again and NFCUS improved its student travel discount program. In return, university student councils played a more active role in NFCUS as responsibility for selecting delegates became the responsibility of the councils (instead of local NFCUS committees). As a result of these efforts NFCUS was able to hire more staff, balance its budget, and engage in government lobbying with respect to funding for universities. The late 1950s was a turning point for NFCUS.

By 1957, NFCUS rebounded and began to change from a benign service club for students, to resemble more a union of students. Alliances were made with university professors through their newly formed (1951) union, Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), and the National Conference of Canadian Universities (NCCU, today known as the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC)). In 1957, NFCUS also resolved to fight for financial aid for any “needy and worthy” student.

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, government aid for university students was NFCUS’ primary objective on the national level. Annual briefs were researched, written and published by NFCUS and presented to provincial and federal governments. A former NFCUS president (1959–1960), Jacques Gérin, recounts NFCUS’ political aims at the time:

The first and foremost was more money for education, namely scholarships for students, accessibility to education. We argued for reduced costs. The issue in those days was that university education was for a reserved lot: privileged students who had the means. And that meant only 8% of the student-aged population was at university. So at al levels — provincially, nationally — that was the big fight – to open up university education.

Through years of lobbying the federal government, NFCUS (by 1964 was known as CUS) finally had a breakthrough with the Liberal Party of Canada in 1964. The Liberal Party adopted the NFCUS student aid proposal, but with one key difference, Liberals opted for student loans instead of non-repayable assistance in the form of bursaries, which NFCUS had been pushing for. Many students felt betrayed by the Liberal Party’s creation of the Canada Student Loans Program in 1964.