In the midst of increased student action following from the Ford Government’s reconfiguration of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and Bill 33, the Trent Central Student Association (TCSA) restated its reticence to participate in a general student strike at their March 8th, 2026 Board of Directors meeting.

Calls for a general strike have trended upwards since the start of the academic year, with the TCSA voting against a general strike motion relating to divestment from the ongoing genocide in Gaza at the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) national general meeting. The prospect of a general strike also took centre stage during this year’s semi-annual general meeting, this time in lieu of the Ford government’s proposed changes to OSAP and campus life.

Arthur spoke to the TCSA’s executive team about this uptake in student political action on March 8th, following the presentation of their joint executive report. The report mentioned ongoing topics of student action, such as the closure of a second-year Cultural Studies course following Trent’s 12% departmental cuts and Bill 33, as well as a March 4th Queen’s Park rally against the Province’s changes to OSAP.

“[The police brutality that happened during March 4th’s Queen’s Park rally] is actually something that we're heavily taking into consideration, especially considering if we are going to be bringing students back to the Queen's Park rally,” explained VP Campaigns & Equity Mickayla Simpson-Carty.

“We're looking to have CFS put together a campaign that talks about students rights when it comes to being involved with police forces and also talking about ways that we can be safe when we are mobilizing in such large numbers,” said Simpson-Carty. 

“Before actually taking students to another rally of that caliber, we're going to actually make it mandatory for students to attend a Rally Safety 101 [...] we're also looking to prepare a bag that will actually take with us when we are going to large scale protest [...] so that [...] if we are in a situation where students are getting hurt, we have a first aid kit already available to use in that moment.”

VP Health & Wellness Kyra Myderwyk took over when Arthur asked the TCSA executive team about recurrent demands for a student strike within the Association’s membership.

“There is definitely a group of students on campus who are very passionate about a student strike, and they see that as the most effective way to overturn the OSAP cuts,” acknowledged Myderwyk. “I think we feel that that's essentially a last resort option.”

“The entire point of what we're trying to do and what CFS is trying to do is to not impact students’ ability to access their education. And so asking students to walk out actually kind of directly contradicts that,” she added.

Myderwyk also speculated a student strike at Trent over OSAP would not see much success.

“To have a student strike be successful, you really need essentially every single student to be impacted by the issue and to be on board with walking out. Because there's power in numbers, if only a small group does it really you're not going to have the protections in place to keep that group of students safe,” she said.

“At Trent, we have about a 15% international student body who's not personally affected by the OSAP cuts and who are more likely to face police brutality and violence while protesting, as well as are at a higher risk of losing their student visas and things like that. So I would not expect that population of students to walk out. It would not be safe for them,” Myderwyk added.

“We do have a large OSAP population, but there's also many students who aren't on OSAP, who aren't going to feel that they have the capacity to walk out and to protest,” she reminded. “So at this point, we don't feel that the numbers are there to keep students safe. We don't feel that the policies are in place to keep students safe. We don't feel that it's an environment to keep students safe to walk out.”

“Based on what we saw at a one day strike on [March 4th], that was definitely not a safe situation, and our top priority always is to keep students safe and to keep education accessible.”

“We are hopeful that other less obstructive methods for students will be successful in overturning these new changes to the OSAP program,” she concluded.

Following this, the board adopted the presented directors’ report, and moved onto a set of new proposed Operating Resolutions to be voted on at the next Board of Directors meeting.

Among these is a new set of resolutions on the use of artifical intelligence (AI) tools. Pending approval, these resolutions would be a step in the right direction given the muddier state of the TCSA’s current AI policy, though they would provide general direction to TCSA employees rather than mark any concrete change of policy.

TCSA employees would be advised to avoid using AI in employment decisions, uploading personal or Association-sensitive data into AI databases, using AI in professional communications such as on Slack or over email, or editing any existing Association policy with AI.

The TCSA also unveiled a new conference policy, formalizing already-implicit rules about the conduct of representatives of the Association while attending conferences. It also outlined employee expenses eligible for reimbursement by the Association while attending conferences.

In terms of policy, these proposed Operating Resolutions include the disclosure, now mandated under Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, that the TCSA employs passive electronic monitoring of employees, such as by keeping records of TCSA-issued keycard uses and video surveillance inside the Student Centre.

The final document for discussion at the March 8th Board of Directors meeting was a new Director Code of Conduct attached to the Operation Resolutions, once again seeking to formalize the long-standing internal practices of the TCSA.

The text of the policy, which awaits approval alongside the presented Operating Resolutions, reminds Directors to follow the already-established policies of the TCSA. It notably includes a note on the responsibility of Directors to alert the Association Resource Manager (presently Wendy Walker) or Executive Director of any contravention of the Code of Conduct by other Directors.

Arthur asked Walker—who presented the Operating Resolutions and Code of Conduct to the board—about the reasons behind the TCSA’s new focus on human resources policy, particularly in light of a number of highly-publicized TCSA feuds between Directors and violations of the policy by Directors in recent years.

“I think it's no secret that there [have] been directors in the past who maybe had behaviour or conduct that wasn't great for the Association or great for the Board,” answered Walker. “I won’t get into specifics, because we're gonna leave that in the past.”

“We're looking for a bright future, but if there's mechanisms that I can have in place to ensure that it's very clear and very easy for us to navigate those types of situations, [then] that's helpful, not just for me, but for Directors [too].”