As a university student and an NDP supporter, this makes me very upset.

I don’t attend York, but I can sympathize with the more than 50,000 students who have been out of class for nearly three months. I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of students who, like me, rely on a fixed income from student loans or lines of credit to fund their education.

And once the money runs out, that’s it.

Even if they get their tuition back for these lost semesters (and they probably won’t), the true cost of attending university is the cost of living and, more importantly, the cost of not working.

I understand the fight for higher wages by teaching assistants and contract professors, but I don’t necessarily support it. Not for three months when tens of thousands of students (and many of their parents) are struggling to pay for school so they can try to get a decent job in the future.

If Ryerson had gone on strike this year instead of York, I would have been completely screwed. I wouldn’t be graduating this April with a Bachelor of Journalism and I probably wouldn’t be graduating in the next few years either, simply because I would not be able to afford to return to school for quite a while.

The provincial NDP made a huge mistake by not supporting this back-to-work legislation.

Not only did they alienate hundreds of thousands of young voters, many of whom want a viable political alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives, but they also gave critics of the party reason to continue to think of the NDP as a one-dimensional labour party.

If the provincial and federal NDP truly want a shot at leading a government in the near future, they’ll have to take a less extreme position on issues such as these.

Supporting unionized labour is a good thing — to a point. Once millions of dollars are lost, tens of thousands of students are forced out of the classroom and lose up to an entire year of education, and there is no hope of the two sides negotiating a contract, it’s time for back-to-work legislation.

I never thought I’d say this, but this is one time the Liberals and Conservatives have it all right and the NDP have it all wrong.