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Category: Budgets

Straight Dope on Learning Accounts

So, le tout Ottawa now seems convinced, given that a) the March budget is allegedly about skills (for the middle class, you know), b) the feds mostly handed the skills portfolio over to the provinces years ago that Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs), are definitely On The Agenda.  Possibly with some language around guaranteeing workers time off for skills training. So, can this work?  Has it worked elsewhere?  Glad you asked. The idea of ILAs are nothing new.  In one form or another

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February 14, 2019 1 Comment

Ontario: Best-case/Worst-case Scenarios

You may have heard that there is a Conservative government in Ontario.  You may also have heard that it is, shall we say, keen on reducing government expenditures.  Further, you are aware that a provincial budget is traditionally delivered sometime between February and May.  So, naturally, you are asking yourself: what might the new government’s budget mean for post-secondary education?  What are the best-case and worst-case scenarios? I can’t claim much here in the way of inside information.  There are

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January 15, 2019 No Comments

HoC Finance Committee Report: the Oys Have It

Yesterday I riffed on the possibility of a Skills Budget. Today I want to focus on some early clues about what’s in the upcoming budget by parsing last month’s pre-budget consultation report of the House of Commons Finance Committee. To put this in some kind of context: a Finance Committee report may bear no resemblance whatsoever to the final budget project.  Basically, the chair of the finance committee (currently PEI’s Wayne Easter) takes dictation from the Finance Minister with respect to

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January 10, 2019 1 Comment

A Skills Budget?

If you’re in Ottawa, January is Kremlinology month, in which every news story, no matter how vacuous, is parsed for clues about what may be in the federal budget, usually delivered sometime between mid-February and late March. (Note here to anyone at PMO or Finance reading this:  your attempt last year to disrupt HESA’s thorough budget-night coverage by making it coincide with Toronto FC’s home-opener was deeply unwelcome.  Fair warning: I will be incandescently angry if the budget is February 26th, so schedule this

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January 9, 2019 No Comments

That Fiscal Sustainability Report

A few weeks ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office put out a report (available here) on the sustainability of public finances.  It’s an excellent little report, with some key implications for post-secondary institutions across the country.  Today, I will discuss  two points in particular. The first key point has to do with the long-term sustainability of the finances of each level of government.  Though this is poorly understood, the two levels of government have i) different sources of revenue and ii) different

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October 23, 2018 No Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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