I’ve had a lot of time over the past week to think about the federal budget. And the more I think about it, the more baffled I am about the decision to completely stuff the granting councils. I think it is either a sign of real political ineptness, or that something pretty awful is in the pipeline. It’s not as though the Liberals are averse to spending on Science, per se. The budget dropped hundreds of millions of dollars on
A few months ago, someone asked me what I wanted to see in the budget. I said i) investment in aboriginal PSE, ii) system changes for the benefit of mature students and iii) changes to loan repayment (specifically, a reduction of the maximum loan payment from 20% of disposable income to 15%). To my great pleasure, the government came through on two of those wishes. But there is still a lot of work to do yet. Let’s start with the Post-Secondary
Every year on budget night, we at HESA Towers publish a graph tracking granting council expenditures in real dollars. This year it looks like this: Tri-council Funding Envelopes Some people really like the graph and pass it around and re-tweet it because it shows that whatever governments say about their love for science and innovation, it’s not showing up in budgets. Others (hi Nassif!) dislike it because it doesn’t do justice to how badly researchers are faring under the current
Morning all. A long night last night at HESA Towers as we covered Budget 2017, which contained an exhaustingly large list of little programs (as well as a few big ones) affecting post-secondary institutions. You can find our full budget analysis here. My thanks to the HESA crew – Paul, Melonie, Johnathan and Jackie – for sticking it through the evening. Just a few thoughts, from very late last night: Budget 2017 is uneven: some parts are good, others not
So today is budget day. If the papers are anything to go by, there’s something big-ish in there about “skills” which will no doubt be presented as some massive benefit to the country’s middle class (and those trying to join it). I have difficulty imagining what might be announced since most skills policies are in the hands of the provinces. But what I do know is that skills policy is an area long overdue a makeover. The labour force is
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