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Category: Canada

History of PSE in Canada Part VII – The here and now (since 2003).

The current era of PSE in Canada essentially took shape at the end of the Chretien Era.  There has been a little bit of evolution in institutional forms (this is the era in which “polytechnics” arrive and applied research becomes a thing at the college level, and several colleges were converted into universities) but really no change in system architecture. There are certainly budget changes – rapidly increasing in the period to about 2009, and then levelling off with international student

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October 25, 2018 1 Comment

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

History of Canadian PSE Part VI (to 2003)

The Chretien era – roughly 1994 to 2003 – deserves to be remembered as a time of tremendous change in Canadian post-secondary education.  Or, as an enormous, stomach-churning, roller-coaster.  And though it is mighty odd that a federal politician defined an era in a field of what is essentially provincial, the record is clear. The first defining moment was the fabled 1995 Budget (for those of you to young to remember it, go read the best journalistic account of this

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October 12, 2018 1 Comment

History of Canadian PSE Part V (to 1993)

The economic and fiscal history of Canada from the early 70s to the mid-90s is one long, bad disaster movie (the Cassandra Crossing, say).  Unemployment went over 6% in 1974 and didn’t come back down to that level until 2008.  For nearly all of the 1980s, it was over 8% and from 1982 to 1994 it was over 10% half the time.  The Keynesian medicine that was supposed to get us out of such messes simply did not work because

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October 11, 2018 1 Comment

The Return of Peter Nicholson

Peter Nicholson occupies a very odd place in Canadian policy circles.  There are not many people as smart as him who are as little known outside Ottawa as they are influential within the capital.  So, when he speaks it is always worth listening because you know the senior folks in Ottawa are doing so. Last week, Nicholson wrote a stem-winder of a piece for IRPP. You should read it in full, but let me give you the Coles notes version: Canada

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October 9, 2018 4 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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