Category: Canada

Wānangas, Tribal Colleges, and Canadian Indigenous PSE Institutions

A little over a year ago, Ontario brought in legislation to create the country’s first system of Indigenous universities.  In the upcoming federal budget, it seems possible that the Government of Canada may look at ways to finance Indigenous post-secondary education as well.  The question I want to look at today is what model or models of Indigenous higher education Canada might want to borrow from when developing its own system(s). Internationally, there are essentially three models for systems of

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The Balance of Federal-Provincial Expenditures

Today, I am going to try to pull all this data together to see to what extent federal and provincial shares of expenditure in PSE have changed over time. As far as institutional expenditures go, the presence of federal indirect transfers complicates a good historical look at the question.  Up until 1976, it’s possible to look directly at cash and tax transfers specifically designated for PSE, and it is possible again after 2007-08 when the Harper Government carved out a

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Federal Expenditures on Students

Over the last couple of days, we’ve looked at federal transfers to institutions.  Today I want to look at federal transfers to students, which are Kind Of a Big Deal. It seems kind of hard to imagine today, but just over twenty years ago, the feds couldn’t wait to get out of the field.  In 1994, Liberal Human Resources Minister (and later U of Winnipeg President) Lloyd Axworthy tried to get a “win” on student aid by – and I

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Federal Transfers to Institutions

The government of Canada has essentially four mechanisms for transferring money to post-secondary institutions. The first, as discussed yesterday, is the indirect means of transfers to provinces.  The second is through the research granting councils: the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC); as of 2018, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), which disburses money for scientific infrastructure, is now considered the fourth granting

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More Provincial Expenditure Comparisons

I got a lot of feedback on last week’s blog about provincial PSE spending comparisons.  So much so that a few of you asked for a bunch of other comparisons.  This blog does nothing but aim to please, so let’s get to it. One question I received a couple of times was “what happens if you throw student assistance expenditures into the mix”?  This is a good question.  In particular, Ontario – which as you will recall came dead last in

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