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Category: Canada

Bravo, New Brunswick

Readers may remember that about this time last year, I was giving the Government of New Brunswick a bit of stick for a botched student aid roll-out. Today I am pleased to give credit where it is due, and congratulate the folks in Fredericton for fixing the problem and developing a much better student aid system. Let’s go back 12 months to pick up the story.  In February 2016, the Ontario government had come up with a fabulous new system which

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March 2, 2017 No Comments

Under-managed universities

I have been having some interesting conversations with folks recently about “overwork” in academia.  It is clear to me that a lot of professors are absolutely frazzled.  It is also clear to me that on average professors work hard – not necessarily because The Man is standing over them with a whip but because as a rule academics are professional and driven, and hey, status within academia is competitive and lots of people want to keep up with the Joneses.

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March 1, 2017 9 Comments

The “Not Enough Engineers” Canard

Yesterday I suggested that Ottawa might be as much of the problem in innovation policy as it is the solution.  Today I want to make a much stronger policy claim: that Canada has a uniquely stupid policy discourse on innovation.   And as Exhibit A in this argument I want to present a piece posted over at Policy Options last week. The article was written by Kat Nejatian, a former staffer to Jason Kenney and now CEO of a payment technology company

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February 28, 2017 2 Comments

Can Ottawa Do Innovation?

The National Post’s David Akin had a useful article last week entitled Canada Has Failed at Innovation for 100 years: Can The Trudeau Government Change That?  Read it, it’s good.  It’s based around a new-ish Peter Nicholson article in Canadian Public Policy which is unfortunately not available without a subscription.  But Nicholson’s argument appears to be: we’ve done pretty well our entire history as a country copying or importing technology from Americans: what exactly is it that Ottawa is going

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February 27, 2017 4 Comments

Garbage Data on Sexual Assaults

I am going to do something today which I expect will not put me in good stead with one of my biggest clients.  But the Government of Ontario is considering something unwise and I feel it best to speak up. As many of you know, the current Liberal government is very concerned about sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus, and has devoted no small amount of time and political capital to getting institutions to adopt new rules and regulations around said

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February 23, 2017 3 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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