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Category: Government

Postcard from Alberta (1)

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in Alberta last week, and I would spend some time writing about the ways in which Alberta higher education is structured differently from the rest of the country.  For that, I have to get into the public finance weeds. Twenty years ago, Alberta arguably had the best public service in the country (it’s still pretty good, but it’s fallen a bit).  One of the innovations they hit on as they

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January 27, 2020 1 Comment

That New Alberta Performance Funding Scheme

On Monday, the Alberta Government released some details about the Performance-Based Funding (PBF) scheme it wants to implement for next year.  Herewith, the lowdown. The Good News: It’s a performance-based funding scheme, which leapfrogs Alberta about two stages ahead of where it currently is in terms of funding planning (it is currently one of the largest jurisdictions in the world with no funding formula at all).  And it avoided copying the more bone-headed indicators that Ontario chose to use (for details

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January 23, 2020 No Comments

Questions About Alberta Data

I’m heading to Alberta for a couple of days this week, so I’ve been looking more carefully at some of what’s going on there, particularly following the MacKinnon Report on government financing.  And frankly, I’m a little perplexed at what I am seeing. Just to be clear, the Albertan government is currently on a kick to balance the budget after several years of deficits.  Nothing wrong with that.  Higher education is one of the areas they have decided is among those they

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January 20, 2020 5 Comments

The Lawsuit That Could Remake Canadian Student Assistance

This week in Toronto, an Ontario court is hearing the case of Jasmin Simpson, a deaf-blind Ontario woman who is suing the federal and provincial governments on account of the way they provide assistance to students with disabilities.  The Ottawa Citizen ran a very good article on the case yesterday, but I thought I would add my $.02 because the case potentially has some very big ratifications. (Before we start, I need to declare an interest.  For several years, I have worked with

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January 16, 2020 1 Comment

Perma-SIF

As I noted back on Monday, one of the basic dynamics we see in Canadian public finance is the long-term deterioration of provincial finances and the long-term improvement of federal ones, mainly due to changing demographics and the cost of heath care. Take a look at the projections from the Parliamentary Budget Office from their 2018 Fiscal Sustainability Report, which shows this trend rather clearly: long-term provincial government debt numbers are off the charts, while the feds are on a continuous

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January 8, 2020 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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