Category: Politics

2021 PSE Platforms – The Green Party

This is the third in the series of party platform analyses.  The analysis of the Conservative platform analysis is available here, and that for the New Democratic Party platform is here.  Today’s analysis is the Green Party, which is every bit the piece of dramatic flaming ludicrousness we have come to expect from them. I will start by being as nice as I can possibly be.  <deep breath>  There’s a somewhat odd reference to removing the 2% cap in post-secondary education funding for

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2021 PSE Platforms – the New Democratic Party

Last week, I analysed the Conservative Party of Canada platform.  This week, I am doing the New Democratic Party’s platform, which is available in its entirety here.    I find this manifesto disappointing because apparently the only thing New Democrats care about is making higher education cheaper.  Not better.  Not more adapted to helping Canadian business compete or Canadian society to become smarter.  Just cheap, cheaper, cheapest! In fairness, that’s at least partly because this manifesto is peculiarly written, in the sense that

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The Childcare Debate and PSE (part 2)

Yesterday, we looked at the state of childcare policy in Canada, at least in the event of a continued Liberal government.  Today I want to walk through what the precedent set by the new childcare accords might mean for higher education. Many, including myself, have long maintained that the idea of the federal government coming in creating a national policy on tuition – whether it be “lower than at present” or zero – was essentially impossible because it involves paying provinces

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State of Postsecondary Education in Canada, 2021

Morning all.  Big day at HESA Towers, as we release the State of Postsecondary Education in Canada 2021 (just click on the link, folks).  As usual, it has all the good stuff about students, staff, institutional finances, government spending, student financial aid graduate outcomes, but this year it comes in a much prettier package, highlighting the many architectural gems found at universities and colleges across the country.  This is phase I of our visual identity/brand refresh that we’ll be rolling out over the next

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2021 PSE Platforms – The Conservative Party

Alright, fam.  You know the drill.  It’s a federal election, so between now and September 20th, I’ll be looking at various party manifestos to see what they portend for our sector, and then finishing up with some comparative analysis.  I am not entirely sure how many parties I will do: I never do the Bloc for obvious reasons, so that leaves three and *maybe* a fourth if the Greens get their act together to release any policies and stop behaving

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