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Category: Politics

Budget 2021

Good morning all.  The HESA Towers team, split over four time zones, came together brilliantly last night to bring you our regular federal budget analysis, which you can find here.  Enjoy.   (We finished by midnight which is an hour or two faster than usual.  We probably would have been done earlier if the Government of Canada didn’t make it essentially impossible to track spending data on youth employment over time.   Two thumbs down to ESDC on that score).  This is a difficult

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April 20, 2021 1 Comment

The Growth Budget We Aren’t Going to Get

There’s a federal budget coming later today.  I know, it’s hard to remember what one of those is like: it’s been 25 months and several hundred billion in unscheduled expenditures since we last had one.  As usual here at HESA Towers (well – virtual HESA Towers, or maybe HESA Towers-in-exile) will be bringing you analysis of what the budget means for post-secondary education.  But this morning, I thought I would give a sense of what I think is heading down

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April 19, 2021 No Comments

That NDP Student Debt Forgiveness Promise

Today, I want to look at Jagmeet Singh’s recent promise that an NDP government would forgive up to $20,000 in federal student debt.  It was a fascinating little announcement, which is part-super-savvy and part deeply-perplexing. The announcement itself, which you can read in the NDP press release here,  says that an NDP government would i) eliminate interest on student loans because interest = profit, ii) bring in a 5-year waiting period before student loans became repayable and iii) forgive the first $20,000

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April 7, 2021 2 Comments

The Alberta Budget

Everything you need to know about last Thursday’s horror show in a handy Q&A session. Q: What’s the damage this time? A: I swear to God I do not understand how the province of Alberta explains anything financial.  The University of Alberta claimed the system-wide cut was $126 million, the Globe and Mail said it was $135 million.  I count the cut to operating institutions as being $175 million if you use the 20-21 budget as a base, and $142 million

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March 1, 2021 3 Comments

Newfoundland 2021 Election Manifestos

There is an election in Newfoundland on Saturday.  It’s not because the government’s term was up or it lost a confidence vote, or indeed that anyone at all actually wanted a vote.  No, it’s because Newfoundland, a province where party leadership literally changes with the season, has a rule whereby a new Premier, if brought to power by becoming leader of a party which already controls the legislature, must seek an independent mandate within 12 months.  And since Premier Andrew Furey did

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February 10, 2021 No Comments

One Thought to Start Your Day

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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