Category: Politics

Re-litigating New Brunswick’s Tax Credits

Note: A version of this post appeared in the Telegraph-Journal (paywall applies) To Fredericton, where the new Conservative Government had its Throne Speech on Tuesday.  The key line for post-secondary education (which, for the most part, was ignored) was this one:  Your government will undertake an evidence-based review of existing programs supporting post-secondary education and compare and contrast their effectiveness with the canceled broad-based tax credits.  (nb. the tax credits were cut to create a Targeted Free Tuition program, described here among other

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Quebec Election Manifesto Analysis

Bonjour à tous et toutes! It’s Quebec’s election day and so we at HESA Towers are here to provide our usual analysis of the party platforms. It’s the first election in 50 years where sovereignty isn’t the main issue on the ballot, partly because PQ leader Jean-Francois Lisée got his party to promise not to hold a referendum if elected and partly because the PQ is so far out of the running – in fourth place, according to some polls

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Ontario Government Announces Huge Increase in International Student Numbers

[the_ad id=”11745″] Last week, freshman Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli appeared before the Economic Club in Toronto and, reading from the best-selling book “Oh My God Who Knew the Previous Government Left the Finances in Such Terrible Shape: A Guide to Your First Provincial Budget”, announced that the actual, real, pinkie swear, true budget deficit for this year was $15 billion rather than $6 billion and that to help close the gap, Ontario colleges and universities would be asked to increase

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New Brunswick Manifesto Analysis

Once upon a time, back when Frank McKenna’s was premier, New Brunswick was seen as something of a leader in Canadian public policy.  Balancing budgets, championing official languages, investing in telecommunications and the internet, creating jobs (even if a lot of them were in call centres) – New Brunswick was seen as having understood the nature of the Maritimes’ long-term challenges and moved decisively to address them. It has been awhile since anyone thought of New Brunswick as a policy

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Back to School 2018

Morning all.  Welcome back.  Everyone emotionally prepared for the semester?  No, me neither. So, it’s been an eventful summer.  The Saudi spat was most unfortunate: several thousand lives disrupted and a short-term hit of about $140 million to Canadian universities and colleges (they’ll make it all up on next year’s intake).  There’s some buzz around Ottawa on next year’s (pre-election) budget, particularly with respect to Indigenous education, something I’ll be talking about over the next couple of weeks.  And, of course, the Future Skills Centre (formerly

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