Category: Politics

A New Conservative Government

[the_ad id=”12740″] As you may have possibly heard, we had an election in Ontario the week before last. The Progressive Conservative Party led by Doug Ford won and will be sworn in on June 29th (i.e. after this blog goes dark for the summer). It will be another few weeks, or more likely months, before we get a clear picture of what this new government intends to do on post-secondary education.  Nevertheless, here is a brief thumbnail of what we can

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More York

[the_ad id=”12709″] Judging by most of my mail bag, yesterday’s piece on the York strike was a hit.  So, I thought I would throw in two tidbits which I didn’t really get to yesterday, as well as give my suggestion for a way out of the strike. Tidbit 1:  For those of you who don’t know the geography of York: it’s massive.  The main Keele campus is over 450 acres.  But, in a terrible for management/great for labour act of

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The York Strike

Back on March 5, CUPE local 3903, which represents graduate students, contract faculty and graduate assistants at York University, went on strike. A university offer was resoundingly rejected by the union membership in early April.  The union has consistently rejected arbitration. The Liberals dithered about back-to-work legislation until so late in the legislative session that it could easily be blocked by the NDP (which it was, as could easily have been foreseen given the NDP pledge never to use back-to-work legislation). 

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Ontario (Dumpster Fire) Manifesto Analysis

You may have heard that there is an election on in Ontario.  I tried my best to leave the province for the duration but I’m back now, and holy Moses I wish I weren’t.  It is truly godawful.  A dumpster fire, as the kids say.  But duty calls, and so, forthwith, the traditional HESA platform analysis. Let’s start with the Liberals, whose platform on higher education is essentially that from the last budget: a commitment to a student aid program of targeted

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The Canadian IT Sector: From Self-Hype to Self-Pity

The Canadian tech sector has two modes: self-hype and self-pity.  Neither is very pretty. You may recently have seen articles floating around the internet talking about how great Canada is as a tech destination, how Canada is “winning”/ can “win” the AI race (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean – the verb “to win” takes on vast new meanings in these articles).  There’s been one every two weeks or so, often from big American magazines, for the last

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