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Category: Politics

Canada’s Bologna Moment

If you can cast your mind back all of three weeks, before the Ford video(s) and Mike Duffy going kamikaze on the Prime Minister, there was some big news out of Ottawa about how a Canada-Europe Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) had finally been reached. The finer details of the deal are still unavailable, but one thing that has been promised all along is that this deal will permit the free movement of labour between Canada and Europe.  And that’s

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November 14, 2013 No Comments

Jason Kenney, Liberal?

If you’re among the unhappy few in the habit of reading press releases from the Minster of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC, formerly HRSDC, formerly HRDC, etc., etc.), there’s one question that will almost certainly be on your mind these days: what exactly is Minister Jason Kenney up to? After a period of quiet following the July re-shuffle, where he obtained the post, Kenney seems to have settled into a pattern of giving speeches which harp on the following themes:

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November 12, 2013 No Comments

How Student Debt Became a Big Deal in Canada

If you go back to debates in the 1993 election, or Lloyd Axworthy’s famous Social Security “Green Paper”,  most of what you see in the discourse about PSE would be pretty familiar today: “higher tuition = less access”, etc.  But what you wouldn’t find was any discussion of student debt.  It just wasn’t something anyone talked about. Partly, this was because there wasn’t a lot of student debt at the time.  Although federal and provincial loans programs were undergoing a

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October 29, 2013 1 Comment

The Best CFS Chair Ever

I see Brad Lavigne has a new book out about his years as Jack Layton’s campaign strategist.  Time perhaps to mention his other big accomplishment: namely, being the best Chairperson the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) ever had. The mid-1990s were an ugly time in Canadian PSE.  Federal and provincial governments were broke, and cutting back everywhere.  Partly as a result of this, the student movement polarized – a more left-wing leadership took over the organization and purged the moderates,

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October 23, 2013 2 Comments

Campaign Platforms on Higher Education – Halifax Edition

It’s election time out on the east coast, and with polling day (October 8th) fast approaching, it’s time to see what the various parties have on offer for post-secondary education. The ruling NDP is proposing… nothing.  Nothing at all.  Instead of an actual manifesto, they are running on their record (kind of) and making seven “key commitments” for the next term, none of which touch on post-secondary education in anyway.  This is a tactic often used by sitting governments, but

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September 25, 2013 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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