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Tag: Canadian Federation of Students

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

A Rare Piece of Good Policy in Quebec

So, although it wasn’t widely noticed at the time, one really excellent piece of policy came out of the crap-fest that was the Quebec Education Summit, a couple of weeks ago; it’s a policy that deserves a great deal of wider study and emulation.  For the first time in Canadian history, a government managed to get rid of a crappy tax credit, and use it to improve targeted, needs-based subsidies. Here’s what happened. The PQ, during its naked bid to

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May 23, 2013 1 Comment

A Persistent Problem with Truth

When it comes to the subjects of debt and tuition fees, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) is the least trustworthy source on earth.  They lie.  Constantly. To see the latest collection, just look at this press release, which averages roughly one lie per paragraph.  For instance: “Since 2006, tuition fees have increased as much as 71 per cent in Ontario”.  The words “as much as” are doing a lot of work here.  For the vast majority of programs, the 5% annual increase

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April 1, 2013 8 Comments

Motivation?

I was listening to an interview on American radio this the weekend with one of the leaders of CLASSE. The proceedings were sensible enough until the interviewee claimed that Quebec not only had the country’s lowest tuition fees, but also that it had the country’s highest levels of access. This is, simply, a lie. Quebec’s participation rates are inflated by its CEGEP system, which includes grade 12 – a which is offered in secondary school elsewhere in Canada. Then came

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September 5, 2012 1 Comment

Fibs, Nose-stretchers and Trolls

Can someone please make the Glen Murray v. CFS bunfight stop? It’s making me want to poke my eyes out with knitting needles. To recap, the Ontario Liberals made a stupid election promise about tuition rebates which they first communicated badly and then partially reneged on while pretending they hadn’t. Still, they did something for students, and would like some credit for it. But they are being rebuffed by the Canadian Federation of Students. The Federation is incandescent that the Liberals

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February 6, 2012 2 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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