The provincial Progressive Conservative government of Doug Ford is fond of helping public institutions find “efficiencies” by the simple expedient of not providing enough money to operate. The theory, so it goes, is that the struggle to keep the doors open in those institutions will result in all the supposed bloat and fat in those organizations being excised to the proverbial bone—a new, leaner, tougher set of institutions emerging from the dust.
Premier Ford took this approach to the OPP budget soon after being first elected, with the result that “catch up” allocations to municipalities have skyrocketed this year (and will again next year).
When it comes to universities, Premier Ford first cut tuition fees by 10 percent (a welcome move for students to be sure) and then froze tuition levels at the same time—with the result that universities became ever more reliant on foreign student admissions to make ends meet. Anyone paying attention knows how that resulted for Sudbury’s Laurentian University (all claims to that debacle being unrelated to the tuition freeze was dismissed as coincidental). That tuition freeze has been extended to the 2023-2024 academic year—we all are only too aware of how inflation has impacted life over those years.
Now, the foreign student source of revenue is being closed with limit caps on foreign student admissions being imposed by the federal government to assist with the ongoing crisis in affordable (or just about any kind of) housing.
When it comes to the 2024-2025 school year, domestic out of province students will see increases in student fees of five percent.
This all came about while Ontario universities are funded at only 57 percent of the national average. The 10 percent domestic tuition cut and four years of frozen tuition fees have reduced the value of domestic tuition fee levels by 25 percent.
Canadians are among the most educated people in the world, with Ontario ranking well with the highest proportion of university-educated adults in Canada—in 2016 almost a third of all Ontario residents aged 25 to 64 had a university degree; that’s the highest proportion among provinces and territories.
The hunt for “efficiencies” in our post-secondary institutions is currently and demonstrably unsustainable—and with continued productivity challenges being faced by our nation, the future is looking anything but bright.
All this comes with a backdrop of the province bringing in the largest budget in history and continuingwith large deficits, despite huge revenue increases thanks to a rebounding economy and the impact of inflation.
Ontario, and by extension Canada, has long sought to shake off its mantle as one of the world’s premier hewers of wood and haulers of water—a font of natural resources for the world. The key element in improving technology and finding better ways to produce manufactured products lies within those very so-called ivory towers that conservatives seem to love to lay fiscal siege to.
The goal of improving productivity won’t ever succeed should we decide to degrade our educational institutions—“efficiencies” can only accomplish so much.
