I have just finished reading a 2009 book entitled Academic Transformation: The Forces Reshaping Higher Education in Ontario. The book, written by Ian Clark, Greg Moran, Michael Skolnik and David Trick, has received a fair bit of attention among post-secondary (PSE) wonks.  While I find it informative, I am uncomfortable with the book’s central feature: a proposal to reform Ontario’s PSE sector with the […]
Read moreI’m the main researcher on a three-year SSHRC-funded research project looking at homelessness and affordable housing in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Frances Abele (Carleton University) is Principal Investigator on the project, and Arlene Haché (Yellowknife Women’s Society) is Co-Investigator. The project falls under the larger umbrella of the Social Economy Research Network of Northern Canada. Though several larger papers will come out […]
Read moreIn late-October, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released the Canadian Housing Observer 2010. I’ve finally given it a thorough read and am struck by some of the statistics. The MLS average price of a home in Canada has almost doubled in the past decade. In 2000, the figure was just under $164,000. By 2009, it was just over $320,000. Perhaps not surprisingly, during this same period, residential […]
Read moreLast month, I blogged about a major new report on the living conditions of Quebec undergraduate students.  The report’s findings include the fact that 50% of full-time undergraduate students in Quebec report living on less $12,200 per year. On the heels of that report’s release comes the news that the Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities (CREPUQ), which lobbies on behalf […]
Read moreMany blog readers will remember that when Dalton McGuinty became premier of Ontario in 2003 he vowed to be the “education premier.” Yet, university students in Ontario–at both the undergraduate and graduate level–now pay the highest tuition fees in Canada. Ontario is also in last place nationally in terms of per-student funding for post-secondary education, and has the lowest professor-to-student […]
Read moreResults of a major survey of post-secondary students were released on Thursday. The 149-page report, entitled Sources et Modes de Financement des Etudiants the Premier Cycle 2009, was written by the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ). It was done in collaboration with Léger Marketing, who suveyed almost 13,000 undergraduate students in Quebec, spanning 14 different post-secondary institutions in the province. According […]
Read moreLast month, I blogged about “pathway colleges,” which are private companies that have been entering into P3 arrangements with Canadian universities in recent years. The private company helps recruit international students and then gives the students pre-university training. If all goes according to plan, the students in question eventually become full-fledged students at the university in question.  There’s been increased attention to […]
Read moreI have an opinion piece out on the so-called “Big Five” proposal for Canadian universities. The plan, first articulated in MacLean’s magazine just over a year ago, would entail two main things: 1) more research money concentrated at five major Canadian universities; and 2) lower undergraduate-to-graduate student ratios for those same five universities. The universities in question are Toronto, McGill, UBC, Alberta and […]
Read moreYesterday afternoon, Alex Usher–who regularly blogs for the Globe and Mail on post-secondary education–blogged about an innovative concept proposed by the (now ousted) Liberal Party in New Brunswick’s recent provincial election campaign. The proposal is for universities to charge students one flat fee for the cost of a degree. Usher argues in favour of this move on the basis that it would […]
Read moreA globeandmail.com article posted last night discusses a recent report on post-secondary education in Nova Scotia. The report itself, released yesterday, was written by BMO’s former Chief Economist, Tim O’Neill. According to the article, O’Neill’s report calls for “complete deregulation of tuition fees” in Nova Scotia. Moreover: He believes that higher tuitions are more equitable because they force students, who are disproportionately […]
Read moreI have an opinion piece out on “pathway colleges,” a relatively new phenomenon in Canada. In this public-private partnership (P3) model, private companies recruit international students to Canadian university campuses, targeting students who currently do not meet the university’s admissions criteria (usually because they lack the necessary English-language skills). Once the students arrive in Canada, the company hires instructors (paying them considerably less […]
Read moreAn article in today’s Globe and Mail discusses some new research funding for the University of Alberta. In particular, the article notes: The U of A ranks second in total research funding, behind only U of T and up from fifth in 2006. This year, the U of A will spend $514-million on research, more than double its total from […]
Read moreOn Thursday, the Globe and Mail’s post-secondary education blogger, Alex Usher, wrote this piece, in which he argues that any increased government assistance with the goal of increasing access to university ought to be targeted to low-income students (and not consist of an across-the-board tuition reduction). I have three points to make in response to this. First, while Mr. Usher […]
Read moreI have an op-ed in today’s Toronto Star. The piece stems largely from a policy paper I wrote on homelessness earlier this year, and that I blogged about here. In today’s op-ed, I argue that homelessness rises after a recession, but that there’s a lag effect. To be sure, after the recession of the early 1990s, homelessness in Toronto (as measured […]
Read moreThe Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, is an important book. It is not a huge tome, as one might expect from such a broad topic, weighing in at just 265 pages of text (including lots of figures mapping inequality against some health and social statistic, and some clever cartoons). […]
Read moreToday’s Globe and Mail features an article about the University of Toronto’s plan to turn “to the private sector to solve their campus housing problems” for students. In particular, the article refers to a plan whereby the U of T would become “the first university in Canada to erect a large tower offsite with private money.” According to the article, […]
Read moreTwo weeks ago, the report of a government-appointed panel on Ontario’s social assistance system was made public. The report, entitled “Recommendations for an Ontario Income Security Review,” was written by the 11-member Ontario Social Assistance Review Advisory Council, which had been struck in December 2009 by the McGuinty government. The Council had been asked to make recommendations on the “scope and terms of […]
Read moreLast Thursday’s Statistics Canada release of individual and household income data for 2008 marks a new era in the study of poverty in Canada. Instead of reporting only on the Low Income Cut Offs (LICO), as they used to, Statistics Canada reported on three of the most common measures of low income in the same publication (LICO, the low income […]
Read moreI have an online opinion piece on the federal government’s “innovation strategy.” My piece focuses on how the strategy directly impacts university students. I argue that the federal government’s current strategy creates winners and losers.
Read moreAlex Usher is a frequent commentator on post-secondary education in Canada. He regularly blogs for the Globe and Mail at globecampus.ca. Yesterday, he wrote an open letter to leaders of Canada’s three major political parties in which he offered advice on post-secondary education policy. I found the following passage to be particularly provocative: First, scratch anything that vaguely resembles a […]
Read moreI recently wrote a paper on the recession’s impact on homelessness, looking at Toronto as a case study. I presented it on Friday at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association (May 28-30, Quebec City). The paper’s title is “Calm Before the Storm,” as I believe that, based on the outcome of the last major recession in the early […]
Read moreA new study published today by the Frontier Institute for Public Policy finds that Vancouver has the most unaffordable urban housing market not just in Canada, but in all of Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. This conclusion is based on a very simple, yet effective measure of housing affordability: the ratio of median housing […]
Read moreI regret to see that the Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN) are closing down. This further narrows the scope and space for civil and rational public policy discourse in Canada, and is a not accidental by product of cuts in federal government support for independent policy research combined with lack of business support for think tanks other than those of […]
Read moreI came across an interesting piece in YES! Magazine about a city in Brazil that took an innovative approach to poverty reduction and practically ended hunger by adopting a food-as-a-right policy. Here is their story in a nutshell (although I recommend checking out the actual article). Belo Horizonte is the fourth largest city in Brazil with a population of 2.5 […]
Read moreYesterday the CCPA released a new study on family income inequality in BC by yours truly, which reveals some disturbing statistics about family incomes over the past 30 years. The figure below summarizes our main findings. Among our other key findings: The gap between the wealthiest and the majority of BC families has grown dramatically over the past 30 years. […]
Read moreA useful piece from the Caledon Institute – making the case for economic stimulus via targetted increases in and reforms to federal income support programs. http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/727ENG%2Epdf
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