Denise Savoie

CONFERENCE ADDRESS: To the Canadian Federation of Students at UVic August 2006

Thank you for inviting me. I’m delighted to be here. Yours is an organization that has successfully put post-secondary on the agenda in Canada- especially the funding issue — and that’s a key point I’d like to talk about. I would also like to outline some of the emerging issues that I see, and hear your thoughts on these. I hope this afternoon we can share ideas on our vision for post-secondary education, and how we can collectively achieve that vision. I also want to make a pitch for the next step in what I call a strategy for lifelong learning in Canada. I’ll leave a lot of time for comments and questions

I believe it’s a critical time for post-secondary education in Canada. Skills shortages have become apparent in key professional areas and loom even greater in the future unless we plan more coherently and effectively. PSE has become a priority of the Council of Ministers. Despite the philosophy of this government, there are opportunities to advance more progressive policies-especially given the possibility of another election next year.

Here in BC, the increase of $26 million for core funding in the last BC Budget is a good start, but provinces cannot be expected to support increased investment in education alone.

And, even with this increased funding, average undergrad tuition in BC is now over two and half times what it was fourteen years ago – an increase of 155%.

Or, as economics students would say, “considerably above inflation.”

Business students might say it’s, “good news for the RESP sector.”

Political science students would call it, and I would agree, “bad public policy.”

When I and other New Democrats speak in the House of Commons about post-secondary education, we often relay the stories we’ve heard from students who are struggling with exorbitant tuition and overwhelming debt loads, dealing with a student loan system that is sometimes unfriendly, often inflexible, and always complicated. It’s important that you keep telling us your stories, because they illustrate how gov’t policies are affecting Canadians.

My NDP colleagues and I have worked hard in Parliament to fix the countless flaws in the student financial aid system. These include the infamous ten-year minimum period during which graduates are banned from receiving bankruptcy relief, to the misleading, so-called “lifetime limit” on student loans that has led to PhD students being forced to repay their loans before completing their full-time studies.

But today, I want to look at the big picture. You may know that the NDP has relentlessly pushed for an overhaul of the student aid system, for a national system of needs-based grants, and for a dedicated post-secondary education transfer to the provinces and territories in return for an equally binding commitment to better access and lower tuition fees-with standards that will be monitored and enforced. This dedicated transfer would enhance transparency and accountability on all sides.

However, our first objective is rather simple: the restoration of stable, long-term, core federal funding for post-secondary education.

If you want to talk about a fiscal imbalance, this is it. The federal deficit slashing of the 1990s hurt students. Those massive surpluses that the Liberals accumulated and then wasted on inequitable tax cuts, were built on the backs of students.

Here’s an example of how: Federal cash transfers to post-secondary education, as a percentage of GDP, have declined from 0.56% in 1983-84 to 0.19% in 2004-05.
That’s even lower than the shamefully low percentage we spend on foreign aid.

The situation is so bad that this February, the premiers united to call on the federal government to restore $4.9 billion to post-secondary education funding. Given how little premiers agree on these days, that says a lot.

Even so, the Conservatives have not budged. Instead, they gave 1.4 billion in tax cuts to the oil and gas sector, which had $28.3 billion in profits in 2005.

Instead of restoring core funding for universities and colleges, the Liberals and Conservatives have brought in a patchwork of inequitable tax credits, education savings schemes – all good politics, but bad policy. Tax credits are not bad in themselves — but if the goal is to ensure that all students can afford post-secondary education — and once there, complete their studies — this hodge-podge of loans, grants and tax credits won’t get us there.

This year, the Conservatives continued their attempts to patch over the student debt crisis, by making all scholarships exempt from tax and crediting the equivalent of one textbook. But this only helps the small number of students who get over $3,000 in scholarships a year, and who either have enough income to use up all of their existing tuition tax credits, or have parents who can write off that income. This approach is typical of a larger trend in Conservative fiscal policy – programs that sound good, but which end up helping mainly those who least need it.

The doubling up of programs and complicated tinkering as we’ve seen with the Liberal RESP proposal this year is frustrating- for students and progressive policy-makers. I’m advocating two simple solutions: first, to roll all of those tax credits and duplicate granting systems into one system of needs-based grant given when tuition is due.

The second solution is to finally re-invest in core funding. Federal re-investment in post-secondary education in the form of a targeted transfer to the provinces is the main priority for the NDP.

This is not the direction the Conservatives are headed. Based on their document, “Restoring Fiscal Balance” and the trial balloons they’re floating, it seems Ottawa is prepared to discuss the possibility of withdrawing from the field of student assistance entirely, and handing these responsibilities to the provinces. This concerns me greatly, as I don’t believe the solution to post-secondary issues is to simply reallocate tax room to the provinces.

One unfortunate consequence of taking this approach to post-secondary education could be a loss of mobility for students across Canada- a trend already in progress. Some provinces, for example, are applying restrictions to the use of bursaries outside of their boundaries. The second potential consequence is greater inequality in the treatment of students across the country. The third issue is that, especially in this globalized world, there is an even greater need for the federal government to ensure that all Canadian students can compete at international levels. Given the existing problems with differing standards of professional certification across the provinces, I think we need more coordination of standards not less.

So, we in the NDP believe targetted transfers are necessary to ensure access by Canadian students to quality education across Canada.

And when I say quality education, I mean much more than buildings and equipment.
I’m talking about top-notch teaching.
I’m also talking about small class sizes. I suspect your favourite courses aren’t the ones spent squinting at a teleconference screen with a thousand of your closest friends. But when the national student to faculty ratio has risen by 26% over the last decade, I wonder if those courses aren’t becoming the norm. In Ontario, class sizes are 60% larger than the average of US state colleges.

Equipment and infrastructure are important too. The most recent figures show $3.6 billion in deferred maintenance costs at Canadian universities, with over $1 billion of those projects considered urgent.

The infrastructure issue brings me to the final reason why the NDP believes that federal re-investment should be our first priority in post-secondary education.

It brings me there because I wonder, “Where are universities going to get that cutting-edge equipment? How will they pay for the new buildings?”

When the federal government withdraws from funding universities, these are forced to aggressively pursue other sources of income. We know the first place they look is tuition.

But tuition can only soar so high, and so the answer has increasingly been to approach the private sector. The federal government’s withdrawal from stable core funding has led to the privatization and commercialization of our universities. Our bastions of independent thought and higher learning are being branded.

The cause and the effect of this phenomenon is a dramatic shift in the mindset, and make-up of university administrations – instead of education being seen as public good, it is increasingly viewed as a being private one.

One consequence of this shift is that research activity is becoming dependent on corporate support and priorities. Funding for basic research has taken a back seat, and this puts academic freedom at risk.

Regrettably, the tantalizing possibility of gaining $10 million in net revenue over five years has led SFU to take the bait, and become the first Canadian university with a private, for-profit prep college on campus.

Why is this happening? Because post-secondary institutions are focused on the bottom line, like any other business. And this mindset has developed because post-secondary education is desperately under-funded.

For these reasons, the NDP will continue to advocate for the full restoration of core funding as a first priority in our post-secondary education advocacy. We need your help to do this. We need to ensure the Prime Minister is made to hear the voice of students. This won’t be easy given that the Conservative’s pre-budget consultation on post-secondary education wraps up September 8th, and most students will only be returning to school at that point.

I’m going to shift gears in these last couple minutes, because I want to make a pitch for connecting our post-secondary advocacy to a larger national campaign for lifelong learning - a connection you’ve already recognized. You’ve called governments on the unfairness of preventing people on social assistance from accessing post-secondary options.

Individuals with limited literacy and no training opportunities are finding it increasingly difficult to get decent work, let alone a job that pays higher than poverty-level wages. And all the while 66% of employers report having trouble finding skilled workers.

Our adult education system is disjointed and inaccessible. We need a national strategy on lifelong learning.

We need workplace skills training, and opportunities for all workers, to upgrade their skills for better employment.

This fall, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resources and Social Development will conduct a cross-Canada study on “employability issues” in Canada. We will seek solutions to skills shortages now and for the future, but I personally want to address the quality and security of jobs in Canada, particularly through making lifelong learning a policy priority for the federal government.

Please join me in calling for a national lifelong learning strategy that includes accessible, quality post-secondary education. This could mean including core funding for skills training programs in a dedicated education transfer.

This also means making lifelong learning part of our everyday advocacy –pushing for accessible adult learning opportunities, workplace skills training, and second-chance post-secondary education. Together, in solidarity with all learners, we can demonstrate the value we place in education in Canada.
Thank you.