I think that there are a number of different tensions there. The number one thing you point out is that a lot of young people today are finding themselves in a very competitive job market, a job market that provides a lot of precarious options for them as young people and as new graduates. For a lot of post-secondary institutions today, there are actually quite a few problematic private partnerships that are taking on the role of guiding our institutions in the options being provided to students. Students working on different research projects on campus, for example, often partner with private industry, the private sector. Those are often precarious situations of employment for young people. These situations, however, push them into specific types of fields, because of those public-private partnerships.
I think there is a huge role for the federal government to play when addressing the underfunding of the post-secondary education sector. The government can help by ensuring that our public institutions are actually accountable to the public. In Ontario, the institutions that govern, financially speaking, the direction of the universities and colleges are almost overrun by representatives from the private sector. A lot of that is reflective of the fact that most of the funding for our post-secondary institutions is now based either on tuition fees or on the private sector. Public funding is under 50% in the province of Ontario.
This is a very worrying trend. I think the number one intervention the federal government can make is to ensure that public funding remains the main funder for our post-secondary sector. This would create an opportunity for our post-secondary sector to be truly responsible to the public.