Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Pallister. I must begin by expressing our admiration for the stamina of this committee, given the number of witnesses you have to hear over many days, so we're grateful even for our five minutes. I have one message for you, but before giving that message, I want to ask you this.

Finance committee  It's very difficult to estimate what it will need precisely, because with the creation of the Canadian health and social transfer, the CHST, everything was lumped together, and one can only estimate what percentage was allocated for post-secondary education. As I tried to mention in my presentation, we're recommending that the federal government fund post-secondary education based on the capacity of the economy.

Finance committee  I don't know if you'll be happy with my answer. My answer would be “both” in the sense that, on the one hand, as you know, when the British North America Act was created, there was no post-secondary education. So the description of education as a provincial jurisdiction was in the context primarily of elementary school.

Finance committee  One of the difficulties is that universities and colleges have few options when there's a cut-back in federal or provincial funding. Raising tuition and student fees is one such option. About the only thing governments can control is the level of tuition, which is why we focus on it.

Finance committee  There's a legitimate concern about economic debt. All parties have addressed this in one way or another and debated the question among themselves. There's been insufficient attention to what I would call social debt. As we deny access to post-secondary education, which is necessary in order to advance, we're creating a different kind of debt.

Finance committee  In answer to your question, as I tried to say, we think it's important for the federal government to get a dedicated transfer so that there is some assurance, and do that jointly, develop that with the provinces so that the money goes to the universities. The way we deal with access, first, is that the universities and colleges be adequately funded so their tuition fees can be lowered rather than raised.

Finance committee  The figure I saw in the paper was $700 million a year.

Finance committee  Your opening comments were absolutely correct, Mr. Turner, that what your committee has to deal with is the issue of priorities. Every group, and I am sure there are thousands of them that come before you, has a compelling case as to why its particular need is worthy of your attention.

Finance committee  No, I used it as an example to say that you have the ability to provide the level of funding that your predecessor governments did in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Finance committee  I don't think it's quite as black and white as that. I was trying to suggest that investments in post-secondary education are indeed an investment. We know that graduates of colleges and universities earn substantially more income than people who don't graduate. As a result, they pay higher taxes.

Finance committee  I don't think I accused the Conservative government of being stingy Conservatives. I think what I said was that you have to balance a variety of competing needs, and just as paying off the debt is one of the needs to allow us a stable future, so is investing in post-secondary education.

Industry committee  Thank you, Chair. The Canadian Association of University Teachers welcomes this opportunity to present its views to the committee. We represent more than 57,000 academic staff, at more than a hundred universities and colleges in all provinces of the country. I'm sure you'll all agree that teaching, research, and the community service work that our members perform is critical to the social, cultural, and economic development of Canada.

Industry committee  Generally, within the academic world this is not an issue. There is mobility across the country. As you recognized in your question, there are different issues to be balanced here. As this committee heard from the Canadian Bar Association, there is some rationale for some variation by province.

Industry committee  A principal initiative in the last budget was to increase the funding in the Canada social transfer. They gave the impression that it was dedicated funding for post-secondary education, and in fact it wasn't. It's up to the provinces to spend it or not. There's been no movement toward the kind of Canada post-secondary education act that we had called for.

Industry committee  Before I begin, I will just point out that I grew up in a family in which my father was an engineer, and he was gravely disappointed that I let down the family by becoming a professor. In any case, the challenge I described in the presentation is a very serious one. A study done at Carleton University several years ago, for example, showed that more than half of all undergraduate courses at that time were being taught by non-tenured people on contract, with low pay and so forth.