As many of you know, in the midst of a global economic recession, affordable and high-quality post-secondary education and training is key to ensuring that Canada remains a sustainable, liberal, just, and competitive society. With an aging and retiring workforce and growing young immigrant and aboriginal populations, access to post-secondary education will be key to maintaining Canada’s success in weathering the economic crisis.
With the implementation of the Canada student grants program this year—Canada's first broad-based national system of means-tested grants—and the infusion of campus infrastructure funding from the federal stimulus package, the federal government has shown leadership in post-secondary education.
The growing consensus in Manitoba and around the country is that the federal government must take a leadership role in establishing and funding national standards for post-secondary education in Canada. To do this, the government must create a dedicated post-secondary education cash transfer guided by federal legislation.
In 2007, the federal budget included the largest funding increase to core transfer payments for post-secondary education in 15 years, but it still left universities and colleges close to $1 billion short of 1992 levels, when accounting for inflation and population growth. These funding increases lack binding agreements or legislated guidelines, leaving no accountability measures to ensure that the provincial governments are actually spending the money as intended.
Manitoba has set a precedent throughout a decade-long tuition fee freeze, with universities and colleges in Manitoba experiencing enrolment increases of over 31% and an aboriginal enrolment increase of 44%. During that same period from 1999 to 2008, our post-secondary institutions saw consistent increases in provincial operating grants, funded in part by these federal transfer payments. Overall funding for post-secondary institutions in Manitoba rose by over 60%. However, to use the University of Manitoba as an example—and Dr. Barnard from the University of Manitoba may have touched on this—the loss of endowment funding and the continued accumulated federal funding shortfall inherited from years of federal funding cuts in the 1980s and the 1990s mean that the pressure on the system is not something the Manitoba provincial government can address alone. This is where you come in.
Therefore, the Canadian Federation of Students recommends that the federal government, in cooperation with the provinces, create a post-secondary education cash transfer payment for the purpose of fostering operating budgets; reducing tuition fees; and improving teaching, learning, and research infrastructure at universities and colleges. This transfer should be guided by principles set out in a federal post-secondary education act.