Finance committee  I would disagree, and there is one point I would like to clarify. What I'm reflecting is my experience of teaching in the system for twenty years and seeing how things are now as opposed to when I was teaching in the 1980s. I can assure you that as far as I can see, the actual nu

Finance committee  I think the specific problem in Nova Scotia is a combination of two things: first of all, having the highest tuition fees in the country, but also having relatively few well-paid jobs for students to take, so they're obliged to work longer hours because the actual pay rates are l

Finance committee  Absolutely, that is our position.

Finance committee  Well, I think we have a twofold problem in Nova Scotia that would certainly allow us to address the fact that we have the highest tuition fees by far in Canada. I think there's also a problem in the actual mechanism of distribution. We have a lot of very good undergraduate univ

Finance committee  There is a twofold component to that. Yes, it's a lot of money, but in terms of percentage of GDP, it's probably the lowest level it has been for over thirty years. So we're trying to educate a much larger student body with the kind of funding levels that really were designed to

Finance committee  If you reduce funding, it means you're actually more heavily reliant on part-time instructors. You're unable to sustain the actual number of full-time faculty required to do the job.

Finance committee  We're obliging students to pay more tuition because of the reduced federal funding. The whole thrust of our brief, which I hope you familiarize yourself with, is the effects of that on the students, because they're not getting as good an education.

Finance committee  I think I've already partially answered that with regard to Mr. Dykstra's question. The accountability of the provinces for the money they receive is simply not strictly enough monitored. What we need is an actual Canada post-secondary education act that will mandate the province

Finance committee  The problem we've seen over the passage of time is that the actual proportion of money funding the universities, paid for by the students, has been rising all that time.

Finance committee  Because the actual amount of money available has been declining, we have problems with infrastructure that are not being addressed.

Finance committee  That's a welcome addition, but we've also seen a lot of money being directed towards education that does almost nothing to address the problems of core undergraduate education. For example, the more than $1 billion spent on the Canada research chairs program does nothing to addre

Finance committee  That's an issue that can be addressed, and it's under the Canadian Association of University Teachers' proposal for a Canada post-secondary education act. I think a lot of the problem is that the money goes to the provinces and does not get directed towards the universities. I th

Finance committee  I think the concern we have in the university sector in Nova Scotia--I have outlined some other issues--is the underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups in the universities. I've been teaching for twenty years. I have only had one Mi'kmaq student in that whole time. The number

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  Thank you. About our organization, the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers represents faculty associations of all the universities and degree-granting institutions in Nova Scotia, except for Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. We're also par