Provincial and federal governments need to step up
There was a heated volley in the House of Commons recently over the fate of French post-secondary education in the country. “The official languages in education program has been frozen for years,” noted opposition MP Alexandre Boulerice; “In Alberta, Campus Saint-Jean is under attack from the Kenney government. In Ontario, Laurentian University is fighting to survive.”
He’s right to be concerned.
In February, Laurentian University, based in northern Ontario and a hub for post-secondary education in the region, serving First Nations, French and English communities, was granted court-ordered insolvency protection — an unprecedented development for a public institution.
The federal Liberal government was quick to blame the provincial Conservative government in its response to Boulerice, but the truth is both bear responsibility. Governments have been systematically underfunding universities and colleges across the country for decades.
COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns have negatively impacted post-secondary institutions, which were largely left out of federal and provincial emergency supports. Rural and remote post-secondary institutions, which serve smaller populations that tend to be lower-income, and those that offer bilingual and Indigenous education are even more vulnerable to economic downturn.
From what is known about Laurentian’s insolvency, however, it was in financial trouble even before the pandemic hit.
Data show it was not a drop in enrolment that put Laurentian in peril. For many years, the number of programs and undergraduate students at Laurentian University haven’t changed significantly, while the number of graduate and post-graduate programs has actually grown. The ‘market’ for education in the North, in other words, is doing as well as always.
The data also show that it is not faculty salaries either that brought Laurentian to the brink. The number of full-time faculty has declined over the last decade.
So, what happened? Details are coming out. There were poor decisions taken around campus modernization, for example, with big mortgages on half-empty buildings. Administrators will need to be held to account for a lack of transparency and financial missteps.
These decisions, however, were made against the backdrop of declining public funding. In 2019, the Ford government cut $360 million from Ontario university budgets by first reducing tuition by 10 per cent, then freezing it into 2021. This cut followed on years of public funding not keeping up with enrolment: Ontario provides the lowest per-student university funding in Canada.
Federal government funding for post-secondary education has also been eroding. The last top-up to provincial transfers for post-secondary was $800 million in 2008.
Without emergency funding, Laurentian will suffer, or worse, close. Its loss, either through a thousand cuts or in one swift move, would be a tragedy — for all of us.
Laurentian provides education for many underserved and lower-income students, who may not otherwise be able to afford or access university in major urban centres. It provides jobs for around 1000 people, educates over 9000 a year and undertakes world-class research. Universities also benefit the larger cultural life of the community — Laurentian is an anchor institution in Sudbury.
When the financial troubles of GM in Oshawa threatened 2000 jobs, the federal and provincial government provided over $10 billion in emergency support. There has been silence and inaction for Laurentian, in comparison.
The federal and provincial governments must step in to save Laurentian University now. In the short-term, they could provide immediate funding to protect jobs, students’ education and its unique mandate of bilingual and tricultural education.
And we must also look to the future. Laurentian is a cautionary tale. Decades of public underfunding have eroded the financial stability of Canada’s universities and colleges.
We must fix the broken model for post-secondary education and, in order to do so, Ottawa and the provinces must work together. Laurentian must survive, so that our post-secondary education system can once again thrive.
Photo courtesy of iStock
