The fate of our schools lies in one woman’s hands. M.P.P Mary Anne Chambers was named the new Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities by Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Chambers, a former senior vice-president of Scotiabank, is also a U of T graduate. In fact, she was the former vice-chair of the Governing Council at U of T in which she worked to implement policies that guaranteed students with insufficient financial resources the ability to study at the university. Dubbed as the “banker with a heart” by the Toronto Star, Chambers has had a warm, if not desperate, welcome by many universities.
OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Association) who works to represent Ontario’s institutions and some 12,000 professors, says they are looking forward to their new Liberal partner. When asked what life was like during the eight plus years of Conservative reign, OCUFA Executive Director Henry Mandelbaum said, “universities have suffered financially for a long time but this [Tory] government took this to a new low.”
Before Chambers was Tory minister Diane Cunningham, described by Mr. Mandelbaum as a tragic character who “really cared about schools, but unfortunately was working for a government who didn’t seem to care about universities at all.” Such was the case during Cunningham’s successful fight in creating the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology in Durham region, which was done-according to OCUFA-at the most expensive route.
The Tory government has left universities thirsty for financial support. Universities have spent most of the last eight years fighting the government for more funding. Under the Conservative government, university funding was cut by $50 million. Universities became pitted against each other as the former Tory minister focused on allowing colleges of arts and technology to grant applied degrees in order to pave the way for the privatization of postsecondary education. In fact, OCUFA released a report grading each party platform’s ability to meet the needs of universities, giving the conservatives a D, the Liberals a B- and the highest grade of a B going to the NDP.
So what difference will the Liberal government make in our universities?
According to OCUFA, students will be the first ones to feel the change. To solve the messy situation left by the Conservatives, Liberals have promised to create 50,000 more spaces for students which would allow the institutions to hire more staff. They are also proposing to freeze tuition for two years, improve student financial aid, and increase graduate enrollment by 50 per cent.
However, in light of these hopeful promises, OCUFA still fears the replay of their financial struggle. According to Mandelbaum, he says “there are still some parts of the Liberal platform that we don’t feel will go through as smoothly as proposed by the Liberal party. The first is tuition freeze. The Liberal party is claiming that money lost from the tuition freeze will be revenue neutral, which means there will be an increase in government funding…” but OCUFA is nervous about this actually materializing since the Liberal platform gives no specifics on how this will be done. Mandelbaum explains that universities are most concerned with enhancing their aid and they will have to wait to see how the Liberals handle this.
Universities are desperately seeking a government that will listen to their concerns. With the turnover of power for Ontario, only time will tell if this government will be able to live up to its hopes.
