A group of Ontario professors called last week for the creation of a new council to act as a buffer between universities and the provincial government.

“It would accomplish three things,” said Michael Doucet, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA). “It would improve the quality of decision making; provide a place for sober second thought and debate on policy; and it would improve openness and transparency.”

Such a body did exist in Ontario until 1996, when it was cut by Mike Harris’s Conservative government, a victim of widespread cost-cutting. OCUFA’s report, issued on Tuesday, Sept. 7, argued that Dalton McGuinty’s liberals should re-form the Ontario Council on University Affairs, or establish a new council with a similar mandate: giving Ontario universities a unified voice when speaking to the provincial government.

“In the past there has been this buffer body between universities and government,” said Doucet. “It played an important role in monitoring universities and advising the government on them.”

Doucet said he believes that an independent council could have more reliably informed the government on pressing issues like the double cohort, which swelled university enrolments last year when OAC was eliminated. The Ontario government underestimated the increase by a wide margin, and Doucet says the resulting campus crowding could have been prevented with better data.

“The government assumed that 61,000 students would need to be accommodated,” he said. “It turned out to be 76,000. The government made an assumption about the number of students completing high school, and that number was too low. A council would have perhaps taken a look at that assumption and revised it.”

The real problem, said Doucet, is that although there are already dozens of groups advocating on behalf of universities, students, faculty, and staff, there is no province-wide group that pulls together all these interests.

“This council would bring all the stakeholders together, including members of the general public. We need someone acting as an advocate of universities. We see this as reaching a consensus, and recommending it to the government. The question is, ‘What is the best system of governance for universities in this province?'”

So far, the report has received no response from the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities. But OCUFA says that it will be formally presenting its recommendations to the postsecondary review that former premier Bob Rae is leading.

“The government has indicated very clearly that one of its priorities is accountability, so my hunch is that this idea will sit well with them, as well as with Bob Rae,” said Doucet. OCUFA also has a meeting with Mary Anne Chambers, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, later this month.

“We’re willing to work with the government to develop an appropriate mandate and structure,” Doucet said. That also means fixing the problems that plagued the original council.

“To be fair, the Council of University Affairs eliminated in 1996 wasn’t perfect.”