honc

Universities are non-profit organizations in Canada. I agree that they don’t need unlimited growth, but the consequence of not funding them is a decrease in the quality of education and the country’s ability to be at the forefront of research.

They are absolutely hurting right now, btw. One consequence of this is some (small) amount of improved efficiency, but the reality if this continues is a degradation of post-secondary education.

For example, more and more high school students will struggle to get into good programs, and then eventually, we just won’t have good programs.

I don’t understand why you would blame universities (calling them college-like businesses), when foreign students were the only option for increased revenue (to even just match inflation) that has been allowed in the last decade. Before that, only tuition increases were allowed, since government funding has been consistently decreasing.

I completely agree that funding for education should be through taxes, but (especially in Ontario), this is the funding that dried up a very long time ago.

Universities are non-profit organizations in Canada (we are not the U.S.) and have been advocating for increasing government funding first and foremost for a long time. Sure, universities have pivoted to fund by whatever the best alternative has been, but otherwise they wouldn’t survive.

The reliance on foreign students was never the preferred option for anyone but the government, and that was only so they could stop funding education. Now that alternative (really a last resort) is being limited by the government as well, so yeah, being pissed about it is reasonable.

Of course a much better option would be, for example, for the provincial government to provide higher government grants for every domestic student and to also provide that grant for more domestic students (most don’t realize this, but there is something called “corridor”, and universities don’t get government funding for domestic students above that government-induced number). These are provincial decisions, btw.

So yes, universities would love to take on more domestic students, and would love for the government to pay for them (and pay more for each), but that’s instead been decreasing for decades. So what’s this magic “new way” that universities are supposed to be trying instead?

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982, so this has nothing to do with the formation of Canada, only this charter and the Constitution.

Before that we had the Bill of Rights (enacted in 1960) and before that we had no formal expression of human rights in Canada.

Forming Canada happened back in 1867.

It is true that the Notwithstanding Clause was negotiated and we likely wouldn’t have the charter without it, but it was very “late” in Canada’s history.

There are regulations, but they’re not the same. I think it’s not really appropriate to compare animal testing to human testing for the primary reason that humans have the ability to provide consent.

For animal testing, I really don’t like the current idea being proposed here of basing this on how we feel about cats and dogs vs. mice and other animals. Some other metric like brain size or something about consciousness maybe, but that’s very hard to determine as well.

While I personally think there’s enough benefit to society to do some animal testing, I think a law that said no animal testing would be more ethically consistent than banning only cats and dogs.

The real thing that should be addressed here is better regulation, not arbitrary bans.

I don’t think it’s helpful to have called the take stupid, because parents have a role and have a responsibility to be vigilant, but I think blaming ONLY the parents is also too extreme. It’s more like smoking. Kids are resourceful and can get access from friends, trick their parents (especially if they’re not tech savvy) with things like multiple accounts, etc. A lot of the blame lies in the tech companies and there’s a need for better regulation. We have age limits for smoking, drinking, driving, etc. and don’t expect only parents to be involved in that protection. The same should be true for phones/social media.

Yes we are going to waste this opportunity (independent of who we elect)! Provincial governments are in charge of funding universities and have been consistently decreasing funding for decades and simultaneously cutting off any source of revenue. Most universities in Canada are struggling financially and will have a very hard time hiring anyone in the short term. There will be some counter examples like the ones at U of T, but this will not be the norm.