Reaction to Ontario’s Colleges and Universities Funding Announcement
See London Free Press story.
Mark Feltham, present of OPSEU Local 110 at Fanshawe College, said the funding announced will “do relatively little to address the dismal reality that Ontario funds colleges at only 44 per cent of the Canadian national average.
“This funding is over three years, has to be applied for, and falls far short of the financial measures recommended by this government’s own blue-ribbon panel on post-secondary education just last year,” he said.
London West NDP MPP Peggy Sattler said the announcement underscores that the Ontario government doesn’t understand “the crisis that our post-secondary institutions are facing.
“Decades of chronic underfunding by both Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, plus five years of (Premier Doug) Ford cuts have pushed our post-secondary institutions to the brink,” Sattler, the NDP’s colleges and universities critic. “The response today is just half of what Ford’s panel of experts have said colleges and universities need in Ontario just to keep the doors open.
“Ford has actively encouraged over-reliance on international students’ tuition,” she said.
“I don’t see any serious action here today.”
