CAUT | ACPPU
Canadian Association of University Teachers
| Federal Budget: Misplaced Priorities |
| (Monday, June 06, 2011)
- The organization representing more than 66,000 academic staff at 124 universities and colleges across Canada says today’s reiteration of the March 2011 federal budget ignores the serious challenges facing post-secondary education and research. “The Harper government is ignoring skyrocketing student debt levels and tuition fees and is failing to provide sufficient funding for scientific research,” said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). Turk says that while commitments to fund Genome Canada, climate science and the Indirect Costs Program for university research are a step in the right direction, not nearly enough new funding is provided for the three granting councils that fund most of Canada’s vital basic research. “The increase in funding for the granting councils will not fully cover inflation, let alone restore the cuts made in the 2009 budget,” Turk says. Turk says that the failure to make the needed investments in post-secondary education and research will affect the long-term social and economic health of the country. “With this budget, the federal government is showing its misplaced priorities,” he added. “You build a better society by investing in education, not in prisons.” Turk reiterated CAUT’s concerns that the government is continuing to make political choices to provide new research funding to centres like the Perimeter Institute and the Regional Research Institute in Thunder Bay, bypassing the granting councils altogether. “The history of scientific progress demonstrates that research priorities are best set by the scientific community, not politicians or other special interests,” he added. |
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