CAUT Policy Statement

WHEREAS the public higher education system in Canada preserves the public interest by ensuring that knowledge is freely available to the public, and opportunities to pursue accredited university and college degree-granting programmes are widely accessible and affordable to all Canadians; and

WHEREAS current government policies toward public sector services have been pursuing the dual effects of deregulation and privatization of these services; and

WHEREAS the deregulation and privatization of higher education, along with the commercialization of its teaching and research activities, will render the services that it provides to be subject to current and trade agreement provisions and will undermine its ability to achieve its public mission;

BE IT RESOLVED THAT, notwithstanding CAUT's past recognition of the contribution of already established group-related non-public degree granting-institutions, CAUT strongly opposes the deregulation and privatization of higher education institutions and services in Canada and, with the exception of existing and future First Nation institutions of higher education and existing religious colleges or universities, CAUT strongly opposes the establishment and accreditation of private, for-profit and not-for-profit degree-granting higher education institutions.

Approved by the CAUT Council, November 1999.