David Robinson’s call for a “new deal for post-secondary education and research” (March-April 2025 Bulletin) is much needed and warrants serious attention. This isn’t just about boosting funding for research at the federal and provincial levels, or simply positioning Canada as a safer place for American scholars to conduct their work in the aftermath of Trump’s assault on academic freedom.
On the eve of the federal election, Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre raised alarms about what he described as a “post-apocalyptic” scenario spelled out in a recently published federal report, Future Lives: Social Mobility in Question. Poilievre was quick to blame the federal Liberals for the report’s conclusion that by 2040 the current state of inequality and sinking real incomes would reach catastrophic levels.
What he conveniently neglected to discuss was the report’s warning that pursuing post-secondary education would be “no longer considered a reliable path to social mobility” as tuition and housing costs “exclude all but the wealthy.” How universities structure their programs amplified the existential threats facing colleges and universities. At the same time, AI will have shrunk “the value of human labour,” displacing skilled knowledge workers and the unskilled alike. Poilievre chose, however, to continue his assault on what he considered “woke” professors rather than spell out the importance of higher education in shielding Canadians from such a dystopian near-future. A New Deal for education wouldn’t just include more money for basic research, but a foundational commitment to ensure that our world-class post-secondary institutions are financially accessible to every Canadian and international student with the competencies required for admission. CAUT and its members must be part of shaping that future.
Andrew Stevens Associate Professor, University of Regina
