by Bonnie Patterson

On Nov. 19 Premier Mike Harris told a gathering of representatives from business, government and the university community, "We want Ontario to be the best jurisdiction in North America to live and work and invest in and to raise a family. A skilled and highly educated workforce is absolutely essential and central to our ability to be able to reach that goal."

      It should be self-evident that the realization of this goal will be dependent on the strength of the Ontario government's partnership with its universities. The Council of Ontario Universities (cou) has developed a three-point plan to ensure that Ontario universities are able to fulfil the responsibility the premier sees for us as major contributors to our province's economic, social and cultural well-being and to ensure that Ontario will be the best jurisdiction in North America. The plan is included in our Feb. 12 brief to the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, which was presented by University of Toronto president Robert Pritchard (also chair of cou), University of Western Ontario president Paul Davenport (also chair of cou's government and community relations committee) and myself.

      A key element of our plan is our call for a renewed public investment in excellence and accessibility. Unfortunately the province has consistently chosen to make fiscal decisions that have moved Ontario universities to the bottom of the North American funding scale. Today Ontario universities are 10th out of 10 among the provinces, making them the poorest funded on a per-capita basis in the country. Comparisons with American universities are even more stark: the map above illustrates two-year changes to Canadian provincial grants and American state appropriations. One can readily see that Ontario universities have been dealt the hardest blow with a reduction of 15.3 per cent in provincial operating grants.

      The province's cuts have occurred despite the recommendations of its government-appointed Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Postsecondary Education, chaired by David Smith (Trent University's interim president). The Smith report strongly asserted that Ontario should fund its universities at the average for other Canadian provinces and be reasonably in line with government support of major public university systems in the United States. As with other publicly funded sectors, the best measure of underfunding remains just such a comparison with the national average of provincial investment, one which enables the government to make informed decisions about reductions or, indeed, new investments. This measurement should also be an important benchmark for Ontario taxpayers, alerting them to the fact that, relative to other jurisdictions, fewer of our per-capita tax dollars are invested in universities. By this measure, Ontario universities are underfunded by approximately $500 million.

      The staggering void left by this loss of hundreds of millions of dollars has been felt by every student in every Ontario university. Services, facilities and resources throughout our university campuses -- from learning resources such as those available through our university libraries to student support programs through to classroom and laboratory facilities -- have been negatively affected by the cuts. Our universities have also had to reduce faculty and staff to meet reduced budgets. Compared with 1990 levels there has been a province-wide reduction of 1,050 full-time faculty, despite an increase of 8,000 full-time students in that same time period.

      Public investment in postsecondary education has been rapidly declining at a time when the need for higher education and knowledge-based industries is growing. Ensuring excellence in teaching, research and learning is the best way to help secure the future for our students and society at large. If it wants to achieve its own stated desires, the government of Ontario must increase its financial commitment by raising the funding of Ontario universities to the benchmark of the national average.

Bonnie Patterson is president of the Council of Ontario Universities and president designate of Trent University.

Reprinted with permission from the University of Toronto's Bulletin.