The pandemic has shone a giant spotlight on gaps in our social safety nets, our labour and employment standards and in our public services. Public institutions, including universities and colleges, are stretched too thin. Many of the changes that the government has introduced as quick fixes must be made permanent. We need a recovery plan that responds effectively to today’s challenges, while putting us on a path to a better, more resilient future.
It is time for a new normal.
For post-secondary education, this means addressing long-standing problems arising from the erosion of public funding – the two-tiered workforce, increasing tuition and student debt, the reliance on exploitative international student fees, and problems with collegial governance, to name a few.
Join us in calling on the federal government to be a strong leader for post-secondary education and to create a plan that helps get universities and colleges through this crisis and be better for it.
We are calling on the federal government to:
- Provide emergency funding for universities and colleges to re-hire workers previously laid off as a result of COVID-19, help prevent further job losses and better position institutions to resume operations following the crisis.
- Work with the provinces and universities and colleges to ensure that any qualified Canadian will be able to get the education and training they need without taking on additional debt.
- Increase federal funding to the provinces for post-secondary education with agreements on shared priorities to improve affordability, accessibility and quality of work.