Photo by Kyle West

Ontario Public Interest Research Group McMaster is focusing on more efficiently empowering students to make a difference in the community following a referendum in January 2018 that lowered students’ contributions to our OPIRG chapter from $8.07 per student to $5.50.

The organization tackles social and environmental issues through funding student projects and other community organizations.

This year, OPIRG McMaster has made two main changes: cutting staff costs and splitting the single project category of “Working Groups” into mainly “Public Interest Projects” and “Community Partners.”

The most significant effect of the decreased funding has been major cuts in staff funding. This year, salaries and benefits for the three staff members will amount to $89, 342, according to the budget.

The second change entails establishing two types of project groups to improve efficiency and accountability.  

“Streamlining the Working Groups into either Public Interest Projects or Partnerships allows us to hold groups more accountable and also better provide them with the support they need,” said Parnika Godkhindi, director of publicity at OPIRG McMaster.

OPIRG offers up to $1,550 in funding for public interest projects, which are student-run and make change through clear goals and measurable results. Community partners typically have a less measurable impact, are more established and work not as closely with OPIRG, receiving less funding.   

Two examples of public interest projects are Bleed Free, which supports sustainable reproductive health and awareness, and Threadwork, which calls for students to think more critically about the impact of clothing on the environment.

According to Godkhindi, historically, actively supporting the working groups was not a main priority for OPIRG. Instead, they raised money for other organizations and played more of an oversight role for groups.

That has changed this year, with more resources and attention being given to supporting public interest groups.

“We realized that getting students actively involved on campus is one of our main priorities,” said Godkhindi.

OPIRG hopes that creating public interest groups based on definitive actions and results will increase transparency and more recognition of OPIRG’s role as well.

“Before, when people used to think of OPIRG, you would know what the working groups were, but you didn’t know what they were doing,” said Faris Mecklai, OPIRG director of policies and procedures. “Changing it to public interest groups where you are able to measure results and see what is happening just makes it a lot more clear.”

This year, the group has placed a larger focus on promoting the role that OPIRG plays in supporting student initiatives that students might see.  

“Lots of rebranding goes with that,” said Godkhindi. “We just want to make sure that that connection is established more clearly so people know that we are actually on campus and doing things with their tuition fee.”

OPIRG McMaster is also re-evaluating annual programming they hold. They see the lowered budget as a chance to make sure what they do is producing results. Godkhindi pointed to the annual Making Connections Week in September as an example.

In light of the funding change, OPIRG sees this year as an opportunity to shift their strategic goals to get back to their core mission: empowering students.

“There is so much potential here. Our thing is trying to harness the potential to make it more effective,” said resource centre director Katerina Simantirakis.

The deadline for public interest project applications was Oct. 22. Applications for community projects should be open in early November.

OPIRG McMaster will be presenting a report on their activity this year at the Nov. 11 Student Representative Assembly meeting. With changes to their projects, OPIRG is trying to figure out how to best use all the resources they have to enable students to ignite change in the community.

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Every year, Ward One residents have the opportunity to voice their input on how the Ward Councillor should spend $1.5 million dedicated to infrastructure projects through participatory budgeting. Twenty community members, including a representative from the MSU, are appointed to a Participatory Budgeting Advisory Committee that oversees the process.

Starting in April of 2011, the Ward One Area Rating Funding was put in place as a means of aiding in infrastructure investments. Ward One was the first Hamilton region to adopt the method of participatory budgeting to engage community members in government decisions that directly impacts their quality of life.

Anyone can submit suggestions for projects they would like to see supported by the ForWard One fund. Submissions can be completed online or in person at Westdale Library, Locke St. Library and other brick and mortar locations throughout Hamilton. Submissions are due March 25, after which Ward One residents are able to vote on the options from May 16 to June 3. A public discussion is held between the submission period and the voting period in order to facilitate conversation about the options put forth. The votes are then processed by the PBAC and submitted to the Councillor as suggestions, which are taken to Council for final approval.

“There are sometimes modifications [to projects] because there is higher citizen involvement in some neighbourhoods of Ward One than others, a process meant to correct for any unequal partitioning of projects,” said Ward One’s Dale Brown.

Hamilton residents may recognize some previous ForWard One projects around the neighbourhood. Those who have hiked the stairs going up the mountain near the golf course may have stopped to drink from the newest water fountain, and those walking by Cootes Paradise Elementary may have seen their new natural playground.

While $1.5 million may seem like a lot, when put towards ambitious projects, it can be stretched pretty thin. A suggestion that has gained a lot of support in the past is the construction of a Pedestrian Bridge to Bayfront from Locke Street North. To the disappointment of those that voted for the Pedestrian Bridge, it is not likely to be something that is ever realized. Instead, smaller but much needed projects have been supported by a fraction of the Ward One Reinvestment Fund. Community members have welcomed the recent addition of bike lanes on Longwood Road North and pedestrian activated crosswalks at Locke and Hunter. The changes can be so small that those without knowledge of their history might never notice; yet they are much needed improvements to the ward’s infrastructure.

This year the initiative will allow for the use of $3 million, as the project was put on hold last year and the money transferred over.

The initiative is novel in its use of community input to make decisions, and this system of participatory budgeting was adopted by the MSU more recently.

Brown recognizes that despite its benefits, the system is not perfect. “It is always a challenge because of the timeline, because [students] end school in April and [the initiative] operates until June, making it challenging for students who have headed off for the summer to vote. We are cognizant of that but have not yet figured out how to fix it, because we also have deadlines that we have to meet for the city.”

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By: Suzy Flader

As of July 1, Canadians no longer have to pay federal tax on menstrual hygiene products. This decision came in response to an online petition titled “No Tax for Tampons,” which received over 75,000 signatures.

While items like wedding cakes and cocktail cherries had gone untaxed in Canada, necessary menstrual hygiene products have been unfairly subjected to a five percent “luxury” tax.

By removing the luxury tax from menstrual hygiene products, the Canadian government took a significant step forward, but there is still more that needs to be done. The issue of menstrual health tends to not be discussed in our society, due to our discomfort discussing topics typically considered ‘disgusting’ (eg. blood) or ‘feminine’ (eg. vaginas). When it is brought up it is often in shameful or humiliating ways. Hygiene products play a crucial role in the overall health of many women, trans people, and other “menstruators”. In order to respect the human rights of menstruators in Canada, our government should be doing more to publically support us.

Menstrual health is often overlooked as an important aspect of overall health. Many menstruators are forced to wear pads or tampons for extended periods of time due to limited supply. This puts them at risk of contracting life-threatening infections or Toxic Shock Syndrome. While these physical risks alone justify menstrual hygiene as a health concern, there are psychological factors that must also be considered. From a young age, we menstruators are taught to hide our periods from others at all costs. I remember carrying my tampons around in a glasses case, out of fear that my classmates would figure out I needed them. For one week every month, I felt like a victim to my own body. I was ashamed of my periods, even though there was nothing I could do to stop them. Later, I was introduced to the reality of “Post-Menstrual Syndrome shaming.” To this day I get told to stop “PMS-ing” whenever I convey feelings of anger or sadness, even when I am weeks away from my period. It is hard not to feel frustrated about menstruating when it subjects me to this sort of treatment. It is no wonder I have felt the need to keep this aspect of my life private.

I am not the only menstruator who has felt this sort of shame and humiliation. Our societal norms validate the lack of empathy that those who do not menstruate often demonstrate towards those who do. Menstruators are forced to act and speak in certain ways in order to appease everyone’s discomfort. Both discussing and displaying menstrual blood is no exception to this rule. Those who are forced to show their blood to others, due to a lack of access to menstrual hygiene products, face social rejection and mental scarring.

While it might not resolve the issue entirely, the Canadian government must help protect the psychological security of those who menstruate within this country. Proper access to menstrual hygiene products should be defined as a human right, and they must be provided to Canadians either cheaply, or free of charge. While all public washrooms supply courtesy toilet paper, soap and seat covers, it is rare to see free tampons or pads. For some reason, the line was drawn at a necessary — but sex-specific — hygiene product. There are places such as women’s shelters and university health centres that provide free menstrual health products to those who need them, but these places are often forced to ration their supplies due to limited donations or funding. Our government should be playing a role in subsidizing menstrual hygiene products, the fact that they do not speaks to their discomfort discussing anything perceived to be related to women’s health.

It is true that the Canadian government has taken an important stand for menstruators by removing the tampon “luxury” tax, but just because an issue has been formally recognized does not mean it is time for the discussion end. There is still a great deal of discomfort surrounding menstruation. For many, it is more painful to put a box of tampons in a shopping basket than it is to recognize the high price that must be paid for them. For others, the cost of menstrual hygiene products is a serious barrier to both their mental and physical health. We as a society need to keep talking openly about menstruation, in order to remove the shame associated with it. Complete subsidization of menstrual hygiene products may be a stretch, but we should at least be taking more baby steps towards resolving this issue. Menstrual health rights are human rights, and they need to be treated as such. Period.

Photo Credit: The Independent

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For many students, water-damaged windows and roofs, out-of-order toilets and insulation peeking out of broken ceiling tiles are familiar sights. Throughout the year we experience dozens of minor, everyday inconveniences and brush them off as something that will be fixed, eventually. Until then we do our best to ignore the water dripping from the ceiling into a yellow bucket.

These annoyances are symptoms of deferred maintenance (DM), a problem that’s getting bigger all the time. It boils down to a simple enough idea: things are breaking, and there isn’t the money to fix them. Of course, when you spread that idea out over a 300 acre campus, tens of years, and multiple university, provincial and federal budgets, it gets complex – fast.

DM is defined as “work on the maintenance of physical facilities that has been postponed on a planned or unplanned basis to a future budget cycle or until funds become available,” and its severity really came to the university’s attention in December 2012 when facility services released a comprehensive report called the Asset Management Plan. This 38-page document systematically categorized the issue and revealed a staggering $300M DM backlog.

That figure was a surprise, even to the university administration. “The University knew about a backlog of $150M prior to 2012, which was based on an old Condition Assessment Survey,” said Mohamed Attalla, assistant vice-president and Chief Facilities Officer. “However, there was not a clear and detailed analysis that highlighted the urgency. Also, there was no clear plan and priorities to move forward.”

DM has the potential to severely affect research and teaching on campus, and is made more problematic by its often behind-the-scenes nature. “It deals with things you can’t see,” said Attalla. It’s hidden in the walls in fraying cables and leaky pipes; it’s hidden in the basement in rusting boilers and dusty transformers; and it’s hidden off-campus in a power substation that is serving beyond its intended lifetime.

Robert O’Brien, a professor of Global Labour Studies, spoke about the difficulties associated with teaching in such an environment. He complained about a lack of Wi-Fi access, A.V. equipment, and proper ventilation. “About half of my teaching takes place in rooms like that,” he said.

With the full scope of the mountain of maintenance revealed, the university moved to begin addressing it. Prior to the report, the DM budget for facility services was $2.2M, just 0.14 per cent of the current replacement value (CRV) of the campus. CRV is calculated by multiplying the square footage of campus buildings by a dollar amount standard for all Ontario universities, and the Council of Ontario Universities recommends a minimum annual budget allocation towards maintenance of 1.5 per cent of the CRV of buildings and infrastructure. It warns that an amount less than this will cause the DM backlog to grow.

In response to the Asset Management Plan’s recommendations, Mac administration intends to increase DM funding by $2M annually until it reaches $10.7M. This means that, for 2013/14, $4.9M has been budgeted for DM. Though an improvement, it’s still a far cry from the $23.4M necessary to reach the recommended 1.5 per cent of campus CRV.

It’s also much lower than some universities similar to McMaster. The Asset Management Plan compared Mac to Ottawa and Western, universities of similar size, and found that even back in 2011, they were budgeting $26M and $11M respectively towards DM.

The insufficiency of the current budget is known to administrators. “Based on what we have here, the current funding we agreed to, we’re not looking at making a dip or a dive in the deferred maintenance. It will continue to rise actually, but it will rise at a slower pace,” said Attalla.

So it’s more, but still not enough. Attalla acknowledges this, but emphasizes the complicated nature of budgeting for a large institution like McMaster. “The university needs to make decisions. There are lots of unfunded priorities […] but you need dollars to fund them. The agreed-to level of funding here takes into consideration the other pressures we have somewhere else in the university,” he said.

“The hope is that after we deal with our current pressure, hopefully five years from now we’ll be able to increase 10M dollars even more to reach some other universities.”

MSU President David Campbell echoed that sentiment. “Very understandably, often deferred maintenance comes up against academic priorities, and sometimes rightly so. The maintenance becomes deferred because there are more pressing priorities. And I think everybody would agree that that is a necessary thing sometimes,” he said.

“But it’s when you start getting into these critical priorities like ‘in the next 12 months this wall might fall down but we can’t find the money to fix it.’ That critical aspect is when it needs to be addressed right away.”

The Asset Management Plan defines components as critical “if they are still in operation and are operating beyond their designed and useful life […] It is important to note that McMaster’s total DM backlog classified as critical amounts to $28.86 million and by definition should be corrected within the next year.” Accounting for the recent budget increase, the difference between needed critical repairs and funding is $24M, not including components that may have decayed to become critical since the report was released.

That means that McMaster is running with at least $24M of its equipment and buildings operating beyond their intended lifespan.

Last year the MSU published a policy paper outlining students’ position regarding DM. “Our first recommendation was that in the short term [the university’s contributions to DM] should go up to $12.5M,” said Campbell. “Our long term recommendation was that contributions should go up to $25M, and that should be a collaboration between the university and the province, since both bear part of the burden on this.”

Attalla is also hoping the university can collaborate with the province, saying that “the hope is that with lobbying the provincial government, it will put more money into this sector.”

But hope won’t double-pane Mac’s windows. It’s important that the university continue increasing DM funding for years to come. “The university’s made a commitment to continue increasing deferred maintenance contributions over the next few years, and I think we should be pushing to have that continue happening, whether that’s through new campaigns or an official lobby,” said Campbell.

Until that happens, though, students will just have to pray it doesn’t rain too hard.

By Jaslyn English

On September 27, 2012 the provincial government cut the Ontario Ranger Program, a summer employment program for 17-year-olds to work outside in the provincial parks around Ontario.

The Ontario Ranger program has been going on for just under 70 years, and has approximately 15 camps across Ontario, employing over 300 teens as well as 45 supervisors every summer.

“My summer as an Ontario Ranger was one of my best. The experiences that I was lucky enough to have will stay with me for the rest of my life. It is unbelievable that such an incredible program was cut,” said Hilary Walton, a second year McMaster student who participated in the program in 2010.

This loss of youth programs is especially significant since unemployment rates for between 15-24 year old Canadians are currently soaring at double the national average.

Though the national average for unemployment, at 7.4 per cent, is currently lower than other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which includes the Unites States, France, and Great Britain, our youth unemployment rate is one of the highest and was hit the hardest during the recent recession.

“The global economic crisis has hit youth very hard,” OECD employment division head Stefano Scarpetta told the CBC. “Governments should intervene quickly to provide adequate support to them.”

The lack of support from the government is evident when the testimonies of people who have participated in this program are taken into consideration, and what these same Canadians are now doing to try and stop the cutbacks from coming into effect.

“To fellow rangers, no explanation necessary. To those who aren’t, no explanation possible,” wrote previous participant on the online petition to stop the end of the program, summarizing the incredible opportunity that programs such as the Ontario Ranger Program provides for our youth.

The closure of these camps coincides with the federal government’s closing of the volunteer program, Katimavik, which creates volunteer opportunities for young Canadians all across the nation. Over 30,000 Canadian youth have volunteered with this organization, since it began during Pierre Trudeau’s government in the ‘70s.

These programs highlight the ability of youth to give back to the community and show them how to do so in a way unique to the programs themselves. In no other program can a group of 17-year-old girls canoe through northern Ontario and cut a government approved canoe trail through the wilderness. And, likewise, with Katimavik, where the volunteer opportunities are found only in this program, are young Canadians able to give back in a well-organized way that benefits society.

“Katimavik is an experience that can never be bound by a straight definition - it is a program where youth are given the tools to better themselves; to grow, learn, make friends and connect to new communities … while learning about and gaining a new perspective on the Canadian cultural and geo-physical landscape,” claims the blog Spokes & Spice, one of the many online forms of petitioning the cutbacks.

The elimination of these two programs is just the tip of the iceberg in youth funding cuts. Across the country, both the provincial and federal governments are tightening the portion of the budget spent on programs dedicated to youth employment and community outreach.

“In defunding Katimavik, the Conservative government is ignoring its own evidence of the organization’s benefits to youth and Canadian communities. For every dollar the organization spends, about $2.20 is generated for the host community. The program is a fiscally prudent way of getting young people to become active, engaged citizens, but these irresponsible Conservative budget cuts will kill it,” Liberal MP Justin Trudeau said in a press release about Katimavik cuts.

The only program that hasn’t seen any cut backs, is the cadet program under the Department of Defense, which costs twice as much per month as the Katimavik project did.

“We know that this government doesn’t care about empowering or investing in our youth,” Trudeau argued in parliament, while defending the program earlier on this year.

Through this lack of attention paid by the government, the past year has seen the loss of one third of the jobs for students that came from the main federal program, FSWEP, which fits post-secondary students with temporary employment.

Not only this, but because of the takeoff of tuition rates, less Canadian youth are in school than any other of the top five educated “first world” countries, including France, the United States, Germany and Italy, and is tied with the last, Great Britain.

The average student debt is $30,000 dollars, which converts to a sizeable down payment on a house or almost two extra years studying at an undergraduate level.

What this means, for all McMaster students, and those youth pursuing both educational and employment opportunities across Canada, is that, essentially, we have been forgotten.

With budget cuts across two tiers of our three-tier system, and a continuous loss of both jobs and educational opportunities for youth, it is incontrovertible that the needs of young Canadians are simply not being met on either the provincial or federal level.

With what even the federal government’s budget admits as being an “uncertain job market” for those looking for first time employment, it is hardly an overstatement to say that youth today need a helping hand integrating into the Canadian work force. The lack of programs, like Katimavik and the Ontario Ranger Program, that give Canadians both insight into their selves and their work ethic can only hinder the integration and motivation of young Canadians into a society that continuously neglects them.

In a time where it seems as though our government is in a competition with itself to cut corners in budgets at every turn no matter what cost to its citizens, it would seem appropriate if not necessary for it to throw a bone to its youth who has so often been refused on the steps of parliament hill.

McMaster's Health Science Faculty Loses Mass Funding

Jaslyn English

McMaster University has lost more than 15 per cent of its research dollars in the past year, totaling up to a $100 million loss of funding within the city of Hamilton.

The research in the Faculty of Health Sciences relies on pharmaceutical companies for the majority of its funding and in recent years, the companies’ interest in the University’s research has plummeted.

Since the pharmaceutical industry provides approximately 90 per cent of research funding for this sector of the University, this is a huge setback for McMaster’s research capabilities.

Joel Lexchin, a professor of Health Policy and Management at York University, was quoted in the Hamilton Spectator saying that pharmaceutical companies have halved the dollars going to research and development in Canada.

The Spectator quoted Dr. Salim Yusuf, a professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster as saying, “We’ve had one of our worst years financially,”

The main reason for the drop in funds, besides a steadily decreasing investment from pharmaceutical companies in general, is that three multi-million dollar Hamilton-led drug studies have been shut down for safety concerns.

It would appear that McMaster and the Health Sciences Faculty have been adversely affected by the funding cuts, considering it was the only university in the top six national research earners to lose funding.

Though McMaster still maintains its rank as sixth nationally on Re$earch Infosource Inc, a reporting site that tracks research and development dollars in universities across Canada, it was also the only university in the top six to lose any funding.

Similarly, four of the five top hospitals lost money, but Hamilton Health Sciences was hit the hardest.

In Jan. 2012, the provincial Liberal government scrapped $42 million in university research grants, which halted research progress across Ontario even before the lack of pharmaceutical companies’ interest was realized this year.

Although the cuts to research grants may be significant, it takes constant long-term depreciation before a loss in funding is felt by research institutions such as those housed in Health Sciences.

“If this were to be a longer term trend over two to four years, then yes, it would have an impact,” said Marvin Ryder, an assistant professor of marketing at McMaster.

A potential loss of student research jobs and a diminished interest in the research done by the Health Sciences faculty can mean lack of funding which has further repercussions for students and faculty.

Dr. Yusuf  stated with confidence that it is “a temporary blip” and that the university will “bounce back.”

Despite the optimistic climate, it is clear that next year’s research, coupled with results of the impending provincial election, will have a significant impact on Health Sciences research capabilities and the overall research intensity of the institution.

After over seventy-five years of invading our eyes, ears and minds with national and international news and information, the CBC is ready to open its own mind to a larger dialogue.

Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (FRIENDS) hosted a public forum dubbed “The CBC We Want” Tuesday afternoon in Innovation Park. The goal of the event was to foster an open discussion between key Hamilton media personalities and any Hamiltonians who had a bone to pick with the national media organization.

This dialogue was spurred on by the upcoming CBC license renewal, an event that is the first of its kind, as the CRTC reviews the funding allocated to the non-profit media provider. This event promised the direction of major concerns and suggestions towards the CRTC in time for the review process, the deadline for which is this Friday, and facilitated the procedure through the use of an individual video booth where attendees could film one-minute proposals to the review board.

“For many years, the CBC has been an integral player in promoting discussion,” said McMaster President Patrick Deane, as he commenced the event and welcomed to the stage the moderator and former prima ballerina Veronica Tennant.

“Many of us are disappointed in the continued budget cuts to the CBC,” said Tennant as she introduced the six panelists responsible for responding to questions raised by the audience later in the event, each an expert in the field in their own right.

The event marks the penultimate stop in the eight-city tour that has already hit Victoria to Halifax and most of central Canada, ending in Kingston on Oct. 11.

After a brief recess to meet the panelists, the event resumed and the floor was open to questions from the audience.

An audience member asked the panel if the CBC would become irrelevant in the future due to subsequent budget cuts. Philip Savage, McMaster Associate Professor of Communication Studies answered, “Canada and the CBC is the most efficient by far [in their funding model], the problem is when you get to that point when CBC can no longer work from a [non-profit] basis.”

The CRTC review process will begin after the deadline for submission closes this Friday, Oct. 12. For the first time in 76 years citizens of Canada have a chance to either redefine or maintain the mandate of the CBC to educate, enlighten and inform.

Student and faculty groups in Ontario don’t like what the government has in store for the future of post-secondary education.

In response to a recent discussion paper by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), several groups say they do not agree with Minister Glen Murray’s proposed reforms.

Key issues raised by student leaders include government intrusion in post-secondary education, tuition hikes, a rapid shift toward technology-based education and incentivization of entrepreneurial learning.

The Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario (CFS Ontario) and the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) are among those concerned about a perceived ‘unprecedented intrusion’ of government in the post-secondary sector.

“People who are in the best position to determine what's best for students are students themselves, faculty members and university administrators,” said Graeme Stewart, communications manager at OCUFA. “We want to keep decision-making power with [those parties].”

The MTCU’s discussion paper, entitled “Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation and Knowledge” was drafted this past summer. To the dismay of student leaders, the paper was written without student consultation and publicized in late August during the back-to-school rush.

The paper comes on the heels of a controversial leaked policy paper in February, tentatively entitled "3 Cubed." The leaked document suggested that universities should increase efficiency by offering more three-year degrees and allowing students to get more than half their credits online.

MTCU’s recent summer discussion paper acknowledges a rapidly changing post-secondary education sector and the need for Ontario institutions to respond.

Though the proposal outwardly rejects efficiency-focused strategies to curb costs, it also aligns itself with the trend of "high quality outcome-based credentials" becoming the norm.

The report says “cost reductions and the elimination of redundancies are essential parts of our government’s fiscal plan,” but these are not enough to meet the fiscal challenges.

In the long term, the Ministry sees “adopting innovation in the sector to drive productivity” as the other half of the equation.

One proposed reform, a simpler credit transfer system, has already been implemented in a recent partnership between seven universities and has generally been well received.

“Credit transfer, online learning, different experiential options - these are all good things. Our concern is that the government seems to be saying: we’re going to tell you what to do, when to use online learning, when to use learning technologies, when to do co-op,” said Stewart.

There are several shared concerns put forward by CFS Ontario and OCUFA, showing overlap between student and faculty reactions to the Ministry's proposal.

 

Underfunded Ontario PSE sector

Respondents pointed to the fact that Ontario’s post-secondary sector is the least funded in the nation. Per-student funding currently stands at $8,349, which is 34 per cent below the national average, according to a 2011 Statistics Canada report.

“The underfunding problem is decades old in Ontario,” said Stewart, who cited Ontario’s per-student funding as the primary reason for a higher student-faculty ratio.

By 2009, Ontario’s ratio of students to full-time faculty was nearly seven per cent higher than the national average, according to a separate report by Stats Canada. Today, there are roughly 27 students for every professor in Ontario.

“This means students can’t have the same face-to-face interaction, professors aren’t as available, students find themselves in larger classes and they have fewer course choices. It also means universities don’t have the money to restore their older buildings,” said Stewart.

 

Higher rate of tuition increase

“When the government allows per-student funding to decrease, that puts pressure on institutions to increase tuition fees because they have to replace that revenue,” said Stewart.

This year, tuition fees across the nation have risen at more than three times the rate of inflation. Student and faculty representatives argue that this would create a more elite system and diminish accessibility to higher education.

“I don’t think we can say that right now, or even a couple of years ago, tuition fees were at the right place and we should increase rates with inflation,” said Sarah Jayne King, chairperson of CFS Ontario.

“Tuition fees are beyond the point where we can simply freeze them and be happy with that," said King.

CFS Ontario has drafted two tuition fee proposals for the most recent provincial budget that would have tuition fees reduced immediately by 25 per cent.

 

Emphasis on performance-based funding and incentivization

CFS Ontario criticized the proposal’s emphasis on ‘entrepreneurial learning’ and the practice of subsidizing private sector research via the post-secondary education system.

In their response, CFS Ontario asserts that “promoting the creation of business incubators or incentivizing entrepreneurial education in the province’s public colleges and universities does not facilitate knowledge, innovation or creativity.”

OCUFA similarly criticized the provincial government’s ‘performance funding’ model, saying it “makes quality improvement impossible” and unfairly punishes students.

“I don’t think the minister has a totally clear idea of what he wants yet, but our concern is that the recommendations in the paper tend to push the [post-secondary education] system toward this kind of labour market focus,” said Stewart.

 

Using technology as a cost-saving measure

“Students are concerned that online courses are going to be implemented as a cost-saving measure, when we know that to actually produce a high-quality online education is quite expensive,” said King.

There have been no concrete proposals put forward yet mandating that three out of five courses be online, said King, referring to the contents of the leaked ‘3 Cubed’ ministry document earlier this year.

However, she said there is continued concern among students that the education sector is headed in this direction.

 

The ministry asked that formal responses to the discussion paper be sent in by Sept. 30. Respondents include CFS (national), COPE, COU and OPSEU.

King and Stewart said they don’t know of any definitive timeline for a response from the Ministry, but representatives continue to be open to discussions with the government while awaiting a follow-up.

Site Selection Magazine in Atlanta reports that Hamilton generated the highest number of expansion projects during the past year that have drawn at least $1 million, created at least 50 new jobs, or made use of at least 20,000 square feet.

Analysts ranked cities based on new projects mostly in the private sector that would attract potential investors.

Norm Schleehahn, manager of business development at the City of Hamilton, says the university’s main contribution to Hamilton’s 2012 ranking is its new automotive resource centre (MARC) at McMaster Innovation Park (MIP).

The federal government has injected $11.5 million into the new facility, which will cover approximately 80,000 square feet of space in a former industrial warehouse across from the MIP Atrium.

For the most part, MARC will be a laboratory facility to accelerate research in the automotive sector, focusing on hybrid vehicles.

The project costs $26 million in total and is expected to employ 120 to 150 people.

McMaster’s downtown health campus, to open two years from now, will make the list of projects for 2013, Schleehahn said.

Nick Bontis, professor in the DeGroote School of Business, says the City is pushing forward with downtown renewal and McMaster faculty and students are leading the charge.

Bontis said facilities like MIP offer researchers a bridge between doing research in the lab and finding opportunities to commercialize ideas in the marketplace.

“That’s why McMaster University acts as an engine of growth for the manufacturing sector,” he said.

“We’re sitting on a large supply of potential commercialization projects,” he continued. “But we don’t have enough horsepower or capacity for faculty to both do the research and commercialize the research. That’s where we need the community to get involved.”

MIP, a $69 million off-campus facility used mainly for conferences, is in the midst of discussions with private developers to build a hotel at the park. Plans haven’t been finalized but the hotel would accommodate researchers, entrepreneurs and the general public.

In addition, the federal and provincial governments have invested heavily in the university’s health and engineering research facilities.

A grant announcement in early August revealed the province would provide $4.6 million for 14 projects in the research sector.

Over the past two years, McMaster has received $38.5 million through the Knowledge Infrastructure economic stimulus program for post-secondary infrastructure enhancements across Canada.

$22 million will help create new research space and stimulate increased production of medical and industrial isotopes at McMaster’s nuclear research facilities. The remaining funds will help build two new centres for cancer and spinal cord research.

“Hamilton has been a leader in the manufacturing industry but our economy is diversifying. There are a lot of businesses in the city that are thriving,” Schleehahn said.

He added that the city’s new status as an investment hotspot provides a reason for students to consider staying in Hamilton post-graduation.