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The political economy of post-secondary education: a comparison of British Columbia, Ontario and Québec

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Abstract

A policy sociology approach is taken to examine the connections between neo-liberalism, post-secondary provincial education (PSE) policy in Canada and the impact of those policies. Our thesis regarding the broad political economy of PSE is that over the last two decades the adoption of this ideology has been a major cause of some dramatic changes in these policies and has brought about a fundamental transformation of PSE in Canada. The discussion builds on a comparative, multiple, nested case study conducted at the provincial (Québec, Ontario and British Columbia) and national level. Through the analysis of key provincial and federal documents, the team concludes that five themes dominated the PSE policy-making process. These themes are Accessibility, Accountability, Marketization, Labour Force Development and Research and Development. In discussing these themes, we illustrate their impact on and within the three provincial PSE systems: BC, Ontario and Québec. In the conclusion, we place the changes in their political and economic contexts and explicate the intended and unintended consequences of these policy priorities. We argue that the pressure for access has led to the emergence of new institutional types, raising new questions about differentiation, mandate and identity and new lines of stratification. A trend toward vocationalism in the university sector has coincided with ‘academic drift’ in the community college sector, leading to convergences in programming and institutional functions across the system, as well as competition for resources, students, and external partners. Unprecedented demand has made education a viable industry, sustaining both a proliferation of private providers and a range of new entrepreneurial activities within public institutions. Levels and objectives of public funding have swung dramatically over the period. Public investments in PSE, in the form of capital grants and tuition subsidies, have alternately expanded and contracted, being at some times applied across the board and at others targeted to specific social groups or economic sectors. Likewise, policymakers have treated PSE at times as a mechanism for social inclusion and equality, at others as an instrument for labour force development, and at yet others as a market sector in its own right.

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Notes

  1. In 2004, the total population of Canada was 32.4 million. The three provinces accounted for approximately 73% of this total. By far the largest was Ontario (40%) followed by Québec and British Columbia which accounted for 20 and 13%, respectively. In the same order, the three provinces accounted for 42, 27 and 9% of the total university FTE enrolment in Canada in 2003–2004 (CAUT 2006, pp. 20 and 49).

  2. This work was produced within a larger research project funded by the Ford Foundation known as the Alliance for International PSE Policy Studies (AIHEPS). The more detailed case studies on BC, Ontario and Québec are available at the AIHEPS website. This article draws on the work of the two Québec team members, Claude Trottier and Jean Bernatchez.

  3. The team did a content analysis of all the relevant legislation, including White and Green Papers, as well as all the relevant committee documents at the federal and provincial levels over the period 1980–2005.

  4. Education for Aboriginal peoples is controversial and a critical historical issue in Canada. Section 91(24) of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982 designates “Indians and Lands reserved for the Indians” as a federal responsibility. This means registered (status) Indians (living on-reserve or on Crown land) are under legal jurisdiction of the Indian Act, kept on register by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) and their schooling is a federal responsibility. INAC is responsible for Indian education in the three territories.

  5. Beyond the supra-provincial issues referred to above, the federal government is responsible for education in the territories, of service personal (and their children) and training programs operated for inmates in prisons.

  6. The federal spending power draws on the historic, prerogative right of the Crown to make gifts to its citizens (Cameron 2004, p. 7).

  7. Conventionally, the ability to tax is measured in points. When the federal government transfers tax points to the provinces they are effectively giving up potential tax income and thereby increasing the value of the transfer for PSE.

  8. The best estimate we have of the decline in the amount of the federal transfer being spent on PSE comes from a briefing note to the minister of human resources and skills development obtained under the access to information legislation. This note was first reported in the Ottawa Citizen, 5 April 2005 and then in the CAUT April 2005 Bulletin. We would like to thank Sarah Schmidt of the National Post Ottawa Bureau for sharing a copy of the original document.

  9. They have also created the SuperBuild Fund which allows for capital expansion (upgrades, renovations or existing building and new residences) but does not contribute to operating costs.

  10. Enrolment growth is determined by growth of first entry undergraduate programs and second entry professional and graduate programs.

  11. Performance is determined by institutions graduation and employment rates, and student loan default rates.

  12. The Québec government closely monitors the success rates of Québec’s researchers vis-à-vis federal programs. For instance, with 23.7% of Canada’s population, 27.89% of SSHRC’s spending in 2002–2003 was in Québec, which was good, whereas only 23.08% of NSERC’s spending in 2001–2002 was in Québec, which was only average.

  13. CONSEIL DE RECHERCHES EN SCIENCES HUMAINES ET SOCIALES DU CANADA (CRSH)

    1. 2001

      $28,491,862

    2. 2002

      $32,115,710

    3. 2003

      $36,685,486

    4. Total

      $97,293,058

    Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et la Culture

    1. 2001

      $6,658,113

    2. 2002

      $24,720,132

    3. 2003

      $30,488,310

    4. Total

      $61,866,555

  14. The 15 universities in order of the amount of research funds received are Toronto, McGill, Montréal, British Columbia, Alberta, Laval, Calgary, McMaster, Western Ontario, Ottawa, Queen’s, Manitoba, Guelph, Waterloo and Saskatchewan.

  15. Calculated from CAUT Almanac 2006, Table 5.6, p. 46.

  16. In 2004, the federal government intramural spending on R&D was almost $2.3 billion, a figure that has remained fairly constant of the previous 6 years (Council of Canadian Academies, Box 6.4, p. 109 and Fig. 4.3, pp. 39–40).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Donald Fisher & Kjell Rubenson

  2. Ontario Institute for the Study of Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Glen Jones

  3. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Theresa Shanahan

Authors
  1. Donald Fisher
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  2. Kjell Rubenson
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  3. Glen Jones
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  4. Theresa Shanahan
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Correspondence to Donald Fisher.

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Fisher, D., Rubenson, K., Jones, G. et al. The political economy of post-secondary education: a comparison of British Columbia, Ontario and Québec. High Educ 57, 549–566 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-008-9160-2

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