Last week thousands of British students descended on London’s Conservative Party headquarters to protest drastic increases in tuition fees. Despite protestations from Liberal-Democrat leader Nick Clegg, the changing fee structure will make education much more costly—potentially three times more costly—for all students. Proponents of the fee hikes trotted out the usual lines about parental support, reasonable […] More »
Compiled by Kevin Philipupillai and Simon Wallace Parliament resumes today. Over the next few weeks we’re going to hear a lot about the gun registry and the census and the economy and the economy and the economy. Often overlooked are the small, less flashy, things that parliamentarians do. Like propose private member’s bills, legislation that individual MPs […] More »
Wind energy ought to be a shoo-in. Yes, the infrastructure costs a lot of money but the fuel is free and plentiful, turbines produce no emissions, and no mountaintops need to be removed. And unlike nuclear power, no long-term radioactive waste needs to be stored for millennia. Yet, bizarrely, small groups of committed neighbourhood activists […] More »
The madness of March is upon us. And in the sporting world that means all college basketball, all the time. The Final Four tournament opened last week, where 64 teams (well, technically, 65—there’s a one-game playoff between the two worst sides to enter the actual tourney) do battle in one of the most exciting two-plus […] More »
Progressive Canadians seldom get very excited whenever a Conservative government brings down a budget. More often than not, the priorities of the two groups are so wildly different that it’s almost not worth the effort to make a fuss. Last year’s budget was a different story. Stephen Harper’s team came up with a plan of […] More »
Many Canadians associate Sheshatshiu with images of children sniffing gas from paper bags. The troubled central Labrador Innu community received nationwide attention in the ’90s as a place in crisis. Now, years later, with the opening of the new Sheshatshiu Innu School, members are working to shed the reserve’s negative image and turn life around […] More »
[This post has been amended, see note below] They were told to wear red and white, to cheer loudly and smile. They were handed little Canadian flags and instructed to wave them with gusto. “This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” they were told. Some 540 students at L’École Victor Brodeur in Esquimalt, B.C., where […] More »
The charter school movement is enjoying something of a renaissance in the United States. Charter schools—which receive public funding but are privately run, thus removing some features of normal public schools, notably established teachers’ unions—are one of President Obama’s priorities. They are also the cause du jour for New York City’s hedge fund managers. Education […] More »
UBC’s student union, the Alma Mater Society (AMS), filed a complaint with the United Nations this week accusing Canada and B.C. of violating the 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. By signing this treaty, the AMS says, the Canadian government agreed to eventually make post-secondary education free and accessible to all. Article […] More »
[Editor’s note: Today, we introduce a new regular feature on the blog: Allison Martell will write “Margin of Error” once a month, looking at numbers and statistics in the news. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter.] Welcome to Margin of Error. Each month, I will be picking apart some number or statistical problem […] More »
A quick update on a story we featured in the September-October issue of This: The threat faced by the University of Toronto’s Transitional Year Program, a special access program designed for students that do not meet the academic requirements to enter university, has been subdued, at least for now. Here’s what happened last week: Monday, […] More »