The Commerce Times

Open Ontario opens door to post-secondary

The 2010 Ontario Budget was released March 25, and it is offering new opportunities for students looking to earn a post-secondary education.

“[As] part of the Open Ontario plan, we will be proposing investments that will help 20, 000 more students go to college or university this September,” Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said.

Duncan spoke at Ryerson University the day before the budget was released. Part of the motivation for doing so was to emphasize the Ontario government’s promise to support education.

“We stand in the heart of Ryerson University and I am proud to say that education continues to be the top priority of the McGuinty government,” Duncan said. “As you’ve heard earlier this week, and just from Sheldon [Levy, President of Ryerson University, who introduced Duncan to the press that day], since 2003-2004 our government’s investments in education have helped over 52, 500 more Ontarians earn a high school diploma.”

This aspect of the budget dedicates $310 million to fund the 20,000 spots in post-secondary institutions. Just like Barack Obama’s popularity with young Americans and students helped him win the presidency, this move could be the boost at the polls that the Liberals are looking for. Since student voter turn-out is often significantly lower than other demographics, politicians tend to pay less attention to student issues.

Other efforts to improve the Ontario post-secondary education system include building up resources for a credit-transfer system and promoting our institutions in other countries. For the latter, Duncan referred to the highly-anticipated Student Learning Centre as a landmark for Ryerson. “Upon completion, [the SLC] will help position Ryerson as one of the major schools for new media, documentary media, and cutting edge film and photography research in North America,” he said.

The budget comes at a time when the Canadian economy is looking up, and Duncan talked about his government’s involvement in the improvement. “In response to economic crisis, our government took action and made investments to stimulate the economy to preserve and to create jobs,“ he said. “Despite facing declining revenues our government chose to protect the public services that Ontarians value.”

These public services and funding projects are aimed at answering the demands that Ontarians have put forward in the past. Jobs and growth in Northern Ontario is one part of the budget, and this encompasses reducing energy prices and helping lower-to-middle-income families pay for their energy bills, and the creation of jobs for Aboriginal peoples.

Child care programs are also a new investment, as well as the elementary education system. That includes the Ontario government planning to hire an additional 3,800 teachers and 20,000 early childhood educators to implement full day kindergarten. Infrastructure projects and responsible management to cut the deficit are another aspect of the budget allocation.

As the Ryerson press conference wrapped up, Duncan reflected on what the Ontario government is doing right, and what we want to avoid.

“A few months ago, I had a good chat with Paul Krudman, the Nobel economist,” he said, “and he said to me that the Canadian approach [is to avoid a situation similar to] the state of California and other places where governments by law can’t do the kinds of financing we’ve done, and are being forced to make enormous cuts, not unlike the cuts made in Ontario in the Harris years. And we want to avoid that.”

The bulk of his speech presented optimism and attempted to build interest in the Ontario government’s actions. But after Duncan said goodbye and the media wrapped up, some members of the media seemed unimpressed.

“That was a waste of time,” a camera man said to his co-worker, and others laughed.