University of Western Ontario Staff Association

The Federal Government recently tabled its budget for 2010-11. There has been widespread concern about the content of the budget, and how the Harper Government would react to the burgeoning deficit. While it does not contain cutbacks to Universities (or transfers to the provinces directed to them), the budget does not contain any meaningful funding increases either.

Research Grants

There is a modest increase in funding for Universities for research:

• $32 million to the budgets of Research Granting Councils (which, however, is counterbalanced by reductions to them in previous budgets), along with a new, but previously announced, Canada Foundation for Innovation competition worth $600M;
• $45 million over 5 years for a post-doctoral fellow program; and
• $8M to support the indirect costs of research.

Of this money, only the $8M to support the indirect costs of research has any chance of positively impacting the operating budgets of Universities (and $8M won’t do much). Increased funding for research is a good thing, and will help create jobs (including UWOSA jobs) in research labs. However, it provides no support for the day to day operating needs of Western or other institutions.

In addition, only $3M of the $32M increase to Granting Councils is in the Social Sciences and Humanities – less than 10% of the increase. This proportion is far below what it should be, based on the proportion of the professorate which is engaged in such research.

Transfers to the Provinces

Provincial governments rely on transfers from the Federal Government to fund post-secondary education. The Harper/Flaherty Budget does not reduce those transfers; in fact, they do increase 3%. However, this is actually just the status quo – the 3% increase was previously announced and this Budget contains no new transfers. More importantly, the 3% increase is dramatically below what is needed. It is treading water, at best.

The Bottom Line

So where does the budget leave Universities? It leaves them in no better shape than it found them, albeit with a little more money for research (disproportionately spent on the sciences). The Finance Minister talks about Olympic Gold in his speech announcing his budget, but there are no medals here. This budget may not have failed, but the best it can be graded is a D-!

Interestingly, President Chakma, along with the other heads of the 13 research-intensive universities in Canada, have a more positive view of this budget. In a widely printed editorial, they collectively say that they are "grateful" for the new research money - and perhaps we can agree with them about that. However, they make no criticism of the lack of new money in the transfer payments which help fund universities. Perhaps this is the result of a new confidence in the budget outlook at Western and other institutions. If so, I look forward to the expression of that confidence at the bargaining table this spring.