Alex Usher
@AlexUsherHESA
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President @HESA_news . Mercurial, impatient, droll. Effervescent, too, apparently. Sumo evangelist. Toronto FC since Day 1. All graphs in constant $. He/him.
Joined December 2012
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1. This is not going to make the headlines anywhere, but the changes to Canada Student Loans (now Canada Student Financial Assistance) Program's Repayment are probably the biggest thing to hit student aid in 20 years. Massive.
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This is, indeed, the entire fucking point of public health orders.
One-third of Canadians felt pressured by COVID-19 public health orders
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Actually, there are words. Try these ones: "I sincerely apologize for speaking at a rally with Faith Goldy, a well-known white supremacist who spreads the kind of hate which fuels mosque attacks".
There are no words strong enough to condemn this kind of vile hatred. I am praying for peace for the families of those lost and recovery for those injured. 2/2
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After 8 years of Canadians largely electing Conservative provincial governments, tent cities are now a fixture across the country.
(cause and effect is tricky, isn't it?)
After 8 years of this Liberal Prime Minister and his NDP enablers, tent cities are now a fixture across the country.
#cdnpoli
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Yikes. % of Canadian students who say they feel the following "every day" or "almost every day".
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Remember the night Trayvon Martin's killer was acquitted and we Canadians all thought smug thoughts about our tolerance v. American racism? I can't think about much else right now tbh.
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Just found out that because of parents keeping their kids out of my daughter's school, what had been 2 classes of 22 in 5th grade last year is now just one more crowded class of 29 in 6th.
This is what results when
@sflecce
does "everything he can" to make for a safe re-entry
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Baffling. This is flat-out dumber than anything the Harper government ever did on academic science.
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My GOD! If gas goes up by 4 cents a litre then it will only be ten cents cheaper than it was this time last year instead of fourteen cents! Will the erosion of living standards NEVER END?
You have 1 1/2 hrs to get to a gas station that is still open before the
#FederalCarbonScheme
causes the gas price to jump.
On my way back to Toronto, it is clear gas companies have already, or are in the midst of adjusting their price because of the new federal carbon tax.
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American friends: please trust me when I say we Canadians are pretty much united in our desire to stay on this side of the border right now.
#BREAKING
Global News Exclusive: Trump looking to put troops near Canadian border amid coronavirus fears - National |
@globalnews
#cdnpoli
#coronavirus
#COVID19
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3. New rules: repayment threshold set at $40K, max payments 10% of gross income. So that same student making $50K would only be asked to pay $1000, or $83/month. That's an *enormous* difference, and a majority of new grads will qualify for this benefit.
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1/ "Divisiveness" is, as Emmett Macfarlane rightly points out, not of itself an argument against any policy. Leaving aside the fact that mandates command huge public support, If division were a disqualifying argument, we'd have no free trade agreements, no same-sex marriage, etc
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Eagerly awaiting the
@jkenney
/
@fordnation
presser explaining to the Nobel Committee why they are wrong.
Laureate William Nordhaus’ research shows that the most efficient remedy for problems caused by greenhouse gas emissions is a global scheme of carbon taxes uniformly imposed on all countries. The diagram shows CO2 emissions for four climate policies according to his simulations.
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Genuinely appalling. And disqualifying. Has our choice of political leaders ever been worse than it is right now?
Singh signals NDP plan to oppose carbon tax, says it puts burden on ‘backs of working people’
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JFC:
There. Were. No. Labour. Shortages.
Only. A. Shortage. Of. Employers. Willing. To. Pay. Competitive. Rates.
We have:
✅ Adjusted the TFW program during the Global Pandemic to address labour shortages
🚦Slowed the amount of TFWs an employer can hire as the labour market tightened
🗂️ Tightened compliance measures and increased penalty and fines for bad actors
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The Conservative leader has repeatedly been photographed with fascists and "we can't vet everyone" is the usual excuse.
I don't care which standard we pick but seems to me we should pick one and stick to it.
This man was invited to a private reception with PM Trudeau.
Do they really expect anyone to believe he wasn’t vetted?
Seems implausible.
The Liberal government is either lying or throwing Anthony Rota under the bus or likely both.
#cdnpoli
Add this to the list of
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I am unimaginably angry at how unserious Canada has become in the last 25 years. Around the turn of the millieemium, we had a chance to be a great country. We pretended we were richer than we are, and we squandered what little money we had of investing in things that matter.
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Are there really no editors at the Globe who have the standing to say to Ibbitson: "John, you can't compare debt levels in two different eras without also comparing interest rates and no, citing the Fraser Institute doesn't make it any better"?
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"It's a tax grab."
"Not it's not. There are rebates."
"Rebates? Then it doesn't achieve anything."
"Yes it does. Substitution effects"
"This is just some pointy-headed elite thing, isn't it?"
- Canada, for the last 24 months.
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I have trouble getting worked up about statue destruction because, being literate and capable of reading history, I understand that "history" and "statues" are distinct concepts, and the loss of one does not mean loss of the other.
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Cannot adequately explain how motivated I am to vote against assholes who suggest that public health measures are the antithesis of freedom rather than the path towards it.
Freedom is on the move.
Keep it going. Sign up to end mandates.
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Utter disgrace from a guttersnipe politician who has never held a job outside of politics, and has never once in his life chosen to look at complex problems through the lens of evidence rather than that of partisan pwning.
Just total shit-baggery.
Poilievre just called
@MikePMoffatt
a "failed Liberal academic," in
#QP
. While MPs have parliamentary privilege and protected speech in the House of Commons, it should be considered name-calling (which is against the rules), considering Dr Moffatt is non-partisan AND an expert.
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Advice to
@fordnation
: in virtually every jurisdiction that has re-opened bars, these locations have become Ground Zero for a re-ignition of virus spread. If you open those, and it interferes with getting us back to full-time school in the fall, voters will annihilate you.
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So here's a question for
@PierrePoilievre
or indeed anyone from the
@CPC_HQ
:
Can you name a country that did better than Canada at restraining inflation over the period 2021-23? And can you point to specific policies that country adopted that would have worked here in Canada?
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1/ Dear God, this nonsense again. Buckle up. Apparently I have to explain AB government budgeting practices to the damn minister.
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If Ontario kids sacrificed 4 months of in-person learning, then
@fordnation
's wife and daughter can wait a couple of more weeks to get their goddamn nails done.
The Premier says he's pushing the CMOH and the health table to potentially open up Step 2 earlier. says those discussions are current.
Ford says he's being lobbied by his daughters and wife to reopen nail salons.
#onpoli
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Ontario is facing a 15-20% increase in 18-21 year-olds over the next decade.
Its universities are basically full.
And the deliberate policy of the ON govt. is to ensure institutions get paid $30-40K for every marginal intl student they accept but only $8K for every domestic one
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JFC. This is because of 25 cases of blood clots in 20 million shots given in Europe. 0.000125%. Compared to a COVID mortality rate (in Canada) of 2.3%. How does this make any sense at all?
Hands up if you'd take your chances with AZ. 🙋♂️
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5. This is very much a move in the right direction and one I was pushing four years ago (though I wasn;t quite as ambitious). Congrats to government for doing this: it's good policy.
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I went through every Ontario college's financial statements so you don't have to and boy howdy is it fascinating. A perpetual money-making machine - until someone turned off the supply of visas.
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What did you think "lock her up" meant?
If the people in power can jail their political opponents at will, we don’t have a republic
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In which Rex Murphy proves that even Rhodes Scholars can confuse weather with climate, provided enough oil industry associations pay them to be keynote speakers.
Rex Murphy: We're freezing! Isn't it great? The carbon tax must be working!
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You sure you want to play this game buddy? You're the one that wants to reduce emissions via regulations (which is what this is). If you call this a tax, then literally your entire climate platform is nothing but new taxes. So, you know, pick a lane.
On June 28, Justin Trudeau quietly implemented a secret fuel tax that will increase the cost of gas by at least 4¢/l. It’s not just gasoline, either. It will apply to home heating too, on top of the carbon tax. Today, I sent him this letter demanding he come clean about the cost.
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I don't know Sauron. He's not my friend. But wld it be so wrong to have good relations w/Mordor? Also Gandalf is the puppet
#TrumpBookReport
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Some people are getting very excited about how this crisis shows how much more virtual the world (or education anyway) could be, rise of online, etc. But I am pretty sure one of the legacies of the crisis is that no one will want to be this online ever again. Contact matters.
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Holy. Shit.
Govt of Manitoba increases funding to post-secondary institutions by 11%, funding to student aid by 17%.
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The thing that gets me is that Canada could be the best country in the world. In a lot of things. We choose to be mediocre because it requires less thought and effort.
I wonder what it would take to make us a country that cared about quality in government.
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3/ Unless you believe the election campaign was the proximate trigger for the convoy and occupation, blaming Trudeau for "divisiveness" and saying compromise is the answer is just nonsense. It's suggesting loud angry minorities should always have policy vetoes. Which is bonkers.
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Re longer school breaks at winter. Look, at this point, just go a full month. End on Dec 11 so kids can quarantine for two weeks and then visit grandparents in relative safety. Then start again on Jan 11th so everyone can decontaminate before going back to school.
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You ask me, the real WE story is how so many of Canada's media/business elites came to agree that an organization which is half voluntourism and half cult was a Good Thing, its founders given OCs and treated like Very Serious People. Everything else flows from that.
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The main things Canadians should remember about the War of 1812 is that 1) we would have been absolutely crushed without First Nations allies and 2) pretty much the first thing Britain did at the peace conference was sell out our First Nations allies.
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Electing Bonnie Crombie is an act of collective suicide for Ontario Liberals. Lemmings to the cliff.
BREAKING: Then there were four.
Adil Shamji is dropping out of the Ontario Liberal leadership race and is backing Bonnie Crombie.
#Onpoli
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This, from
@MichelleRempel
, utterly disqualifies her for any serious role in public life. Ever. What a heinous comment.
#CPC
MP
@MichelleRempel
VILIFIES
Dr David Naylor Co-Chair
#COVID19
Task Force
Accusing him of being a Liberal HACK saying
"I DON'T accept the argument of a Liberal Donor"
Despite Naylor being Doctor, Medical Researcher, epidemiologist & Canadian Medical Hall of Fame
#cdnpoli
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You might not like the balance the Trudeau Liberals tried to strike between reducing carbon emissions and keeping the economies of AB/SK afloat. But at least they tried to strike one. Everyone else seems determined to blow up one end or the other of that bargain.
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5/ Basically, if your argument for the current passport is that "symbols are important", ask yourself why it is important to foreground symbols which are so overwhelmingly white and male.
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4. The 10% limit puts Canada on par with the US. But, HUGE DIFFERENCE: in Canada, government pays the difference between monthly minimun and actual monthly amortized amount. In US, it's just deferred in the short term (but potentially forgiven at the end of the loan period).
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My favourite burn of all time came from (IIRC)
@BobRae48
.
Sun reporter: "what did you do during your break?"
Rae: "I read Edmund Burke's "Thoughts on the Revolution in France" and reflected on what it meant for today's politics."
SR: "Is that a new book?"
Rae: "to you, yes".
I love that Eric Foner story about a reporter asking “when did all this revisionism begin?”
Foner: “probably with Herodotus”
Reporter: “do you have his phone number?”
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The feds started signalling they were going to move in this direction as early as last May/June. The only way a provincial government could be blindsided is if it was asleep at the wheel.
The federal government "blindsided" the province with its announcement to cap the number of international students, a move Premier Doug Ford said was like taking "a sledgehammer to the system."
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We killed off middle managers in the three recessions of 90, 01 and 08. We seem intent on killing offices in the Great Pandemic. Basically, we are destroying all the ways in which we transfer tacit organizational knowledge. And then we wonder why we have a productivity issue.
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Why is Chrystia Freeland apologizing for the Prime Minister when he's sitting right there?
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1) It's more colleges than universities.
2) There has been no real increase in domestic funding (govt + domestic fees) for 12 years. Every raise, every new hire across the system since 2011 is due to to intl student dollars.
800,000 international students clearly put pressure on housing. But time to report on why universities are so focussed on foreign cash. Are they ignoring their CND student body? Have Uni’s lost their way in their pursuit of $$ from abroad?
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I call bullshit here.
If you actually read the report, it's not "average" families, but "representative" families. The particular representative family that pays this amount is assumed to make $142,449, which puts them pretty close to 90th income percentile. So, no.
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Lotsa people talking about this, but it seems to me that there is a conflation of two: updating curriculum vs. removing books from libraries. I couldn't care less if Lord of the Flies is or is not on the curriculum. I do mind if it is being removed from libraries.
“The Ottawa School Board removed the classic, Lord of the Flies, from its curriculum after its advisory committee on equity agreed with a student who said the book’s themes were outdated and too focused on white, male power structures.”
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Ontario college and university funding by source vs. the other nine provinces, 2021-22. You'd think we were in a different country.
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A degree in history is a degree in bullshit detection (v. useful in politics). Fight me.
60% of Starmer's new Cabinet did 'worthless' degrees at University.
Phillipson - History
Streeting - History
Reynolds - History
Kendall - History
Phillipson - History and Languages
Steve Reed - English
Kyle - Geography
Haigh - Politics
McFadden - Politics
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I don't really understand how people can be so childish as to think that approaches to a nation's history can be boiled down to "proud" vs. "not proud". Grow the fuck up.
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Actually, you know what? I want to hear from
@erinotoole
on this: will a future Conservative government gauge the reliability of scientific advice based on whether or not the scientists offering it have donated to particular political parties? Yes or no?
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Here's the maximum possible required monthly loan repayment by income on the old vs. new RAP programs (could be lower depending on outstanding debt). You can see how big a deal this is for student at right around the median recent graduate income of around $45-50K
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We're up to 6 Walkertons every day because
@fordnation
chose to re-open gyms, indoor drinking, and relax gathering guidelines in July when we were in touching distance of covid zero, but, sure, go with "empathetic".
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Key difference between US & Cdn university reactions to coronavirus: Cdn unis do not want to get ahead of public health authorities, who are trusted when they say risks are low; US unis do want to get ahead of public health authorities because public health is largely in chaos.
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Periodic reminder, amidst savage budget cuts hitting universities in the US and Australia in particular: Canada can become even more of a research hotspot if the federal and provincial governments can just come up with a way to hold Cdn university budgets even for a year or two.
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Struggling to think of a tragedy that has affected Canadian PSE more widely than Flight 752. Watching universities across the country report the loss of their students and staff - we're up to seven now that I have seen, I think, maybe more - is just incredibly sad.
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Reminder that the virus' "second wave" is actually just the first wave with added policy failures.
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Early 2021 CPC - why aren't there enough vaccines? Vaccines are the solution!
Early 2022 CPC - how dare you insist people take vaccines?
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Genuine question: is there a single area of public policy where Canada has its shit together?
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This is genuinely a huge acomplishment; in domestic policy probably the Trudeau govt's most significant. Politically, problem is they did it within a few weeks of taking office, hard to know if anyone will remember/credit them in fall 2019.
.
@ScotiaEconomics
latest update reviews the Canada Child Benefit:
“The impact of the changes from the old child benefit programs to the new CCB is highlighted in chart 3 that demonstrates the thousands of extra $s transferred per year—tax free—to households with kids”
#cdnpoli
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1/ I'm not sure I buy the "everyone is very mad at Trudeau" narrative. Therre are a lot of people angry at him, sure, but there were before both of the last two elections too. Same people: they were never reach-able.
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Literally nothing makes me want to vote Conservative more than when Liberals engage in this kind of smarmy, self-righteous quarter-truth bullshit.
After days of avoiding it, Erin O'Toole confirmed he wants to bring private for-profit health care to Canada.
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1/ opening schools for K-6 or K-8 in the fall is really not that difficult. The key variable for the most part is space: we need fewer students per class and we can't re-open if restricted to current classrooms. Basically we need to increase # of rooms by 50-70%
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HUB Mall at U of A is hard to beat.. Non-standard retail outlets. Lots of places for students to hand out in small groups. Housing. Brilliant use of colour. It's a little worn around the edges, but it's still maybe the best student space in Canada.
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Pretty sure the reason many Canadians want to be more like Europe is because of how effectively $ are is used to create higher quality of life rather than because of ability to create higher GDP. A simple comparison of the two capitals, Paris and Jackson, shoud suffice here.
For those who think 🇨🇦 should be more 🇪🇺 and less 🇺🇸, some stark data here. America’s poorest state, Mississippi, is now wealthier than France. And US accounts for 58% of G7’s GDP, up from 40% in 1990
from
@TheEconomist
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On the eve of a Poilievre government, *this* is the hill public sector unions want to die on?
16 public sector unions have written to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh asking him use the mechanism in the Supply and Confidence deal, to "hold (the government) accountable", over a new policy that will see public servants work from the office 3 days a week, instead of 2
#cdnpoli
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1/ So I pulled out my passport to check out what symbols we currently choose to elevate. The Male: female ratio of the symbols are...quite something. Below, some numbers (some approximate because some of my pages are obscured with stamps/visas)
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The number of problems in Canada that could be solved with better data is pratically limitless.
Yet it is nothing compared with the indifference and hostility of the political class to the idea of publishing data which might just conceivably put them in a bad light.
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5/ Of course, the reason people won't make the argument that the election caused the occupation is because there is plenty of evidence that planning began before the election. But then that just leaves them with an argument which reeks of bad faith.
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One down, Therme to go.
BREAKING: Premier Doug Ford says his government will completely reverse the Greenbelt land swap decision.
“It was a mistake to open the Greenbelt.”
#Onpoli
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1/ A short history of Public-Private Partnership Arrangements at Ontario Colleges (or, why it's utterly ludicrous that the feds are taking the shit for all this student visa stuff)
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Will have comments to follow (and the $1250/month is by no means all of the package - significant changes to student aid as well), but this is *huge*. By far the biggest student-specific package anywhere in the world that I am aware of.
.
@JustinTrudeau
announces the Canada Emergency Student Benefit, plus creating summer jobs. It's a $9 billion program. Will provide $1,250/month from May to August to help students deal with post-secondary tuition in the fall.
#cdnpoli
#covid19canada
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Unserious comment, unworthy of a potential PM, but consistent with longstanding NDP policy rhetoric:
Since coming to power, Trudeau has profited off of student debt, to the tune of nearly $4 billion in interest payments.
I would immediately remove interest from the federal student loans.
What would it mean to you if interest were removed?
Text and let me know 👉🏽 613-801-8210
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Productivity rises when you use labour more efficiently.
Canadian business in general is too stupid to deploy labour more efficiently. It prefers to supress wages instead.
Canadian govts cave to business on this Every. Single. Time.
And then wonder why productivity sucks.
We have:
✅ Adjusted the TFW program during the Global Pandemic to address labour shortages
🚦Slowed the amount of TFWs an employer can hire as the labour market tightened
🗂️ Tightened compliance measures and increased penalty and fines for bad actors
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People with passionate feelings about daylight savings are a total mystery to me. How could anyone possibly care about such a trivial thing that happens twice a year?
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One thing about all these comparisons to the US: a major reason the US has its economy running so much faster is that it has been running deficits that are 5x (or more) the size of those in Canada.
Would the National Post et al make that trade or no?
Matthew Lau: Don't believe Freeland when she says her 'economic plan is working' "Put another way, economic performance under Trudeau is so bad that if Canada tracked with the United States since he took office, we would be 16 per cent richer today."
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Not sure I have ever heard any Canadian politician be quite this blunt and direct about international students fees. Notable absence if institution-bashing. Kudos. via
@uwogazette
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What a total flip-flop from Mackenzie King, de-mobilizing hundreds of thousands of military personnel just because the war ended.
Emergency Monday. Gone by Wednesday. A flip-flop for the ages. Trudeau revokes Emergencies Act, now that Ottawa protest over | National Newswatch
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1/ Why K-6 schools should be open and universities/colleges should be closed: a short essay.
@fordnation
@Sflecce
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The right won a century-long argument with the left about the value of markets and prices. And to celebrate, the right now excoriates left-supported market-based solutions as elitist, Poindexter-y things, just to "own the libs". What a time to be alive.
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Between colonization and resource-extraction, Canada grew rich without having to think too hard about how to achieve prosperity.
Now that low-hanging fruit are gone and we actually have to think to earn a living, we find out we don;t actually know how to do this.
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1/ Attn all Ontario journos!! The Tory tuition cut saves *some* students money - mainly richer students. Poorer students see no benefit because OSAP paid their tuition anyway. It is not that tough to get this right.
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Just to say the NHL would be much better if it had the Swedish league's traditions of banners and singing.
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There are so many Liberal voters out there who are embarassed about the state of the country under Trudeau.
It is truly astonishing that none of the of the opposition parties can pry them away from voting Red. The lowest of low bars and neither Poilievre nor Singh can clear it.
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Depends. Do you want fewer profs and deteriorating services?
If fall university classes shift online, should tuition be cheaper?
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It's a 7% increase nationally. If any province is 21 percentage points below the national average, isn't that on the (in this case Conservative) provincial government?
Or have two years of constant poo-flinging deprived
@melissalantsman
of basic notions of logic & causality?
Trudeau’s “housing plan” strikes again.
New data from the CMHC shows that housing starts in Ontario are down 14% this year.
Conservatives will build homes not bureaucracy, so that Canadians can once again have affordable homes.
#cdnpoli
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The 8 most dangerous words in post-secondary education are "we've just got to tell our story better".
It implies that all problems are comms problems. and that all difficulties rest with dummies who "just don't understand".
It absolves institutions of the need to change.
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So turns out the Ford government actually managed to cut over a billion dollars out of student aid in two years.
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Reminder to all Canadian universities: eliminating international differential tuition fees for Ukrainians for the duration of the conlict is a really good idea.
Tel Aviv University announces dozens of scholarships this semester totaling NIS 1m for Ukrainian students/researchers
"We hope that other academic institutions, both in Israel & worldwide, will follow our example, & lend helping hand to Ukrainian people in this dire situation."
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2. Old rules: repayment threshold is 25K, payments max out at 20% of marginal gross income above that. If you made 50K, you could still be asked to pay up to $5000/year in repyaments, or $416/month (most ppl don't have enought debt to be asked to pay $416/mth, but some would)
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