2000-01-08
The President of the University of Western Ontario was recently on the radio, explaining why his institution needs more money. He said that classrooms were filled to overflowing, and the residences were over-crowded-- some students even had to sleep at professor's houses. What an outrage! Mr. Harris better fork over some more money right now!
Then the reporter asked him a simple question-- if you don't have room for these students, why did you accept them? The president floundered briefly, then tried to explain that the University of Western Ontario believed so strongly in the rights of all students in Ontario to a post-secondary education, that it just had to squeeze them in, though they didn't have enough room to accommodate them.
Hmmm.
Well, well. It's nice to know that the University of Western Ontario is motivated by such lofty sentiments. One wonders how many homeless people they took in this week, or emergency medical cases.
I found this interview disturbing. I don't happen to like Mike Harris, but I have some respect for the political process. It disturbs me that colleges and universities in Ontario might have so little regard for the rights of their students that they would use them, crassly, as pawns, in a little political game of showmanship. It looks wonderful in the news when the University of Western Ontario reports that they are over-crowded. The public is outraged, possibly. Possibly, they will demand that Mike Harris increase funding.
Possibly, they might ask themselves why colleges and universities continue to hike their tuition costs, year after year after year, in spite of the fact that average earnings for the average person have not increased at all over the past twenty years. The professors at the University of Waterloo are demanding a 20% increase in their wages. When asked who would pay for it, they insisted that students would not. Oh no-- we would never force the students to assume that burden. They say they think the private sector should contribute.
Hmmmm.
And today it was reported that most hospitals in Toronto-- 30 out of 32-- are refusing to accept emergency patients. Most even refuse to accept critically ill emergency patients. We're over-crowded! We have no beds! We have no monitors! We don't have enough money or staff! Mike, fork over the bucks.