For children in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across Canada, there is much to be positive about. Their communities are young: nearly a third of the total Indigenous population in Canada is under the age of 14, compared to 16.5% for the non-Indigenous population. Also, a characteristic of many Indigenous cultures is the centrality of children, which may be reflected in the active involvement of the community, and in support for families and parents. Youthfulness and a culture of respect for children are reasons for optimism and inspiration, but the effects of colonialism and the legacy of residential schools cannot be overlooked. These contribute to social and economic problems in many communities, impeding the ability of children to reach their potential as tomorrow’s leaders and decision makers. Statistics on virtually every measure of well-being such as family income, education, crowding and homelessness, poor water quality, and health outcomes
– reveal the serious disadvantages Indigenous children face compared to non-Indigenous children in Canada.
Post-secondary institutions in Canada are stuck in a world of out-dated educational models that fall short of the country’s and their students’ needs, says Kevin Lynch, a man whose career has taken him to the highest echelons of government, business and academia.
“In a profoundly changing world, the one strategy that doesn’t make sense is to keep doing what you’ve always done,” Lynch told me when we chatted not long before he delivered a lecture at a UBC Public Policy Forum on Friday. “That’s not to say it was a bad strategy for the past. But it’s not a good strategy for the future.” The result, he said, is that Canadian graduates are falling behind at a time in history when our economic success depends on them surging to the head of the pack.
Along with the massification of higher education and increasing costs, the pressure on institutions to retain all students to degree completion has been mounting (Crosling, Thomas, and Heagney, 2008). On an international level, for the first time in
the nation’s history, the Unites States is falling behind other nations in terms of the percentage of the population who is educated (National Science Board, 2008). Nationally, obtaining a higher education degree has been linked to economic growth (Baum and Ma, 2007), which may be particularly poignant during the current recession. At an institutional level, the costs of not retaining students are substantial, both financially and in terms of prestige (Crosling, Thomas, and Heagney, 2008).
There has been rapid growth in value-added assessment of teachers to meet the widely supported identifying the most effective and the most ineffective teachers in a school system. The former group is to be r epwoalircdye gdo walh oilfe the lpartotbelre mgrso.u Cph iise tf oa mbeo nhge ltpheedm o ris f tirheed c foomr mthoenilry pfooourn dp ecrlfaosrsm-taon-cclea.s sB uatn,d v yaeluaer--taod-dyeeadr a upnprreolaiachbeilsi ttyo i nte tahceh escr oerveasl uoabttiaoinn ehda.v Tee macahneyr fvraolume -caladsdse tdo s ccloarsess a acpropsesa rt wtoo baed jhaicgehnlty yuenasrtsa.ble across two classes of the same subject that they teach in the same semester, or
The Public Policy Forum has organized a series of roundtables to discuss strategies to better connect First Nations, Metis and Inuit businesses and communities with affordable financing and new sources of funding. Our goal is to develop a series of concrete recommendations to help inform a comprehensive strategy that enhances First Nations, Metis and Inuit access to capital. The first roundtable was held in Toronto, with the focus of discussions being access to large-scale commercial financing. Our second roundtable was held in Vancouver and considered where capital can be better leveraged for First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities.
As knowledge-intensive economies with aging workforces, Canada and the EU are facing similar labour market challenges amind deepening economic ties. Although labour shortages require long-term strategies, facilitating the temporary movement of skilled individuals could serve to strengthen economic relations; however, qualifications recognition is one of the key barriers to labour mobility between Canada and the EU due largely to the diverse range of practices and regulatory authorities across jurisdictions.
Over the past 20 years, more than 31 million students have enrolled in college and left without receiving a degree or certificate. Almost one-third of this population had only a minimal interaction with the higher education system, having enrolled for just a single term at a single institution. Signature Report 7 examines the "some college, no degree" phenomenon to better understand the value of some college in its own right and as well as the contribution the "some college, no degree" population can make to achieving college completion goals.
This paper challenges conventional wisdom about the drivers of international community at the individual level. Presenting
new data and a novel natural experiment approach to the study of cross-border contact and international community,
it tests some of the key microfoundations of international relations theory about how a sense of shared international community may arise and evolve among individuals. The hypotheses are tested using survey data from a large sample (n = 571)
of American study abroad students in a range of universities across a treatment and a control group. Surprisingly, findings
do not support the main hypothesis that cross-border contact fosters a sense of shared international community. However,
the second hypothesis drawn from the liberal paradigm, suggesting that cross-border contact lowers threat perceptions, is
strongly supported. The “Huntingtonian” hypothesis that cross-border contact heightens nationalism also garners wide
support. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for theory and future research, especially the potential
of rethinking the drivers of international community at the individual level to rely less on a sense of shared identity and
essential sameness, and more on a feeling of “enlightened nationalism” and appreciation for difference.
This roundtable will focus on access to capital markets to meet the needs of a growing number of First Nations businesses and communities seeking financial participation in projects that can be valued in hundreds of millions of dollars. Based on the analysis below, we propose the following key issues and questions for discussion:
Canada is the steward of a diverse forest landscape unlike any other region of the world. Our forest management practices are watched carefully by Canadians and the rest of the world. This level of public interest demands robust engagement and stringent oversight from private and public sectors. The challenge moving forward sustainably is to continuously improve existing management systems, while avoiding the creation of additional bureaucracy. To enable the forestry sector to develop deeper and more authentic public confidence, a concerted effort is needed among stakeholders to establish a common understanding, respect, and trust.
More than 120 years ago, in a small town in British Columbia, a railroad tycoon named Donald Smith hammered the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway, linking Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic with a great ribbon of wood and steel. At the time, many said the project was folly: too expensive, too bold, too difficult. Yet the dreamers behind that tremendous feat
of engineering never wavered in their vision of what the railway would achieve: the opening up of a continent, the
end of geographic and economic isolation, and the physical uniting of a great nation. This vision moved closer to its
realization some decades later, when a vast network of telephone wires, followed by a system of interprovincial highways and roads, further shrank the distances between farm, town, and city.
The main players in First Nations’ public finance agree on one thing: The present fiscal regime is
broken, and needs to be fixed. Many of the arrangements that govern aboriginal communities’
revenues, borrowing and spending date back to the 19th century, and remain riddled with
paternalism, uncertainty and inefficiency.
First Nations finances are on a far more fragile footing than other levels of government in
Canada. The provinces and territories obtain a significant portion of their revenues through
federal transfers -- such as the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer and
equalization payments -- based on negotiated and pre-determined formulas. These
jurisdictions, as well as municipalities, also generate substantial tax revenues from a variety of
sources.
Canada has enjoyed exceptional and sustained economic growth for the past 15 years – strong commodity prices have created a currency advantage in export markets, the R&D collaboration between universities and the private sector is strong, post-secondary education attainment is one of the highest amongst OECD countries, the overall unemployment rate has fallen, and the number of small and medium enterprises have risen in the last decade. However, as international competition for talent and capital continue to intensify, now may be the time to review one of the critical elements for any economy – skills and learning.
Like many developed countries around the world, Canada and Australia will face growing labour market pressures as a result of unprecedented demographic trends and increasing competition for skilled workers. As part of their response to current and emerging skill shortages, both countries are committed to improving qualification recognition processes to better facilitate internal mobility and skilled migration. With Canada and Australia functioning as federal systems, qualification recognition tends to involve a number of jurisdictions and a range of practices, creating an often confusing and lengthy process for many foreign trained professionals. While Canada is driving improvements in foreign qualification recognition through
intergovernmental and stakeholder collaboration, Australia is restructuring internal systems to centralize and standardize qualification assessment and professional registration. Since both countries face a number of common issues and share similar policy objectives, there is an opportunity to not only share key lessons and emerging best practices, but also work together to advance further collaboration across a range of professions.
While conditions vary across First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, as well as urban and rural contexts, the well-being gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations is significant across most of the country. Population aging and emerging labour shortages in Canada present an opportunity for Aboriginal youth, as the fastest growing demographic, to make a significant contribution to the country’s long-term prosperity. As the Aboriginal population is projected to rise above 1.5 million by 2026, there is an urgency to act now to enable, support, and empower Aboriginal youth to achieve their potential and participate fully in Canada’s social and economic future.
Over the next several years, more than 500 Aboriginal communities across Canada will find themselves living right in the heart of some of the biggest oil, gas, forestry and mining projects Canada has seen in decades. Debates over pipelines, accelerated foreign investment, and the push for a national energy strategy have turned a spotlight on the central role that Aboriginal communities can play in resource development.
This study1 was designed to develop a better understanding of the characteristics of the young people who do not pursue post-secondary education (PSE) directly after leaving secondary school, and the factors that shaped their decision making.
This report examines data on operating expenditure per full-time equivalent student at community colleges in the United States and Ontario. Depending on the method used to equate U.S. and Canadian currency, expenditure per FTE student in Ontario sits somewhere between 74% and 92% of a comparable U.S. value. Notwithstanding this relative disadvantage, students in Ontario support, through tuition and other fees, a higher proportion of college operating expenditure than do students in the United States (30.8% vs. 23.5%).
Background/Context: Schools have attempted to address stratification in black and Latino students’ access to higher education through extensive reform initiatives, including those focused on social supports. A crucial focus has been missing from these efforts, essential to improving the effectiveness of support mechanisms and understanding why they have been insufficient: how students experience these reforms.
The movement of students between postsecondary institutions is becoming increasingly common and has created a need for greater emphasis on postsecondary education (PSE) pathways. This report outlines the available data on postsecondary student mobility within Ontario, with a focus on mobility between Ontario’s colleges and universities.