CCFA VOTES in the Federal Election

Hi members!

Even though early polling promises a record-breaking turnout, I want you to know that you can’t afford to sit this one out! There’s too much at stake! It is worth noting that the costed party platforms of the Liberals and New Democrats only dropped this past weekend after advanced voting had started, and the costed Conservative platform was only released Tuesday morning.

Below you will find a high-level analysis of the basic fiscal commitments of the three major parties, along with the monetary implications of their commitments compiled by Michael Conlon, the Executive Director of the Federation of Post Secondary Educators – you may also enjoy the recent FPSE press release on post-secondary funding. In addition, Michael has outlined the specific commitments for each party related to post-secondary education. It is also worth consulting the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) website for updates, as this is their area of jurisdiction, and they will likely be producing a more detailed analysis.

If you haven’t voted already, please make plans to do so now! I already did! Click here to find your polling place.

-Lynelle

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Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party platform released on Saturday contains $130B in new spending and will add $225B to the national debt. The spending comes in four categories identified by the Liberals; Unite, Secure, Protect, Build. Under the Unite banner there is a series of new spending initiatives on public transit, the arts, digital infrastructure and high-speed rail. The commitments in new spending under this category add up to $20B.

Under the Secure category the Liberals commit to add $18B to defence spending to fulfil Canada’s NATO commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence spending by the end of their first mandate. The plan also commits to $1.7B in additional spending for RCMP hiring and $4B in tariff response measures. Under the Protect (?) category there is a patchwork of new spending designed to bolster health care; including adding medical residency spaces, IVF funding, and boosting youth mental health. Spending in this category totals $3.5B. The final plank of the platform is the Build category focused on housing.  The platform includes $22B in new spending tax incentives, labour market supports, and supply chain investments designed to speed up residential building. The plan promises to double the pace of home building, though exact details on how that would happen are vague.

In addition, the platform projects $51.8B in new revenue over the four-year plan. Canada’s reciprocal tariffs are forecasted to generate $20B in new revenue in the fest year alone – revenue is not forecasted beyond the first year in the hopes of resolving the tariff war. Included in that is an additional $3.8b in fines collected by stepping up enforcement tax fraud and avoidance. And, most optimistically, $28b achieved via “efficiencies”. No details were provided on how a Liberal government planned to find $28b in savings without any cuts.

The operating deficit for this year is predicted to be a little over $9B and the four-year plan calls for brining that down to $220 million by 2028-29. The overall deficit will be $62.3b in 2025-26 which is 1.96% of GDP, dropping to about $60B in 2026-27 which would represent 1.83% of GDP, in 2027-28 it would drop again to $55B which would be 1.61% of GDP and finally to $48B in 2028-29 and just 1.35% of GDP.

The specific commitments related to post-secondary education are:

• Increase the threshold for the repayment of student loans for single individuals from $35,000 to $50,000. Meaning the borrowers would not have to repay loans until making $50,000 or more and then only on a sliding scale.

• $2B housing funding to build affordable housing on campus in conjunction with the provinces.

• Create the Canadian Sovereignty and Resilience Research Fund designed to both attract leading American researchers to relocate to Canda or to backfill funding of Canadian researchers cut as a result of the Trump administration’s attack on EDI along with other nativist policies targeting research not in line with its ideology. $100m in funding over the next four years has been set aside to set up the new agency.

• Create a “capstone” agency designed to ensure the federal granting agencies are “driving mission-driven research.” Even by the standards of Ottawa bafflegab no details were provided to assist in  translating this promise into plain English.

• Invest $311.7M in Canada Summer Jobs Program in 2025-26 and $198.3M in the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy.

• $46M investment in AI institutions dedicated to commercializing AI research.

• Add $2M in new funding over the next two years for research on sexual and reproductive health for women and the 2SLGBTQI+ community.

• New funding of $500M over four years to “support the hiring of 1200 new mental health counsellors, including those who can support the needs of BIPOC students.” Given that post-secondary education is a provincial jurisdiction it is curious that no details are provided on how exactly a Liberal government would ensure the hiring of 1200 new mental health professionals on campuses across the country. This intrusion into provincial jurisdiction is something each of the parties share, with either overly vague or optimistic notions of how interested and cooperative the provinces would be in implementing the proposed policy.

• The plan also calls for a 10% increase in funding for indigenous-governed and operated post-secondary institutions. 

Fiscal and Costing Plan

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Conservative Party of Canada

The Conservative Party of Canada’s costed platform was the last to drop on Tuesday morning and it is also the least detailed of all the major parties. The platform is, not surprisingly, weighted heavily toward tax cuts. The Conservatives plan to run deficits totalling $100B over four years and like the Liberals and the NDP,  there is no commitment or plan for a balanced budget. The platform includes $70B in tax cuts and $34B in new spending. The platform also promises to generate $77.7B of efficiencies along with cutting foreign aid and “needless bureaucracy.” The Conservatives have promised reductions in the size of the public service but have not provided a detailed plan on where those cuts would come from or the overall number of civil servants that would be reduced. A significant portion of the $56B in savings would come from cutting consultants alone (the NDP by contrast estimate that savings to be in the vicinity of $2B). According to the platform the savings would amount to $23B over four years. The Conservatives are also accounting for $20B in increased revenue from reciprocal tariffs in 2025-26. Finally, the Conservatives promise that any new tax increases would require a referendum.

One of the more expensive, and progressive tax cuts proposed by the Conservatives would reduce the lowest income tax rate from 15% to 12.75%, saving someone making $57,000 per year $900, with dual income families in that tax brackets saving $1800 per year. No costing numbers are attached to most of these tax cuts and new programs because they are mixed in with revenue increases in a manner that is, to be generous, novel and creative. The Conservatives are estimating that their various tax cuts and new found efficiencies would deliver $53.3B in revenue. In essence what the Conservatives are claiming is that the vast majority of their tax cuts  and new programs would pay for themselves through increased economic activity. For example, the Conservatives book $12.8B in revenue from their plan to accelerate the pace of new home building. This is very firm and substantial number considering it is a highly speculative guess for revenue that does not currently exist.

This model of costing is unorthodox and the Conservatives are the only party to use this methodology; they also did not employ it in their 2021 platform nor in any earlier iterations of their platform. It is worth recalling that the Conservatives mocked former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he made a very similar claim that ‘budgets would balance themselves’ via increased revenue. It is, however without doubt, a turn on the same logic that claims ‘tax cuts pay for themselves.’ Put another way, it is trickle down economics with an extreme and nostalgic spin. Though any party platform is steeped in optimism and speculation, this accounting method takes that creativity and optimism to a new level. See this article for further detail:

‘Fun with numbers’: Economists blast growth projections in Conservative platform

In terms of specific measures directly related to post-secondary education the following are included in the platform:

• Vague but unsettling language promising to end “the imposition of woke ideology” in the allocation of federal funds for university research. This directly echoes rhetoric from the Trump regime and ,as is well known, the Trump regime has moved aggressively to strip colleges of funding who refuse to gut their DEI programs along with any other measures not in line with the Trump ideology. The Conservative platform seems to be proposing something very similar.

• Make federal funding to universities conditional on the adoption of the so-called Chicago Principles to protect free speech on campus. The Chicago Principles originated at the University of Chicago and are driven by a libertarian view of free speech. In their original incarnation the Chicago Principles sought to protect all speech. However,  as with the Trump view of ‘free speech’ deployed by the Conservatives is really about protecting the right of extreme right-wing views to be more welcome on campus and shielding those views from protest.

• Sets out provision for a “competitive review process with enhanced transparency and accountability” as a means of “restoring merit” to hiring practices and the allocation of grants. This proposal seems to have been borrowed from the right-wing blogosphere as no evidence was provided that granting council decisions are not made on the basis of merit.

• Create a single organization for the disbursement of research funds. Presumably, this means collapsing SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR into one agency, though that is not spelled out. 

• Create a Chief Scientist borrowed from the UK model to provide advice to government on Science and Technology policy, presumably at arm’s length though that is not explicitly stated..

• Create a dedicated Canada Education Transfer that would be funded at a base level and then increased on the basis of inflation and demographic growth in negotiation with the provinces.

• A three-year prohibition on embryonic research and a directive to the granting councils to focus on “more promising adult (post-natal) stem cell research.”  Related a directive to promote research that would “respect human individuality, integrity, dignity and life.”

• Introduce income contingent loan repayment for student loans.

• Make interest on student lines of credit tax deductible.

• Build an infrastructure that would make the recognition for foreign credentials quicker and less cumbersome.

https://www.conservative.ca/change (I attempted to embed this link, but the site doesn’t allow it.)

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New Democratic Party of Canada

The NDP have the most detailed and ambitious platform. Not surprisingly the NDP leans heavily into tax increases, largely for the “super rich.”  However there are also ambitious spending plans in just about every area of the social, economic, and cultural landscape of the country. Most of these programs would be paid for by the revenue generated by the tax on the “super rich.” The NDP have forecaste a very ambitious windfall from this new tax with projections of $93B over the four-year plan.  That projection assumes a ruthlessly efficient collection mechanism along with no allowance for tax avoidance and the possibility that those caught in this tax bracket might relocate. In addition, the NDP plan to reallocate $41B from the surplus of Employment Insurance Fund.

That aside, the new revenue is booked to fund increases to the Guaranteed Income Supplement for Seniors, the Canada Disability Benefit, Housing Security and Rent Protection, enhanced funding for the CBC, and a Northern Infrastructure Fund amongst others. Once the new spending and revenue increases are accounted for the NDP plans to run an overall deficit of between $47.4B and $57.7B based on a number of growth scenarios modelled by the Bank of Canada.

In terms of specific policy related to post-secondary education, the NDP make the following commitments:

• Set up a matching fund with the provinces for the construction of student housing.

• Coordinate the allocation of international student study permits based on the availability of on and off campus housing.

• Encourage public-private partnerships to convert vacant office space in urban centres into student housing.

• Forgive up $20,000 in student debt.

• Extend the period students are able to delay repayment of student loans from two to five years.

• Work with the provinces to create a plan for the elimination of tuition fees.

• Invest in the Northern and Rual Medical Schools in Canada to fund additional spaces.

• Provide direct support to francophone post-secondary institutions outside of Québec.

https://www.ndp.ca/campaign-commitments (I attempted to embed this link, but the site doesn’t allow it.)