Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-ean!ubc-cs!robinson From: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: Federal support(?) of science Message-ID: <1118@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Sun, 23-Jun-85 20:43:56 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1118 Posted: Sun Jun 23 20:43:56 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 24-Jun-85 19:13:51 EDT References: <1589@dciem.UUCP> Reply-To: robinson@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jim Robinson) Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 63 Keywords: higher education, R&D Summary: In article <1589@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) writes: >If the Conservatives care about the economy, why are they keen to cut >spending on science? Probably has something to do with the priorities of the Canadian *people*. All hell breaks loose when the PCs talk about scrapping universality, but how much of a peep do you hear from anyone when the PCs backtrack on their commitment to double that percentage of the GNP spent on R&D? Not much. The attitude seems to be that it's more important for "bank presidents" to get their baby bonus cheques every month than it is for the country to cease being a high-tech branch plant. An interesting contrast exists in California where the Dukemejian (sp?) administration (Republican) slashed expenditures in their first year in office (82), yet in a subsequent year increased spending in the University of California system by quite a bit (30%, I believe). I can only conclude that either the Governor finally realized that California did not get to its present state of economic strength by belittling the value of of a well funded university system, or that enough Californians put a sufficient amount of pressure on the administration to make it change its views. If the average Canadian valued higher education as much as the average Californian appears to there would be no problem. But then again why should this mythical average person feel that way? -The U.S. (esp. California) offers much better opportunities for the typical high-tech person than does this country. The result being that the more career minded person is drawn south of the 49th. Since it precisely these people who make the biggest contributions, Canada comes out the loser in that it has less than it should to show for the time and money that it invested in these people. (Note that this is *not* an attack on said people) -Thanks to the Liberals' idiotic R&D tax policy (affectionately known as the "quick flip") the average person is going to have a bad taste in his mouth for quite a while to come whenever he thinks about government financed R&D. And by the law of guilt by association the universities will also shoulder some of this burden. -Higher education is no longer the route to a well paying job; one can achieve that with a lot less time and effort by joining a strong union. (In fact, if one is into money *and* power tripping, then one can join CUPW and participate in holding the country to ransom every few years :-) -Up to a little while ago Canada was able to earn a comfortable living without a high-tech industry to speak of. I suspect that this has created the mistaken perception among many that this country will in time be able to regain its former economic strength *without* investing in higher education and R&D. -Universities don't do as much as they should in justifying their existence to the average person. -Soaring tuition costs will result in less qualified (but richer) post- secondary students. This will result in deteriorating standards and the (accurate) perception that university education is a privilege to be enjoyed only by the rich. J.B. Robinson P.S. I didn't come right out and say it but yes, I do think that higher education and R&D are worthy recipients of increased spending. The reason is that expenditures of this type represent an *investment*. The present Federal Gov't, like its predecessor, seems intent on continuing funding of all kinds of ridiculous programs (examples given on request) which not only do *not* represent investments in the future, but are also downright counter-productive. They do this because that's where the votes are and until *Canadians* change their priorities that's the type of short-sighted governing that we can expect in the foreseeable future.