Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdcsu!rhubbs
From: rhubbs@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Robert (NetJunkie) Hubbs)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: CUT TO THE FAT
Message-ID: <5177@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 88 08:37:43 GMT
References: <5158@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <8810170134.AA17930@sheppard.csri.toronto.edu>
Distribution: ont
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 43

I don't want to start a war but a question has been raised and I feel
some responsability to answer. Here goes.

	Who will pay and how is a very serious issue in many ways.
While I am not looking for handouts to the Universities I am looking
for the government of this province to do what it has promised and is 
supposed to be doing. Ontario recieves money from the federal
government in the from of transfer payments designated for educational
use only. While it is the provinces responsability to administer
education (and therefore all transfer payment for education) it is the
federal governments money.

	Much of the money transfered is not spent on education. Rather
the province put it to other uses. Of late this has been hospitals. I
am not against hospitals obiviously, but the money is ment to be spent
on education. It gets spent on hospitals because the predominate group
of people who voice opinions to the government are more concerned about
hospitals (this is of course a function of the average age of the 
population). 

	The provincal education policy is not supportive of students
in part because student are not putting pressure on the government.
this has happend before to other groups. A case in point is the 
proposal to change the Indexing of Pensions in Ontario. This move
brought a wave of protesters, letters and media attention .
The elderly community was suitable upset and made that known. The
province knuckled under right away. They expected sheep to follow,
they got people thinking for them selves and choosing something else.

	I still feel now is the time to stand behind education in the
province and in the contry as a whole.

	I have some friends from other countries (England, Germany, Nigeria
and Austraila) who all made the trip over here to study because they
had heard about the quality of our educational system in this country. 
I believe they were right. But I believe we must work to keep what we
have and make the best of it.

What price can we put on an education or the ability to think?
What is the cost of losing that education? to the individual and to
the country as a whole. 

- Robert Hubbs