edumacation highlights.

This picture is totally unrelated to my post below. I just thought it captured so much raw emotion. It is a poverty advocate confronting McGuinty in 2007. Her immense finger waving abilities are superbly captured.

The Ontario Provincial election campaigns are well underway, with every leader touting how their platform is better than the others. Certain issues tend to galvanize the electorate more than others, bring about the ire of the party leaders, and garnish the most media attention. We always have the standard rhetoric of health care, education, security, employment, immigration, etc. But election campaigns and platforms may tend to emphasize certain issues more than others.

Here are some highlights

Education:

Dalton McGuinty's Liberals offering a 30% tuition cut for post-secondary students

Isn't this just fabulous? maybe. This is a huge and costly promise. Don't get me wrong, I think it is wonderful that education will become more accessible to a wider range of people, and the lessened debt burdens of students will allow them to better enter the workforce. But at the moment, there is a criticism that there are no jobs for people coming out of university. I mean... there are jobs, but people are underemployed. An educated workforce doesn't matter if there no jobs. McGuinty has framed himself as the "education" candidate. I feel the "economy" is a bigger issue at contention in this election, so maybe framing himself this early in the campaign will be a problem.

Dalton McGuinty's Liberals offering full day kindergarten by 2014... and Hudak's PCs offering the same thing...

The Liberals have been developing full day kindergarten programs for the past 2 years. During those 2 years, Tim Hudak complained about the program. But now... the Progressive Conservative platform wants to implement Full-Day-K, across the province. This shows that Tim Hudak is not a devout ideologue; he is a pragmatist that listens to polls (however delayed his response may be).

Hudak's PCs removing $30million of subsidies to foreign students and redirecting to OSAP funding

Policies like this are great because they make headlines, and maybe someone will derive the message, "Ohh isn't that great! Hudak prioritizes Canadians over foreigners". Well you must weigh the benefits and costs of giving grants to foreign students. Foreign students come to Canada with immense talents and contribute to knowledge creation. We give grants to foreign students because they are the best in the world, and fulfil roles that have not been filled by Canadian students. This does not mean that Canadian students were not given the chance.

A foreign student is a major bonus for Canada. We did not have to pay the cost of raising them, providing them with education, health care, etc, for the first couple decades of their life. Then they come here and research, study, contribute to knowledge creation, and will probably generate profits for someone down the road (hopefully they stay in Canada). Plussss, foreign students bring money from another country and spend it in Canada. Yipppeeeee!

Anyways, Hudak wants to use that money to expand OSAP.