So the deadline to sign up for the federal NDP leadership passed a couple of weeks ago, and the first deadline for the mail-in ballots is next Monday. So what to make of the four candidates and their views on post-secondary education? Based on their platforms and a series of responses to a questionnaire on Science policy from Evidence for Democracy (responses available here), my take is as follows:

Jagmeet Singh. Nothing. He has a lot of policy proposals on various topics but effectively nothing on skills, education and how to pay for them. He is also the only one of the four candidates specifically avoided making any commitments at all with respect to the Naylor Report.

Charlie Angus. On the skills side Angus says he would “establish a labour market partners’ forum so government can work with labour and other stakeholders to develop programs and make Canada’s labour market development programs more accessible by lowering the eligibility requirement.” I am not entirely sure what this means, though the use of the term “eligibility requirements” seems to imply that he’s talking about skills acquisitions as being entirely tied to Employment Insurance, which is somewhat restrictive (even though Angus does simultaneously promise it to make it easier to qualify for EI).

On post-secondary generally, Angus says he would work “towards a comprehensive education accord with the provinces that eliminates tuition, ensures adequate funding for research, sets standards for mental health and sexual assault policies, and improves working conditions for students, staff and adjunct or contract faculty on campus,” which suggests ambition if not a totally firm grasp on how federalism works (also: no price tag attached). He also says he wants to eliminate interest on Canada Student Loans (bad idea), put new money into PSSSP for Indigenous students and extend it to include bridging programs, increase weekly loan limits for all students and better harmonize federal & provincial retraining programs (all excellent ideas). And finally, with respect to Science, Angus is pro-Naylor (committed to implementing the report, full stop) and anti-superclusters.

Guy Caron. For a former CFS chair, Caron is awfully quiet about PSE (then again, as an MP from Quebec, his perspective may have changed somewhat). From an income standpoint, his Basic Income scheme – everyone over 18 gets their income topped up to at least equal Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cut Off would pretty much take care of the need to increase student aid any time soon. But also in Caron’s platform is a genuinely intriguing mention of an “Activity Account for Lifelong Learning” which is describes thusly: “financed by contributions from workers, employers, and the federal government, the account will enable its holder to finance lifetime learning and job retraining. It would be portable so that if the individual moved or switched jobs, the account would migrate with them”. The notion is not developed further, so it’s hard to say exactly what’s intended, but it sounds a lot like a mix of CPP/EI (compulsory deductions) with RESPs (government top-ups) for personal use. In principle there’s much to like about this kind of idea though it’s worth remembering that a badly-implemented version of this idea cost the UK government hundreds of millions of dollars back in 2001. Caron also supports full implementation of the Naylor report.

Niki Ashton. This is the big one. Ashton promises to:

Eliminate tuition fees, as per the proposal made by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. That would cost $3.5 Billion, and still depends on a) provinces being willing to pick up half the bill, and provinces being willing to accept massively different levels of federal support to so (basically, provinces currently doing most would receive the least under this program, leading to the obvious problems I described back here).

Reduce tuition for international students to “affordable levels”. No financial details as to what possible mechanism would compel institutions or provinces to go along with this, or whether it has even occurred to her that most HEIs would sharply reduce intake of international students if this ever happened (unless the feds ponied up a couple of extra billion in compensation).

Eliminating interest on Canada Student Loans and doubling the repayment threshold so students do not need to repay loans if earning under $50,000. It’s hard to tell from the platform, but this looks like a retroactive commitment – that is, it applies to all outstanding student loans. That’s an expensive commitment, since international evidence shows that raising the threshold usually has significant knock-on effects in terms of lifetime repayment rates.

Increase funding for Aboriginal PSE. Basically the promise here is to fulfill the TRC recommendation to get rid of the 2% cap (which the Trudeau government already ditched last budget), fund the backlog of First Nations applicants and include Metis students in this funding arrangement.

Increase funding for graduate students and “equalize research funding across disciplines”. My interpretation of this is that it means increasing the SSHRC budget relative to those of NSERC and CIHR, but it’s not 100% clear.

With respect to Naylor’s recommendations, Ashton carefully says she is committed to “addressing” them, but carefully avoids any comment at all on the big issue of a $1.3 Billion increase in funding. The bits she likes involves “re-balancing” funding and handing more money to grad students, post-docs and early career scientists. If one were being uncharitable, one might suspect that she cares about government funding for science mainly as an income support mechanism for scientists rather than a means for actually performing scientific endeavours.

No argument from me on the Indigenous funding, but apart from that, my comments on Ashton’s platform are largely the same ones I had on the Green Party platform in the 2015 election (to which this bears more than a passing resemblance): so many billions of dollars, and not one of them going to increase the quality of provision or increase the number of student seats. It’s all about cheaper. Such a waste.

Anyways, if I’m ranking these platforms, Angus probably edges it. His PSE accord idea is unworkable, but the pledges on Indigenous education and harmonizing training funding are good. Caron would come second for the originality of his learning account idea. Ten points to Ashton for thinking PSE is important, another ten for her position on Indigenous education but minus several hundred for the actual, wasteful substance. Singh is simply missing in action.

The first round of voting takes place October 2nd; should extra ballots be required, they will take place on the following two weekends. Best of luck to all.