Canadian Federal Policy and Postsecondary Education
Donald Fisher, Kjell Rubenson, et al.
The book has three main themes. First is the paradox of Canadian federalism, whereby two levels of government have overlapping responsibilities for postsecondary education. Second is the shift in federal policy from the provision of direct funding through transfers to indirect funding for research and development, and for infra-structure costs. Third is the “exceptional” role played by Québec as successive governments have pursued “nation-building” objectives.
Federal postsecondary education policy in Canada has gone through some significant and, at times, dramatic shifts. There has been a continuous struggle for recog-nition, credit, and increased accountability. Federal governments have used their spending powers as a means of both channelling funds directly to federal priori-ties and as levers for realigning the behaviour of provincial legislatures. The result is a patchwork of indirect and direct federal spending, and an assortment of conditional and unconditional federal-provincial agreements governing grants and transfers.
Donald Fisher, Kjell Rubenson, Robert Clift, Jacy Lee, Madeleine MacIvor, and John Meredith are at the University of British Columbia. Theresa Shanahan is at York University. Claude Trottier and Jean Bernatchez are at Université Laval. Glen Jones is at OISE/ University of Toronto.
ISBN: 978-0-88865-747-3
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