My advice to the NDP would be much more of a factory gate, working class, fighting party, and spend much less time on cultural - identity politics. That means unions, wages, pensions, minimum wages, but also progressive social policy, on healthcare, post secondary education, public transit, pensions, and make dentacare, pharmacare, school lunches and childcare need to become universal programs. 

 

We all know that constitutionally, K12  education in Canada is the exclusive purview of provincial governments. Nevertheless, the feds are fully responsible for First Nation education on reservation and have certain entry points to post secondary education (PSE) due to their interest in economic development, R&D, and support for students through grants, scholarships and loans. Further, federal policies like immigration can whipsaw PSE planning. 

 

This newsletter is a big fan of Nordic social democracy, (SD) not as an end in itself necessarily, but as an advanced station on the long road to equality and social justice. Is there more to be done? Of course - Nordic SDs agree, They have unfinished work in gender equity, the environment, levels of immigration, debate over compromise or conflict with aspects of the neo-liberal pushback. Is it class conflict or class collaboration, both within and beyond the SDs? All parties have factions, Some SDs have hopes for a more socialist society beyond the present, possibly worker ownership experiments. 

 

Notwithstanding all of this, Canada has many aspects of social democracy, already particularly in the healthcare area, but we still lack the comprehensive universal system, common to the Nordics. Our Canadian system still has huge gaps in the area of drugs, dental, and mental health file where compromise with Liberals produces means tests, exclusions, and age limits compared to  the more universal Nordic programs. Nordics also have far more generous parental leave programs, childcare programs, and better, more comprehensive elder care programs. The most glaring gap though, is post secondary education. Or PSE. 

 

We believe  that the next great cause for Canadian SDs is free, comprehensive post secondary education or PSE. This must include not just university and community college, but trades training as well, to benefit all classes of Canadians, but meet the needs of the community in the process. We clearly need more of all three levels. In the end, this might take decades to complete and include, sadly, compromises like means tests and other fetters. 

 

Why should all PSE be tuition free? Multiple reasons. Equity is the first reason. As much as possible the principle of universal healthcare should apply equally to education. Money should not be a barrier to PSE. The second reason is democracy. The more educated the entire population, the better and more involved our democracy becomes. Of course, the obvious third reason is human capital formation. There are critical shortages from doctors and nurses to electricians. We really have two choices, mass immigration of talent or home grown talent. 

 

As automation, robotics and AI take over manufacturing, those who seek well paid, union, blue collar jobs need skilled trades training. BC, NS, QC, NL,Nunavut & Yukon already have waived tuition for some trades. A fourth reason is the relief of the burden of student debt. This debt bondage is stifling young Canadians from getting married, affording children and buying a home.

 

We all hear economists relate economic growth and productivity to R&D, but education is built in R&D. There is a massive intergenerational resentment building as boomers are being accused of stealing the future from the young. 

Free tuition, already available in 37 countries, is not a radical concept. All the universities in the US with ‘state’ in their name were once free or nominal in tuition. University of California was established as a tuition free institution. 

 

Critics accuse the concept of ‘subsidizing the already rich’, since university today, is skewed to middle and upper class families. Two things - this would change if PSE was free, and secondly, it is easily handled in the short term with a means test. Secondly the fact that community college and trades are included poke a big hole in that argument. 

 

Back to SD politics, there would be nothing stopping Liberals, BQ, Greens, even Conservatives from embracing free tuition. Former Ontario Liberal  Premier Kathleen Wynne took a beginning stab at it, only to have it reversed by Doug Ford’s Tory regime. That’s unfortunate. Even so this is essentially an SD idea and the NDP would need to carry the can on this. Picture a provincial or federal NDP leader, making an election tour from university, to college to union hall on a promise of free tuition, drawing Bernie Sanders style excitement. This is kind of politics, that fires up young voters, working class voters and the entire education community, 

 

What would it cost? Estimates range from $3 billion to $9 billion. The range is wide due to who is included. Is it just undergrads? Only provincial residents? Only Canadian citizens? Only poor kids? This can be thrashed out later. What is not debated is the crude ROI, return on investment, in upgrading society economically, socially, culturally, not to put a price on human happiness and fulfillment. $9 billion is a lot of money but it is 1.67% of the federal budget - even less if provinces participate. If 37 countries can afford it, Canada can afford it. Many of these countries are much poorer overall, than Canada. The NDP works best when it has a crusade, like medicare for all from Tommy Douglas, or the corporate welfare bums of David Lewis. Let’s consider free PSE to be the next great crusade. 

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End Note: Nations with free or nominal tuition. 

 

Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, France, Poland, Belgium, Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Kenya, 

Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Cuba, Mexico, Egypt, Philippines, Morocco, New Zealand, Lithuania, Panama, India, with nominal tuition in Turkey, Estonia, Luxembourg, Russia, Iran, Cyprus and the rebel Chinese province of Taiwan.