Bachelor of Commerce (Digital Marketing) - Postsecondary ...

A. Government Issues
A.1 Government Issues (cont’d)
The Federal Government Budget made a few notable funding commitments intended to
increase post-secondary and labour market access for aboriginals, youth, and the disabled.
Some highlights include:
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working with willing partners to introduce a First Nations Education Act with a view to it
being in place by September 2014;
$27 million over two years to renew the Urban Aboriginal Strategy to improve economic
opportunities for Aboriginal peoples living in urban centres; and
$50 million over two years to enable the Youth Employment Strategy to help more young
Canadians get the information and gain the skills, work experience and abilities they
need to make a successful transition to the workplace.
Internationalization of Post-Secondary Education
Under the proposed Provincial Budget, investments taken by the Provincial Government over
the past couple of years to substantially increase international enrolments would not be
sustained. To the contrary, the Government would introduce an International Student Recovery
of $750 per international student beginning 2013/14. The amount would be deducted from
operating grants. In 2013/14, the recovery would only apply to first-year international students,
but would be expanded to include all international students over time. Institutions would be
allowed to increase their international tuition fees, however, in a competitive post-secondary
market for international students, offsetting tuition fee increases may not be viable.
The Federal government appears to be focusing on the country’s gap in skilled labour largely by
drawing already skilled and educated labourers to Canada in greater volume. Following on the
early successes of its Canadian Experience Class program for new immigrants, it will be
introducing further incentives to retain educated and experienced talent by introducing a new
stream to facilitate the entry of skilled tradespersons. It will however be indirectly supporting the
post-secondary system by strengthening the assessment of educational credentials and
reforming the federal skilled worker point system to reflect the importance of younger
immigrants with Canadian work experience and better language skills. In order for many
immigrants to obtain Canadian work experience and better language skills they will need to
upgrade and to utilize English as a Second Language (ESL) resources at Ontario colleges.
Long-Term Capital Planning
Infrastructure spending (for all public sectors), intended to promote the completion of short- to
mid-term capital projects, recently sunsetted October 2011. The Ontario Government states
that it is committed to last year’s announcement of $35 billion over three years focusing on
transportation networks, hospitals and post-secondary institutions. The commitment has
however been counter-indicated somewhat by recent examples of hospital projects which had
been formerly approved and even in some cases started, only to be discontinued.
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