Concordia cuts budget
Concordia’s president is blaming the CAQ for its new rules meaning the university loses enrolment numbers and has to cut its budget. I never know with reports like this how much of such a cut is actually needed, vs how much is theatre.
JaneyB 08:01 on 2024-05-28 Permalink
I’m wondering how Legault’s measure isn’t a violation of minority language rights. Even some of the provisions in the original Bill 101 were struck down by the Supreme Court. Not everything can be circumvented by the Notwithstanding Clause it seems. Is the current situation just Federal fear of waking the sovereignty dragon by nailing Quebec on its violations or maybe it is permissable? I think there’s a lawyer amongst the regular readers here…Robert?
Ian 09:09 on 2024-05-28 Permalink
Maybe H John?
Kevin 10:12 on 2024-05-28 Permalink
JaneyB
McGill and Concordia are challenging the cuts by saying they are deliberately designed to inflict harm.
However all court action takes an incredibly long amount of time in Canada, so we’ll probably have another election before a resolution.
bob 17:18 on 2024-05-28 Permalink
It works like this, roughly. Most university expenses are essentially fixed costs (mainly salaries). Most university funding is based on a grant from the Quebec government based on how many credits are enrolled, and in what programs (veterinary school is very expensive compared to, say, creative writing). So, when enrollment goes down, it means that income goes down, but costs remain mostly the same. 1200 fewer students means a drop of something like $20-25 million off the bat (maybe more?), not counting the other decreases (funding is biased toward the francophone schools in many ways). But 1200 fewer students does not mean you can cancel classes, because those 1200 are distributed across the calendar to many, many classes. A prof teaching 37 students costs the same as a prof teaching 36 students, but the university gets something like $1000 less for that class. (My figures are off but I think the same order of magnitude – the actual calculations are complicated). Concordia already has a deficit of something like $35 million.
In sum, the cuts are needed, probably overdue, and very serious.