News & Views item - April 2006

 

 

Canada's Universities' Repair Costs Mount Amid Governmental Disinterest. (April 14, 2006)

     Nova Scotia, one of Canada's four Atlantic Provinces, is home to 11 of that nation's universities. Together the 11 are looking to the Canadian capitol, Ottawa, to create an infrastructure fund

Dalhousie University's Clinical Research Centre

 to significantly assist them in long overdue repair and renovation of their infrastructure -- now estimated to require some Can$500 (A$598) million.

 

According to Halifax's Chronicle Herald "Dalhousie University alone has a bill of around Can$190 million, according to a spokesman. That’s rising every year, as Dal can afford to address only about a quarter of a required Can$20 million in yearly work," while the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) reports that provincial "Education Minister Jamie Muir said like most homeowners, it's up to universities to look after themselves. However, he also agrees the universities need more money. 'Certainly we need some money from Ottawa if this problem is to be resolved,' Muir said."

 

On the other hand "When there’s only so much money to go around and you’re a federal politician, it’s sort of hard to get excited about . . . money to fix roofs and replace windows," Peter Halpin, executive director of the Association of Atlantic Universities, said in an interview Wednesday. "It’s just not very sexy stuff."

 

But in fact the Chronicle Herald says "In many eyes, Ottawa created the problem in the first place. Severe cuts to transfer payments to the provinces under the federal Liberals in the early ’90s meant universities were forced to tighten their budgets without affecting education quality."

 

The paper's education reporter Rick Conrad observes rather sardonically, "While new, eponymous buildings are what attract the people with money, the bills for leaky roofs and wonky lighting keep piling up.

    "Nobody's going to donate money to any of the province's universities for a new boiler or electrical panel, but those are the types of things that schools of higher education have forgone to pay for other, more pressing things."

 

Meantime Dalhousie's director of facilities management told the CBC corrosion is affecting pipes that are the backbone of the aging heating and cooling system.

"There's been leaks," said Jeff Lamb. "We do have things corroding, rusting." Lamb worries about what will be lost, for instance in medical research, if the system ever fails.

    "If their heat got cut in half, then there's millions of dollars worth of research that's potentially shot," he said.

 

Obviously governmental buck passing isn't an exclusively Aussie prerogative.