Academic infrastructure spending not related to research?
The Government often defends criticism of its budgetary cuts to research funding agencies by pointing to $5.1-billion in “funding for research”. Well, DontLeaveCanadaBehind (DLCB) has published an analysis of the only related spending announcement, made in election-gripped BC. The Knowledge Infrastructure Plan is a $2-billion part of the $5.1-billion “for research”, of which $455-million was announced for 28 post-secondary institutions in BC. DLCB has done a good job of raising the question of just how many of the 28 (28!?!) BC institutions are home to “world class researchers”, so I encourage you to read their analysis. I lived in BC for a number of years, and was shocked to find out BC even has 28 post-secondary institutions, so I suspect this includes any number of small technical colleges and such. While these institutions are no doubt valuable and important, it is a stretch to claim that providing funds to upgrade their infrastructure contributes to Canada’s research competitiveness, though that’s what Industry Minister Clement is doing:
The renewal of college and university facilities will encourage more world-class researchers to work in Canada and give them the tools they need to make further discoveries that will benefit Canadians and people around the world.
