The Martlet

OTTAWA (CUP) — The Conservative government has decided not to renew funding for the Canadian Council on Learning, a national organization that studied and published public reports on all levels of Canadian education since 2004.

On Jan. 8, the CCL announced that the government’s financial support — originally a five-year, $85-million grant, which had been extended by the Conservatives for another 12 months last year — will run out on March 31.

“This will necessitate a dramatic scaling down at CCL,” explained President and CEO Paul Cappon in a statement on the CCL website. “However, we are determined to fulfil our current commitments, and identify new ways to serve Canadians, albeit with more modest means.”

Ninety-five per cent of the CCL’s funding is based on federal support.

“The link between learning and prosperity is as clear today as it was when the CCL was first funded,” Victoria MP Denise Savoie (NDP) told the Martlet.

Savoie, former NDP post-secondary critic, said she frequently referred to CCL research. The Conservative minority government has a habit of eliminating independent advice, she said. And she isn’t reassured by a statement issued after the cuts, wherein the party said they would, in fact, replace this independent body.

“I am shocked and I’m very disturbed by this cut in funding,” current NDP post-secondary critic Niki Ashton (NDP) told the University of Ottawa’s CHUO-FM on Jan. 8. “Not only has the CCL been doing important work in our research — and particularly educational research and learning research in our country — but it’s also a program, an organization that’s being cut as part of a pattern, here — a pattern that the Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have certainly taken on where we see an attack on research.”

Ashton referenced the 2008 decision to end funding to the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation, stating the pattern has been discouraging so far.

The Millennium Foundation officially dissolved only a matter of days before the CCL announcement on Jan. 5.

Established by the Liberal government in 2004, the independent-but-government-funded CCL has conducted regular research and published annual reports focusing on various knowledge-related topics, including adult literacy, aboriginal learning, and post-secondary education.

“CCL didn’t just do research: CCL provided a report card in many ways, and indicators as to how well Canada was doing,” Ashton said. “Once we lose that kind of information from an independent organization — certainly funded by government, but independent in its work — I think that’s something that we should all be very concerned about and that should set alarm bells off for all of us.”

Federal Human Resources and Social Development Minister Diane Finley explained in a Dec. 2009 letter to the Globe and Mail that “the decision not to renew was not made lightly.”

“I think cutting research is short-sighted,” said Savoie. “Because you don’t make your decisions based on fact.”