Daily Bulletin, Thursday, October 6, 1994

AXWORTHY DID IT:  The federal human resources minister, Lloyd Axworthy,
released his "discussion paper" on social programs yesterday, and it does
indeed project big changes for the way universities in Canada are financed.

By 1997, the federal government would eliminate cash transfers to the
provinces for post-secondary education -- reducing by around 30 per cent
the amount of money available to Ontario universities through government
grants.  Some of the funding would be redirected into an "income-contingent
repayable" loan plan for students.  The discussion paper doesn't go into
detail about the effect of this change on tuition fees, but leaked reports
say the government thinks fees would roughly double over the next three
years.

No doubt that would give students (and their parents) a much greater weight
as customers of universities.  But a five-thousand-dollar-a-year tuition
fee looks pretty intimidating.  "Students are outraged," says Rick Martin,
who heads the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance.

The House of Commons should be pretty lively today, with discussion of all
aspects of the Axworthy paper: not just university funding but unemployment
insurance, welfare and other social programs are affected.  After two days
of talk in Parliament, nationwide hearings are planned.

The text of the discussion paper, "Improving Social Security in Canada", 
is available electronically.  A pointer to it can be found on UWinfo under
the Daily Bulletin heading and "Documents of Current Interest" subheading.

LIBRARY COMMITTEE:  The UW senate library committee is meeting this
morning (the meeting started at 9 in Needles Hall 3004), and on the agenda
is a pretty fundamental question: whether the committee needs to exist.
It's unnecessary, in the view of a subcommittee that worked last spring
to review the functioning of the senate and its committees.  "There are
individual committees for each of the three libraries which provide for
faculty-library liaison in a more useful way," it suggested.

ABOUT DISCRIMINATION:  Another open meeting is being held today by the
ad hoc committee on harassment and discrimination.  Today's gathering,
from 12:30 to 2 in Arts Lecture room 113, is slanted particularly for
staff.  The committee is reviewing the whole range of policies, procedures
and committees that deal with discrimination, ethics, harassment and such.

WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?  Could be hamburgers, cheeseburgers and sausages
barbecued in the engineering quadrangle.  The every-Thursday barbecue
(11:30 to 2:00) is a fund-raiser for the concrete toboggan team of
engineering students.

TEACHER TRAINING:  Visitors from several Ontario faculties of education
are coming to UW next week to talk to potential future teachers.  In
yesterday's Gazette, we said on the front page that the full schedule
was to be found in the Notices column -- and there it wasn't.  (It did
appear in the previous Gazette, September 28.)  The career resource
centre in Needles Hall is the place to go for full details, but
briefly:

     October 12 (next Wednesday): Lakehead University, University of
     Toronto, Nipissing University.
'
     October 13 (Thursday): Brock University, York University,
     University of Western Ontario, University of Windsor, Queen's
     University.

$150,000 NEEDED:  United Way pledge forms have been distributed across
campus, as the campaign to raise $150,00 from faculty, staff and 
graduate students begins.  There are 5,918 potential donors, says a
brochure that went out with the pledge forms.  Last year, 1,020 of them
gave something to the United Way, raising a total of $144,570.

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
888-4567 ext. 3004      credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca