Thursday, February 5, 2009

Ya See, That's Why We Wanted A Coalition Government

There's an interesting little item in the federal budget this time around, under the heading "Further Developing a Highly Skilled Workforce" (it's about halfway down the page). This tidbit reveals that the government intends to raise the funding for SSHRC - The Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council, which distributes grants to people working in, well, the social sciences and humanities (full disclosure time: the archaeological project with which I am most deeply involved would not have gotten off the ground in the first place had it not been for the generosity of SSHRC). Now, one's response to an increase in SSHRCC funding might very be "hooray, that's excellent!" And excellent it would indeed be, if the paragraph announcing said funding increase didn't end with this charming sentence:

"Scholarships granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council will be focussed on business-related degrees."

And that, Mr. Ignatieff, is why we didn't want you to prop up the Conservative government. Because in doing so, you and your party allow them to sneak little bits of their pernicious ideology into law through sleight-of-hand.

Arrrgh.

Fez tip to The Galloping Beaver.

2 comments:

Annie's Mom said...

Oh bah.

BAH,I say.

Patrick C said...

Bah, indeed.

I should clarify that I have no problems with business grads receiving federal funding. I just don't think that that funding should come at the expense of the students for whom SSHRC was created.