SMUFU Statement on the 2025 Report of the Auditor General to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly Report:
(https://oag-ns.ca/sites/default/files/2025-02/2025%20Funding%20to%20Universities%20Interactive.pdf)
We welcome the call for transparency in funding and fiscal accountability by the Auditor General with regards to Universities in Nova Scotia, and Saint Mary’s University in particular. We agree that our University should be more transparent with respect to operational matters, including the actions of the Board of Governors. This includes the need for more timely disclosure of agendas and minutes of BOG meetings.
We respect the conclusions made by the Auditor General.
We are particularly interested in the points related to annual funding amounts and percentage increases, concluding that some University’s may in fact be underfunded. We echo Recommendation 1.1, which states that a new ‘allocation model should specify what factors are considered in determining the funding level…’ and agree that some universities may in fact be under-funded (Section 1.20). For SMU, we note that the government operating grant on a per student basis is well below the provincial average, which speaks to the need for our institution to secure improvements in the allocation of provincial operating grants (p. 15 of report). Universities require more core funding so that post-secondary education in the province does not put our children and our students into crushing life-long debt and so that International students are not shouldering the operational budgets of Canadian- Nova Scotian- institutions.
We do not see any conclusions in the AG Report that find that University funding should be tied nor aligned with political priorities. We see nothing in the report that concludes that better oversight and transparency can be achieved by 50% of members of University Boards of Governors being appointed by the Department of Advanced Education. We remain concerned that the NS Government’s proposed omnibus Bill 12, while attempting to rectify concerns stemming from this report, represents unacceptable levels of political interference and influence on the mandates of Nova Scotia’s Universities.
You can read more about the dangers of Bill 12 here: https://www.ansut.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Bill-12-Briefing-Document.pdf
Please take two minutes to send an email to the Minister of Advanced Education and Premier Houston telling them that this will hurt our universities, and that they have gone too far.