Letters to the editor

Ancillary fees unfair to graduate students

I was very disappointed to hear that the Board of Governors has decided to raise student fees for full-time graduate students by $465. This is a drastic fee increase that will impose significant financial hardships on all students. An increase of this size is also most unfair if it is not pro-rated for graduate students in the post-residency phase of their programs, as it is for part-time undergraduate students.

I am entering my fifth year of the doctoral program in the department of history. Because I am now working exclusively on research and writing for my dissertation, I am very rarely on campus and rarely make use of university services, aside from infrequent visits to the library and archives. To have my fees hiked the same amount as someone taking 30 credit hours is, in my opinion, completely unjustified. My funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada will run out in August, and having to confront a one-third increase in student fees for the coming year at the same time that I have to search for other sources of income is a very troubling prospect.

I would respectfully urge the Board of Governors to reconsider this increase, or at the very least to pro-rate the increase for students who make less use of university services.

Jody Perrun
PhD candidate
History Department
University of Manitoba

Holding the NDP accountable

If Auditor General Jon Singleton’s recent report on the Crocus Fund has done nothing else, it has provided a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the anarchy and ineptitude that until recently characterized the management of the fund. Of course, as the report also makes clear, there was plenty of anarchy and ineptitude to go around. The provincial government was empowered by statute to supervise the fund, but despite warning signs that Crocus was in trouble, the Doer government made no attempt to investigate. The government failed to even make the most basic of inquiries.

Tory MLA and industry critic John Loewen has criticized the Doer government on its failure to monitor the fund. “Quite clearly here, we see they had warnings,” Loewen rightly notes. “And for some reason, which they’re going to have to justify, they refused to act.” Loewen speaks for a good many Manitobans; he is certainly reflecting the concerns of the nearly 34,000 Crocus shareholders who have seen their investments decimated. Manitobans have every right to wonder why the government dropped the ball in terms of its oversight responsibility.

Past and present members of the Doer government maintain that Cabinet was collectively out of the loop, and, in particular, that Premier Doer was never informed. This is, to put it mildly, difficult to swallow. What is far more likely is that Premier Doer’s Ministers and advisors, much like “the President’s Men” of three decades ago, are instinctively hunkering down. They are circling the wagons. In the final analysis, Doer’s ‘men’ seem prepared to be the quintessential loyal soldiers who will do whatever it takes to protect their boss – and, not incidentally, their own political futures.

Jeff Niederhoffer