As Bob Rae transitions out of his role as MP, and into a fellowship at the University of Toronto, he was able to take a few moments and chat with the Charlatan’s Haley Ritchie.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
The Charlatan (TC): You went to the University of Toronto for your undergrad, and then a law degree. And you also studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. How do you think going to school that long impacted your politics and your career?
Bob Rae (BR): Well, I mean I think one of the things I always felt was that politics can be a thoughtful exercise—it doesn’t just have to be knee-jerk or emotional reactions. It is about ideas and about understanding the origins of ideas.
The work that I did when I was premier on the constitution was very much a practical expression of a lot of my ideas. The need for stronger protection for social programs, better advancement of the interest of First Nations, and bringing the country together with a new constitution was something I very much wanted to do during the Charlottetown discussion, and one of my real passions in politics.
TC: How do you think university life has changed since you went to school?
BR: Well, I’m going to find out. My sense is that perhaps we were in kind of a bubble in the ‘60s. I was very much a part of the baby boom generation. And I think that experience in university in those days was quite different, in the sense that there wasn’t a lot of anxiety about jobs. There was always a sense of confidence that jobs would be there. I think that was just an assumption that people had. That work would be available. Unemployment was not a huge preoccupation among my generation at that time.
TC: Is it a good thing that students are becoming more practical right now, or is there a loss of idealism?
BR: I’m not sure there’s a loss of idealism. I think there’s a lot of idealism out there.
Obviously I’ve got three daughters, who are in their late 20s and early 30s now. But I’ve followed them and their friends and a lot of their discussions, and I sense that there’s a lot of idealism. But it’s tinged with a sense of practicality. Which I think is very healthy.
I think it’s very much related to people wanting to be engaged in something practical. Whether it’s the environment, First Nations issues, or world development issues. Whatever it is, there’s a sense of: “How do I put this into practice? How does it connect to what’s going on in the real world?”
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just projecting from the young people I know, but that’s my sense.
TC: Unemployment is definitely a concern for a lot of students, and so is paying for tuition. Do you remember how much tuition was back in 1969 when you got your undergrad?
BR: Five hundred and fifty dollars.
And residence was about the same—about six or seven hundred dollars. You could typically make enough in the summer to be able to pay for that and have a little bit of pocket change—but not a lot.
There was a much smaller group of people who went to college and university than today. The participation rate was eight to 10 per cent, as apposed to 35 to 40 per cent today, if you look at both combined college and university. Plus the overall cost of living is completely different. You’ve got to figure that buying a new car in those days cost three- or four-thousand dollars. So it’s a completely differently universe than the one we’re living in now.
TC: Tuition has been going up consistently—through your government, through Mike Harris’s government, and through the McGuinty government. Why is it so hard to put a cap on that right now?
BR: There are two things at stake—one is the continuing need to ensure quality and access at the university and college level, and I think that’s a continuing challenge for governments.
I continue to believe that you can’t talk about tuition on it’s own. You have to look at the real rate of tuition is and then at the real cost, not at just the sticker price. Because there is the sticker price that is continuing to go up and then you’ve got to look at what is the real cost to students.
You have to recognize that for an awful lot of students the real cost of education is made of actually two other big items that people often don’t talk about. One of them is where are you living, and the other one is the fact that while you’re a student you’re foregoing income. So you put all that together and that’s the real package you have to look at. What is the actual cost of being a student?
Can you look at the situation in Canada and say is it still good value to go to university or college? I think we are going to have to look at the student aid and student debt situation much more directly both provincially and federally.
And one of my big arguments with both the province and the federal government is that they continue to use the student loan program as a program that right now shows a profit. Which means essentially that governments are making money out of student aid. Which I think is unconscionable. I think it’s really wrong.
TC: Would you say in the end that university education—even at the cost it is right now—is a worthwhile investment or should people be encouraged to go to college or trade schools to get more practical degrees?
BR: I think you need both.
I think that you’ve got to look at that very directly and deal with the secondary school curriculum and even the primary school curriculum and say, “Well, how are we actually helping the kids who are less likely to finish high school and who are looking for other opportunities?” I mean the average age of an apprenticeship in Germany is 16 or 17 and the average of an apprenticeship in Canada is 25 or 26.
I’m not one of those people that think that having a university education is a bad investment or that people are better off just going to college. I think there’s an awful lot to be said for looking at skill training as a much broader concept. Not about learning in specific—but learning how to learn. And there are great advantages, I think, to people having a broader sense of things and issues than you might get in a college environment.
I don’t think it’s a matter of saying one is better than the other. I think it’s a matter of saying that’s a role that each has to learn how to play and I think students will end up making their own choices.
TC: What would your final advice be to students across Ontario?
BR: Just stick with it! I mean I think the real thing is to understand the joys of curiosity. I think once you stop being curious you really stop growing, and I find that’s what keeps me going.
I’m still curious about a lot of things. There’s still a lot of stuff that I don’t know, and I want to keep on learning about it. And I want to keep on trying to understand it better. It’s something that I’ve had a great advantage I guess in having parents, who encouraged that, and growing up in an environment that encouraged that, and continuing to be able to do that. That’s been a lot of fun for me.
