Shall we recap the problem here? Here’s the Waffle’s statement courtesy of the Globe and Mail:
“Born here. Educated here. Had a publicly-funded education here that gave me my start.”
Cue the expected horse-laugh from the media (not to mention everyone else) who note as a matter of public record that Iggy’s education was at the (very private) Upper Canada College and not from a provincially-funded, provincially-paid-teacher-staffed primary and secondary school.
And then cue the handler, trying to explain that the Waffle is not deluded:
He went to one of the greatest publicly funded institution in the world: the University of Toronto. And he went there on a scholarship.
Sigh. How do I start this:
- Iggy was not talking about the University of Toronto. He was, in fact, talking about his own education — and trying to give the impression that he was educated in the public school system just like his audience. Which means the official misrepresented the target.
- The point is not how his education was paid for. The point is the quality of the education received, and UCC has a reputation of educating its students better than comparable public schools. It is this reputation that leads to its status (and therefore the charge against Iggy) of elitism. Which means our official also completely missed the point of why the gaffe was such a howler.
- The University of Toronto is a mixed funded institution, not a completely public-funded one. It may receive operating grants from the provincial (and federal) governments, but the University still charges tuition of $6600 per year, at Trinity College where the Waffle studied. Add to that a minimum on-campus residence fee of $6000 a year (not including food plans) and it becomes obvious that, while not at Harvard levels, even today accessibility is going to be an issue. Which means our official’s defence of the UofT as “publicly funded” isn’t really as truthful as he would have us believe.
Conclusion: whoever this “senior Liberal official” is, he’d be better off not bothering to explain all of the Waffle’s verbal screw-ups. For one, it would take up too much of his time. For another, he’ll either reveal his own ignorance of how the English language works, or he’ll reveal Iggy’s — which won’t exactly do the Waffle’s reputation as a writing intellectual all that much good.
One also wonders as to the degree of public funding available to the U of T back then versus todays funding – it must be 40 years ago when Iggy attended.
Is Iggy committing to sending all students to the Upper Canadian College.
Is that after or before he sends them all abroad on government funded vacations?
All well and good, except for the fact that Mr. Ignatieff attended Manor Park Public School before Upper Canada College. As the University of Toronto, even Brian Lilley, who has been all over this story, describes the institution as “publicly funded”. Indeed, it is, though much less so than when Michael Ignatieff was a student. Those baby boomers were blessed.
I meant to get to this on Friday, but went away. Anyway, Victor, if I may:
1) “Iggy was not talking about the University of Toronto. He was, in fact, talking about his own education”–
Ignatieff’s attendance at UofT is his “own” education, and from the article, it’s not possible to see whether Ignatieff was speaking only of his grade school days.
2) “The University of Toronto is a mixed funded institution, not a completely public-funded one”–
In normal parlance there are only two kinds of universities: publicly-funded (like UofT), and privately-funded (like TWU).
P.S. $6,600 per year is not that much more than when I did grad studies at UofT back in the early 2000′s. It’s comparatively affordable, and again, the Canadian comparison would be to Trinity Western University, which charges $19,475 for (undergraduate) tuition for one year.