CPAC - Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 10:00 a.m. (ET) - Segment #12

closely with McGILL, with sherbrooke and other universities to turn montreal into a global summer of therapies. Both vaccines and cure for diseases. Cutting edge of best medicine today and which will go on to save millions and millions of more lives in the future. I'll stop there. >> Interesting. I'm reminded that and I know I'm speaking with the right crowd with this reference, when former harvard president resigned, I don't know if you remember her op-ed in the new york times and she used the word corporation to speak of harvard. When I read it I said, could it be that it's no one noticed and it went through anyways? But it wasn't on purpose. Because when we speak of the value of universities they are corporations. And all you have to look at, if you're talking about the impact on the world, have you ever been to a city where there are no universities? That's like a missing limb. So, this year we're taking act the just for laughs festival not having a festival this summer. We get from it but it gives back. It's the same thing with universities. That's why we have to protect them. I'm not going to get into politics now, but I will actually a little bit. The attack on universities, we have to pay attention to that. I think that's what it means to have an institution of education in our cities. >> Val walker? >> I'm going to give you a couple stats from a different perspective to answer the question of the impact for the universities of quebec pif you look at outcome data from stats can, people with university degrees overwhelmingly have jobs that pay more than people without university degrees. Think then go on to pay more taxes. There is a full loop that you go through in terms of contributing back not just into the economy than folks who have higher paying jobs are more likely to invest and give back in that community but also to the public purse through income tax. I did a scan of what the top skills needs are, labour shortages right now. The data from 2022. Right now today in quebec and all of them. I'll list a couple health professionals. Mental health and psychology early childhood education, data science information management. The employers in this province those are the occupations right now that are most in demand and nearly all if not all of those occupation require a university degree if not more than a single university degree in order to fulfill those roles and contribute to the companies who need those people doing those jobs to also give back to the local economy and the last thing I will say which is a little bit of a divergence but I hope you will appreciate this, but when times are tougher when economic times are tougher and we go into recession, there is a boom bust, those with university credentials are the ones who are able to better weather those ups and downs. They're more likely to be able to find employment in those times where higher unemployment exists. For those reasons all of those looking at the perspective for jobs for folks coming out of the universities. There's a huge economic impact in addition to what my colleagues have talked about as well. >> So once again val you opened the door to my next subject. I had sort of broken down the discussion, the major aspects of universities values and economic social cultural and political. So, you mentioned you know, socially and culturally. What does it mean for example for montreal to have four universities in the same city? That's a very rare occurrence I think. Perhaps you could address the question of no the question of the social and cultural impact of universities in a city like montreal. Thank you, fran seen. I have a bias but I think the

fact that the montreal is a true university city and compared to the vast majority of cities in north america. And it's an asset, a true asset and it didn't happen by chance. It's the thanks to more than 20 years of work by politicians, yes, businesspeople that people from the higher education background to build up montreal as university city on a global scale. And everybody that worked on this challenge succeeded. >> Every year. The most desirable university city in north america in which to be a student and every year it is one of the top 10 university cities in the world. But it is also a magnet for hundreds of thousands of students, I believe the latest numbers I saw were in the area of 175,000 university students in the city of montreal. That's a huge number represents something like four percent of the population. Of the city of montreal. But those students are also coming from everywhere. >> From everywhere in quebec. West of montreal. But also from throughout canada and all of north america and my colleague here from all countries in the world. One of the riches that that affords for the student experience but also I feel for the experience of the city of montreal. Baked into who we are as a university. You have the opportunity to change your mind when you actually encounter people who are different from you. Who come from different cultures. Who come from different backgrounds. Who have difference points oview. Who have different values. And whose presence challenges you to think differently about yourself and I also believe that that diversity is an incredible spark for innovation a sociologist a number of years ago who did a study to say if you had a problem that you wanted to solve and you put 10 brilliant people together and they came from the same background and the same educational formation et cetera they would get you an answer. But if you put another 10 people together from very different backgrounds, the work that they had to do to communicate with each other to establish a baseline for going further will allow them to go further forward in their renovation. And I think that that is a huge asset for montreal the diversity that this university community in the city has to offer. >> And it's doing quite badly, perhaps you can tell us a little bit more about that? >> I could talk more,y. I have colleagues in much better position so I'll take about sherbrooke. And now sherbrooke is also a city that has two universities, the university of sherbrooke and bishops and it's a city where you can study from preschool all the way to the doctoral level in both official languages which is extraordinaire. For a pretty small city about 200,000 people in the region, so you can imagine the impact that this has on this region. And the issues that we had to face up to. Just under 30% of our students come from outside of quebec from elsewhere in canada. All reaches of canada. We have another 15% of our students that come from throughout the world. So that's a very wide diversity and publicly, we put this forward. And this is the start of

sherbrooke's community. It's the entire it's the entire community namely the francophone. Some 80% and all of the years that came to the campus not only that they supported the university but it was part of the social fabric of our region. It's not of a lack. The service of our community and we make a difference. And we enrich the community by the diversity we bring to it. Or university of sherbrooke in the sherbrooke region. This is a question ha came to mind for later. >> About the town hall. The discussion happening on the town squares. That is you know a social and cultural phenomenon perhaps you could expand on that. >> I can, yeah, let me go. So let me go to the university being a place of evidence. So, we live in times where more and more decisions are being made on the basis of opinions rather than on the basis of considered evidence and data. So what does the university do? University through our research and scholarship, one of the key things we do is to generate a lot of information based on real hard core data. Based on peer review research. Based on being challenged constantly to seek the truth and ask questions. So we have the custodians on the society of that data and that evidence on which decisions should be made based decisions can be made but increasingly those decisions are being made by ignoring the evidence that is produced by the universities. Now within the town square that discussion continues to happen in a robust manner but outside the town square, the citizens are sadly engaging less and less with that evidence. But governments across the board. It's happening across canada. It's happening south of the border and the united states. It's happening afternoon the world. That government less and less based on evidence and more and more based on opinions. That are diverse from the evidence. At a are on biases. That is a key aspect of the role of the town square, that universities continue to play but it would behoof the society and it would be the interest of society to insist on participation in the town square to mind that data. Mine that evidence. Evidence before making decisions. Because we have to make decisions for the future of mankind. The decisions that we're making today are not frivolous decisions. They are decisions that were in many cases determine the survival of our species. >> We're moving in a minute to the political aspects. But perhaps you could just specify you could answer the question, why do you think the governments more and more are moving away from evidence-based information? >> I think it's in the nature of the human beings that's where I go. I think we have global trend towards populism and populism does not like evidence. I think that's what's happened. [ Applause ] >> Thank you. Martin, in terms of the social and cultural impact of universities, while you mentioned you can change your mind perhaps you would like to expand on that. >> You promised me we would get to politics in one minute so I'm going to get to it. I think that we simply cannot forget that the universities are the breeding grounds of revolutions. Last week she celebrated as former prime minister brian mulroney during his celebration of life tvgs very brave when he did it. >> It was businesses. And if you remember, sun city, the hotel sun city where artists boycotted it and that's where the business pressure started. But the business pressure also came from coca-cola.

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