“If you do well, I do well, and the future’s bright,” Premier Dalton McGuinty told a roomful of Ryerson journalism students at their very own question period.
The question period, held Tuesday afternoon in Ryerson University’s Kerr Hall East was attended by students from all years of the journalism program as well as Paul Knox, chair of the department, and dean of the Faculty of Communication and Design, Daniel Doz. Also in attendance was former Queen's Park bureau chief for CanWest News Service, now assistant professor at Ryerson, April Lindgren who arranged McGuinty's visit.
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Photo by Maria Nguyen/RyersOnline Staff |
| Premier Dalton McGuinty talks to Ryerson Journalism students in Kerr Hall, Tuesday. |
McGuinty told the students that in the last four years, his government has increased funding to colleges and universities by 35 per cent and has brought back grants to help students fund their post-secondary education. Most recently, McGuinty announced plans to introduce a $300 per student textbook and technology grant, as well as a $500 travel grant to enable students living in remote areas of Ontario to travel to the college or university of their choosing within the province.
“The plans here at Ryerson, I think, are very exciting,” McGuinty said. “You’ve just picked up Sam the Record Man and I think that is an extraordinary geographic position on Yonge Street for this, the most urban of Canada’s universities, and folks here take on a responsibility of Canada’s most urban university.” At the time of the question period, McGuinty said the province was still in discussions about whether the province will be giving any more money to support the Master Plan and recent property acquisitions.
McGuinty has also expressed his support of Ryerson in the past. On May 18, 1993, the premier, then a representative of the Ottawa South riding, attended a meeting of the Legislature of Ontario wearing a custom-made Ryerson jersey.
“It's with great pride that I'm wearing a sweatshirt hot off the press. It reads, ‘Ryerson Polytechnic University,’” McGuinty said at this meeting. “It began some 45 years ago and has culminated today in this House, and then ultimately with royal assent, by the passage of this bill which will enable Ryerson to grant university degrees. It will enable it to provide education towards post-graduate degrees and enable it to conduct further research.”
McGuinty also addressed Family Day, the new statutory holiday that will be celebrated for the first time on February 18.
“Never have more parents worked outside the home than at any time in history. Ask people what is the most important thing to them and it would all come back to spending time with their family,” McGuinty said. “Remember 9/11? Remember the people on the airplane? They didn’t phone the golf course to cancel their tee-time, they didn’t phone their stock brokers and get them to sell their stocks. They phoned the most important people in their lives, their families.”
So what does the premier like to do with his family?
“My youngest boy is in fourth year and we bought ourselves a treat for Christmas. It’s an X-box,” McGuinty said, laughing. “So now you know something that no one else knows about me."
With files from Martha Jack
Photos by Maria Nguyen
