The Peak

Mel Watkins delivers final public Canadian Studies lecture

By David Proctor

Noted public intellectual Mel Watkins delivered the last public lecture to be sponsored by the Canadian Studies department last Thursday.

Dr. Ian Angus, director of the Centre for Canadian Studies, explained that the department has invited guest professors to SFU over the past several years to teach and give public lectures. Due to the department’s impending closure, however, these lectures will cease, along with all Canadian Studies courses and programs.

A department cannot be officially closed except by the decision of the SFU Senate, and while this has not happened in this case, Canadian Studies was allocated a budget of zero dollars for future semesters, effectively achieving the same result. According to the Canadian Studies website, arrangements have been made for current Canadian Studies majors and minors to complete their programs, although no new students are being admitted.

The closure of the program was one of the major issues that Watkins raised in his lecture. He expressed cynicism regarding the process of program management in universities, criticizing in particular officials that introduce new interdisciplinary departments and praise their capacity to “break boundaries,” later placing them first in line for elimination when funding becomes scarce.

Watkins’ lecture was entitled “The proper study of Canada: The case for Canadian Studies,” although Angus pointed out that the topicality of the title was entirely coincidental: “The title of his lecture was already decided last fall before [news of the closure] came along, so it’s not a response to the situation at least in the first place.”

Watkins, professor emeritus of Economics and Political Science at the University of Toronto, is best known for co-founding the “Waffle,” a movement within the NDP emphasizing economic independence from the United States and socialist economic policy, and for advocating strict regulation of foreign ownership of Canadian business in the 1968 Watkins Report. He also ran unsuccessfully for the NDP in the 1997 and 2000 federal elections.

In his lecture, he described the origins of Canadian Studies in the work of such scholars as Harold Innis and George Grant, and explained the value of both Canadian Studies and of interdisciplinary studies in general. He referred to the department as a “marginal” area of study, and pressed for both its preservation and for more resources to be devoted to it.

Watkins attributed the demise of SFU’s Canadian Studies department to the general economic slowdown. Acknowledging that universities depend on provincial funding, which is likely to dwindle during times of economic hardship, he stated that he understands the necessity of budget cuts. He was, however, powerfully critical of SFU for cutting the program without reviewing its value, referring to such actions as “unscholarly.”

Dr. Angus’ criticism was similarly unrestrained. “We’re talking about no more than $120,000 or so to fund the contract teaching,” he said in an interview. “It seems to me that if anybody in the dean’s office or even higher up saw it as a priority to maintain Canadian Studies, they could do so.”

“There are lots of departments out there with 25 and 30 professors in them. I don’t know that they need the contract faculty to the extent that we do. This is life and death for us, whereas it would be a little bit of a loss for another department.”

Watkins made a similar argument in a more provocative manner, suggesting “only half facetiously” that the funding should be transferred from Economics and Business departments, since the dominant theories of those disciplines are partially responsible for the recession.

Angus announced his intention to oppose the program’s closure in the Senate, noting that if Canadian Studies courses stay in the calendar, they could potentially be restarted when more funding becomes available.

In the short term, however, he was pessimistic. Despite his efforts to secure a budget in future semesters, he said while introducing Watkins’ lecture that “nothing has happened . . . and is not likely to, I have to say.”