Read more at the Innovation Law Blog.

[A] strict meritocratic entry system can have its drawbacks, as the school has discovered. As undergraduate admission standards have shot ever further skyward, the student body has been something of an intellectual – and some would say cultural – monolith.

Yes, the students are unquestionably bright, but many are nerdy, high achievers consumed with one thing: marks. Consequently, the student body has become increasingly uni-dimensional, dominated by brainiacs void of any curiosity about all that university life can be.

The new admission requirements will include a survey that asks students to share "personal experiences that have shaped their lives" - according to UBC's associate vice-president and registrar, James Ridge, this is to tell them about students' "commitment, time-management skills, perseverance, important information that we had no way of collecting, let alone evaluating, before."

They insist that this change is not driven by motivations to alter its cultural composition, calling them "adverse demographic effects or unintended consequences". This change, even without the cultural undertones, is a huge one - while many smaller Canadian universities have been experimenting with various admission schemes, a change by UBC is monumental and unprecedented. By any measure, UBC is at least the second largest university in Canada, and there is no doubt that admission averages are ever-increasing. A policy change by them would affect tens of thousands of Canadian students.

On the other hand, one cannot help but draw comparisons to the infamous "Too Asian" article published by Maclean's Magazine last year in its ubiquitous Canadian University Guide. [Maclean's subsequently renamed the article and removed some offending quotes from the online version because it was so controversial.]

They wrote "that meritocratic process results, especially in Canada’s elite university programs, in a concentration of Asian students". They further point out that UBC has been actively examining the problem:

Universities have the potential of establishing real cultural change. It makes sense that the head of the Canadian university with perhaps the highest number of Asian students is the most candid and the most concerned. Indeed, Stephen Toope has, since his arrival in 2006 as UBC president, made the issue central to his agenda—including outreach and newspaper op-ed pieces touting the importance of making the university campus a meeting place not only of diversity but also of dialogue.

It is needless for me to point out that this type of thinking is dangerously close to crossing over into xenophobic territory. Indeed, Jeet Heer from the National Post aptly compared the impending battle against meritocracy at these perceived "Asian" schools to the situation at Harvard in the 1920s, when they feared that the increasing Jewish population would disturb the "character" of the school's Anglo-Saxon heritage:

Like the Jews at Harvard in the 1920s, “Asians” are portrayed as book smart but lacking in social skills. According to Maclean’s “Asians” are pushy and ambitious (“They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded…”); unlike white students, “Asians” don’t appreciate that education involves “social interaction, athletics and self-actualization.” Because “Asians” have a “narrow” focus on academics, they “risk alienating their more fun-loving [white] peers.” Finally, “Asians” stick together and are balkanizing our culture by their failure to assimilate.

Is this not nearly the exact same reasoning UBC is using to adopt its new admission policy?

Ostensibly, UBC is recognizing the fact that high school marks are inflating, and that they are not the greatest indicator of future success. Not a lot of details were released about this vague new policy, but UBC's James Ridge says: "We are saying very clearly that even if you’ve got extraordinary marks, if you don’t have a personal profile that suggests that you have some other rich life experience to bring to the university, you may not get in".

What do these "rich life experiences" mean? Presumably, if they are trying to diversify their student population (after all their goal is to change something in the student composition), they don't mean to include any criteria that selects the same students they already select with the high grades. Does that preclude them from considering, say, immigration to Canada as a rich life experience? What about living a life balancing between two distinct cultures?

Let's examine what has happened in the US, where college enrolment has been "de-meritocratized" in favour of secretive full-profile selection criteria.

Jesse Washington from the Associated Press wrote a striking piece describing how elite American colleges have in effect discriminated against Asian-American students through their selection criteria and implicit racial quotas. On average, "Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100."

Is this a fair outcome? To many Asians, this is patently unfair. Such inherent unfairness has led to many half-Asians to hide their ethnicity and heritage from admission committees in order to be compared fairly with other non-Asian applicants.

But what about the rest of us, who can't hide behind a half-identity?

I can think of many reasons why UBC's new policy is backwards and ineffective; for now we will settle on three reasons based on my own experience.

1) High school grades do indicate performance - insofar as university grades are concerned

For all its talk about how grades are not indicative of future success, the drafters of the new policy clearly did not consider that high school grades are correlated with university grades. Universities are notoriously secretive about their grading practices and entrance averages. Nonetheless, it is clear from their internal studies that the correlation exists. At the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science, for example, the Working Group on Engineering Grading Practices wrote an internal report which demonstrated a strong correlation between entrance averages and first year grades.

I do not question that universities should do a better job preparing students for careers after graduation, and certainly it would help if students had greater interpersonal and leadership skills. But that is an entirely different matter, and is only marginally related to entrance requirements. The evidence clearly shows that the meritocratic system produced its intended results: it selects students who are most able to succeed in their chosen academic program.

I would argue that to get the results that UBC wants, it should be changing its curriculum, not its entrance requirements. At best, their new policy must be accompanied by curriculum change, or else they are setting up their new students for failure - those entering with lower averages are probably not going to magically out-perform their more academically-inclined peers.

2) The underlying assumption that students with more well-rounded applications will become better leaders is flawed

All of this change is precipitated by a flawed assumption that a high academic achiever can only possess "book smarts" and that they make poor leaders because they lack social skills. This is clearly implicit in their reasoning, when they say that they want to help attract more students to extra-curricular activities such as student government.

I take great exception to this stereotype, and I have worked my ass off during my undergrad to break through this stereotype of the "hard working Asian student". Yes, I entered my undergrad with a 95% average, and I did end up graduating with Honours from Engineering. Yet, I found the time to participate in a multitude of activities that us "overachievers" (usually used pejoratively in this context) aren't supposed to be doing.

Student government? How about all four levels of University Governance? Division-level (EngSci Club), Faculty-level (Engineering Society), University-level (UTSU), and Governing Council (Academic Board) - I've served on all of them.

I've run student events, led "musical" groups, participated in competitions, partied with other schools, attended conferences, took photographs for yearbooks, and wrote for newspapers.

And yet, I did none of this in high school. My application would have been as vanilla as they come - I had grades, I had the prerequisite courses, and I applied to engineering, with their 90% admission averages. Did I participate in sports? Barely. Did I volunteer for a hospital? No. Did I start a charity? No. Did I join a political cause? No.

By logical extension of UBC's policies, I probably would become one of those borderline applicants, because I showed absolutely no demonstrable interest for involvement and no definitive "rich life experiences".

In fact, the predictive value of my high school extra-curricular activities was next to zero. If they are so concerned about the lack of predictive value of grades, they should be far more concerned about the impossible task of trying to map out someone's future based on one's "life experiences" at age 18.

Why did I get involved in these things? I didn't feel any sense of compulsion from career aspirations, or leadership development. I did it because I thought it was fun. I felt there was an opportunity to try new things, and to become a more well-rounded person. Would this have been self-evident for any reader of my Grade 12 application form? Highly doubtful.

I am not alone - hundreds of my peers are in the exact same situation. Selection based on high school experiences is far more arbitrary than grades, and all else being equal, say nothing about the individual student.

This brings me to my last point.

3) Using "life experiences" as a factor masks the fact that for many students, there are no such opportunities

A second fundamental assumption of UBC's new policy is that all high school students have equal opportunity to participate in and gain "rich life experiences" (which are unfortunately poorly defined). This is especially unfair to lower income and immigrant families.

For many first and second-generation children of immigrant families (like myself and many others), we are taught the importance of schooling and the importance of grades. Most of us are fed a steady diet of extra math classes, piano lessons, and language schools (stereotypical, but possibly true). Between these activities, there is not much time to engage in the community, volunteer for charities, or travel to exotic places.

Certainly, I don't see how I could have fit any more into my schedule, while meeting parental academic expectations of "90s or else". So, should students who are forced by family tradition and expectations (based largely on "immigrant" values) to succeed academically be punished for actually succeeding?

Moreover, let's forget racial discrimination for a moment, and discuss class discrimination. What if your parents were divorced, you had to take care of the household, and you had to hold down a part time job? Are these also "rich life experiences", or do they really mean rich when they say "rich"? Clearly, lower income families suffer from enough hardships already - why add another layer? What if I can't afford the opportunity cost of volunteering, or the actual cost of organized sports and competitions? What if I simply can't afford the time or spare the inconvenience of gaining said "rich life experiences"? Should I also be disadvantaged by these admission policies?

Conclusion

This has been an unusually long post, but let me conclude by restating my main points.

UBC's new admission policy, at best, seeks to justify enrolment of a more diverse student body based on arbitrarily defined "well-roundedness". At worst, it systematically institutionalizes implicit discrimination into the system.

It is difficult to escape the parallels between the perceived problem of "Asianness" at the university and the issues the new policy purportedly seeks to address.

It has been shown in the US, where many schools have adopted "holistic approaches", it has become increasingly difficult for Asians to gain admission on an equal footing as "non-Asian" students.

Finally, the problems the policy seeks to address are either non-existent or misguided: 1) high school grades do in fact correlate to academic success in university, 2) lack of life experiences prior to university does not indicate future failure, and 3) the policy institutionalizes inherent biases in society.

Read more at the Innovation Law Blog

It turns out that while there have been some increases in property tax revenue over the past decade, it has barely kept up with inflation. Conversely, the expenditure of the City has increased dramatically, especially during David Miller's term as mayor, to its current $9.2+ billion. The chart below, adjusted for inflation (2010 dollars), shows how much the operating budget of the City has increased, while property tax revenues have been essentially constant.

As the next chart shows, the property taxes collected by the City are not keeping up with the growth of the budget.

Source: City of Toronto budgets; Inflation data from StatsCan.

There certainly appears to be a "structural deficit", the question is: raise taxes, or cut services? (Why not both?)

It is time for you to let go of the past. It is time for real change. Your politics have proven to be outdated and ineffective for the 21st century's new challenges and demographics. Your ideas are stale, your politicians aging. Your plans are vague and your future uncertain.

The Conservatives have fought back from the brink of death by re-inventing their politics and strategies. Some might say their tactics are distasteful or even despicable, and we might never agree with their methods. But we cannot deny that they have been successful by playing on the politics of division, and espousing messages of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

The New Democrats had been written off as perpetual also-rans, and now they hold the keys to Stornoway. They managed to expand their core from a coalition of rural farmers and the urban labour movement into one full of youth and minorities, right into the heart of "Liberal Territory". They evolved to rise to the challenge of 21st century politics.

Yes, you are the party of Laurier, Mackenzie King, Pearson, and Trudeau. But the past will not help us now. The ability to look forward, to change, to adapt, to progress - these are the most Liberal of values - and yet the party is trapped in its own traditions and locked in a circle of nostalgia. The party elites (or what remains of them) still seem more bent on returning to power than on genuine change and new ideas.

The Party has failed to capture the modern dialectic tension between the Rich and the Average; between the New Wealth and the Old Money; between the public sector and the private sector; between the young and the old; between the New Canadians and the Old Establishment. Modern politics are being fought along these lines while the Liberal Party watches on the sidelines reminiscing about its role in nationalism, the constitution, and the powers of government.

Where the Conservatives and the New Democrats have picked up on these social cues and evolved with the rest of the country, the Liberals are perpetually stuck in the late-1990s. Chretien, Martin, Dion, Ignatieff, and Rae - these are all names of the Establishment from generations past. Not one of them was born after 1955. Where the others have found youth and vigour, the Liberal Party has returned time and again to the same old, same old.

Though I am a card-carrying member of the Liberal Party, I have heard more convincing pitches to join both the Left and the Right. As a student and an immigrant, the New Democrats seem far more welcoming and friendly. As an aspiring professional and a sometimes politically active citizen, the Conservatives seem far better organized and unified.

Why, in the midst of these past years of constant politicking have I not even seen one single Liberal Party event/rally/organization on my university campus, the largest in Canada? It is not as if my friends and peers are allergic to Liberal policies - that would be a different story. On the contrary, most people I know are more willing to be centrists than leftists or rightists. And yet, it seems the political bickering and indecisiveness at the top has trickled down to the bottom, leaving the Liberal youth without a voice.

Where the young Conservatives and New Democrats are vocal and passionate, the young Liberals are silent and disorganized. It is as if the youth - the future of our party - are afraid to admit their allegiances because of the perceived failures and corruptions of the party elite. In the process, our ideas and our policies have been lost in a constant struggle against a slipping reputation.

It is time to reinvigorate the youth, and bring on the new generation. It is time to pull the Party's collective head out of the sand and catch up to 2012 - or the future of the Liberal Party of Canada may soon cease to be.

TTC Historical Cash Fares
Note: Single zone fares listed from 1954-1973

Historical Canadian CPI

Sources:
Mike's Transit Stop
StatsCan

Licensed under CC by kelp1966

A lot of ink has been spilled this year about the cancellation, diminution, or otherwise politically correct modifications of Christmas celebrations at Canadian schools.

Reactions among students have been mixed, and some particularly outrageous comments have been making their rounds through the social networks, some leading to (probably well deserved) suspensions.

What seems lost in all the talk among parents, teachers, principals, and school board directors is what the kids really want.

I don't know how much things have changed, but when I was growing up attending Canadian elementary schools, I always looked forward to Christmas celebrations, with the trees and lights, the gift exchanges and the santa hats, and especially the Christmas carols.

Being a twelve-year-old, singing "O Christmas Tree" in front of a crowd of overanxious parents might have been temporarily embarrassing, but it was certainly fun - and a useful distraction from the usual boring stuff that happens in class.

I am not a Christian, and I don't "celebrate" Christmas in the sense that I do not go to church and I do not believe in the miracle of the birth of Jesus (that's what Christmas is supposed to be celebrating, right?). I have never been a Christian - I was born and raised an atheist (at best areligious) - and yet, I celebrate Christmas as a holiday and it bothers me not one bit.

All the talk about religious inclusion and diversity has obscured the fact that Christmas, for most people (especially kids), has never been about religion. Sure, the name might evoke religious metaphors, but Christmas itself is only about as religious as Santa Claus, reindeer, and Christmas trees. Christmas is as commercial and secular a holiday as any other - when is the last time you saw Christmas decorations in public actually celebrating the birth of Christ?

I celebrate Christmas as a joyful time of stress-free relaxation in the dead of winter; I celebrate it as a time to gather with friends and family, and to catch up with old acquaintances; I celebrate it as the end of exams (hurray!); and I celebrate it because it is a holiday for everyone in Canada. Everyone gets time off, no matter your religion (or lack thereof) - so why by picky about the details?

So let the kids be kids, and celebrate all the holidays they want - but don't take away Christmas from the kids just because the adults are wrestling among themselves.

I, for one, welcome our Christmas-y overlords - Santa Claus with his elves and reindeer, giant Christmas trees on streets and shopping centres,  candy canes, and bright lights - so Merry Christmas (in the secular sense) and a Happy New Year (now, is that also a secular holiday?)!

Ray was smart. He was hard working. He was kind and polite. Above all, he was a person who was passionate about the things he did.

Anyone who has ever met Ray will tell you that he was a likeable person; a genuine person; a person you knew you could trust. He was always a loyal friend.

Ray was a real positive force on all of our lives. I have known him for 11 years, and looking back at all my memories of Ray, I can’t remember a single time he wasn’t positive and optimistic. Thinking back on him really put a smile on my face – and I think that’s how Ray would have wanted it.

Ray’s passion and dedication to everything he did – his hobbies, his interests, his athletics, and his academics – that passion was what really defined him as a person.

Since I first met him in grade seven, I have been in nearly every single one of his classes. I’ve shared at least one class with him in every year, from middle school to high school through even the first two years of university.

All this time, I have never once seen him do anything that wasn’t out of love or passion. For Ray, there was only ever one way to do things – that was to give it 110% of his effort.

Ray was the kind of dedicated person who never took “no” for an answer, and if you ever told him that he couldn’t do something, he would try twice as hard to do it – not out of spite so he can later say “I told you so,” but because he genuinely believed in constantly challenging himself to improve as a person.

Once, in grade eight, when we were still kids, somebody once teased him for being chubby. Being a late bloomer, he still had some baby fat. He didn’t retort back with an insult – he never did things like that. In response, he just challenged himself. He spent two weeks over the summer running up and down the stairs of his house to get fit. That was the kind of person he was.

Ray and I were great friends. But we were also great rivals. We were rivals in everything: in math, music, and athletics. He wrote in my grade 12 yearbook, “I would like to thank you for all the help that you’ve given me, for all the times when we competed against each other, continually setting the bar higher and higher ... it’s been an inspirational experience having you in my classes.”

I would say the exact same thing about Ray. We drove each other to do better things – and we had great fun doing it.

The first class on the first day of high school was grade nine math. Ray and I sat together, because we didn’t know anybody else. The first thing we were given was an exercise in speed math – a pop quiz of sorts. As soon as we got it, we just looked at each other, and without saying anything else, just said, “Go!”

We just knew we had to race each other to the end – and we furiously wrote down answers in the silent classroom. Just a few minutes later, Ray slammed down his pencil and yelled “I’m done!”

The rest of the class just stared at us like we were crazy.

That moment really defined both our friendship and rivalry.

It was no different in music. We both played the trumpet. One day in music class, he showed up with bright red swollen lips. When he sat down beside me, I asked him what that was all about. He told me he spent 8 hours the night before, practising, because he had heard me play some high notes, and said he could do better.

I admired him for that. I don’t think I ever told him that – but that’s what I thought, all the time. I wish I had his work ethic.

In grade 12, we played together on the high school lacrosse team. By then, he was one of the fittest people I knew, because he would regularly bike the 30 or 40 minutes it took to get to school rather than take the bus. Sometimes he would even run that distance when he felt like it (even with a trumpet strapped to his back). That distance was 10 km in each direction.

I was never the greatest at lacrosse, but Ray and I started at roughly the same level at the beginning of the season. By the end, Ray was a starter, while I sat on the bench. I recall vividly, during a game, our coach said to us on the sidelines – “You see Ray? You see the way he’s playing? He’s playing now because I know how hard he’s worked – I see him practising every single day behind the school, even when nobody else was around. You should all follow his example.”

Those words really stuck with me. That’s who Ray was.

Even the university experience and the difficult Engineering Science program didn’t change Ray one bit.

Ray was never afraid to speak up about his ideas, and his ideas were always well considered.

He became something of a legend in our EngSci class because he once argued with our Calculus Professor about the “true nature of infinity”, proposing his own theories all during a lecture. Some jokers in our class gave him the nickname “infinity Ray”, and that’s how he came to be known in first year when none of us knew each other very well. But Ray was never fazed by this – he always spoke up about the things he believed in.

He took his competitive streak to university, too. In first year, he told me: “Kevin, I’ve decided – I’m going to become the best foosball player in EngSci.” I laughed at him because I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I should have known better, as many of my EngSci classmates will agree. He practised non-stop until he actually did what he set out to do. He taught me a few tricks along the way, too. He was competitive, but he was always willing to help and teach.

My enduring image of Ray is that he was always deep in thought. Maybe it was about his latest theory, or maybe a new strategy for his favourite game. He was always full of thought, and it was always interesting to find out his latest thoughts and to unravel his latest ideas.

I will never forget the passion and enthusiasm Ray exuded. He could have achieved anything he set his mind to.

That’s the memory I want to leave you with. Ray was taken from this world at far too young an age. In his passing, we might begin to reflect upon ourselves and think about our own mortality. We might ask ourselves what we’ve done, and what we’ve accomplished.

But none of those things are important.

Life is too short to worry about accomplishments and achievements. We should all follow Ray’s example – in everything we do, we should put our hearts into it, and find the things we are truly passionate about. We should never waste a moment of our precious lives – I know Ray never did.

Rest in peace, my friend.

"The Tool", for those unacquainted, is a 60" long triple-chromed pipe wrench made by the Ridge Tool Company (known for its Ridgid brand of hand tools and power tools). This particular tool is a 42-year-old specimen that now serves as the mascot of the University of Waterloo Engineering Society.

Cannon on top of The 'Ridgid' Tool

Forged in Elyria, Ohio, the $350 Tool was donated to the then cash-strapped UWaterloo in 1967 by the Ridge Tool Company on two conditions: that it be named "The Ridgid Tool" and that it be kept in its original Ridgid orange and black colours. Waterloo, of course, took these to heart - and promptly dipped the whole thing in a bath of chrome just hours after its reception. The "Ridgid" brand name was dropped shortly thereafter.

Like the Cannon, the Tool is protected by a group of mostly anonymous students aptly named the Tool Bearers. On its outings, each end of the Tool is chained to a Tool Bearer, and is accompanied by a guard of approximately five Bearers. The Tool Bearers wear a uniform of gold and black coveralls, adorned with the word "Engineering" along the left leg, as well as a black hard hat, sunglasses, and a gold bandanna covering their faces.

Curious readers might at this point wonder: why did they choose a pipe wrench? Of all the wonderful things that Engineers can come across, like t-squares, slide rules, bridges, and cannons, why choose as your symbol of representation a giant pipe wrench? This particular story may be lost in the annals of history. What is known, however, is that Waterloo's EngSoc had considered choosing between a sword and a wrench. They eventually settled on the idea of a wrench to accompany their self-designated title of "Plummers". Despite the odd choice of a symbol, Waterloo students embraced it with glee, adopting their now widespread "Plummers and proud of it" attitude.

Naturally, the Tool eventually became subject to the intense rivalry between the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto. In January of 1982, a group of our very own Engineers successfully intercepted the motorcade carrying the Tool and its lead Tool Bearer, returning from the Welcome Back Stag. The unexpected traffic stop resulted in the Tool being liberated by our Engineers, who easily escaped from the surprised Tool Bearers.

'BFC' posing with The Tool after liberating it from Waterloo

Having gained possession of the Tool, our predecessors had their fun. They paraded the Tool around mockingly (and who can resist mocking an oversized pipe wrench?), put it up on display, tried fixing some real pipes (and found it lacking in this respect) and had its pictures taken with the Mighty Skule Cannon. Eventually, they grew tired of the Tool and its inability to impress. It produced no kabooms, and inspired no awe. Finally, after over two months of captivity, the Tool was released and returned to Waterloo - but not without one last touch.

When the Waterloo students found the Tool at their school one morning, they were shocked to find it encased in a 45-gallon drum of concrete. University of Toronto had the last laugh, successfully planting "The Tool in the Stone" at Waterloo. Yet there was more - the Tool was returned only hours before their Iron Ring Ceremony (when the graduating engineers get a chance to touch the Tool). The Tool Bearers were forced, along with a handful of Frosh, to chisel and sledgehammer away at the concrete until they managed to free the Tool from its confines. It was only then that they realized "U of T" had been engraved on the shaft. To cover up our signature, the Tool received its second coat of chrome shortly after this incident.

The chain worn by the Cannon's Chief Attiliator comes from the chain that once guarded Waterloo's Tool in 1982

The Tool is now guarded much more closely, having been traumatized from the escapades of 1982. It makes its appearance only at a handful of important events every year (orientation, iron ring parties, and semi-formals) - unlike the Cannon, which can be found unleashing its Earth Shattering Kaboom all across campus and Toronto almost weekly.

The Tool finally marked its young 40th birthday in June of 2007, and sported its third coat of chrome. Its limited history and tradition will require much more to catch up to the Might Skule Cannon - twice as old and storied as the Tool. But with a pipe wrench for a mascot, one must wonder - will they ever be able to catch up?

Timeline of The (Ridgid) Tool