Daily Bulletin, Thursday, October 6, 1994 AXWORTHY DID IT: The federal human resources minister, Lloyd Axworthy, released his "discussion paper" on social programs yesterday, and it does indeed project big changes for the way universities in Canada are financed. By 1997, the federal government would eliminate cash transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education -- reducing by around 30 per cent the amount of money available to Ontario universities through government grants. Some of the funding would be redirected into an "income-contingent repayable" loan plan for students. The discussion paper doesn't go into detail about the effect of this change on tuition fees, but leaked reports say the government thinks fees would roughly double over the next three years. No doubt that would give students (and their parents) a much greater weight as customers of universities. But a five-thousand-dollar-a-year tuition fee looks pretty intimidating. "Students are outraged," says Rick Martin, who heads the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. The House of Commons should be pretty lively today, with discussion of all aspects of the Axworthy paper: not just university funding but unemployment insurance, welfare and other social programs are affected. After two days of talk in Parliament, nationwide hearings are planned. The text of the discussion paper, "Improving Social Security in Canada", is available electronically. A pointer to it can be found on UWinfo under the Daily Bulletin heading and "Documents of Current Interest" subheading. LIBRARY COMMITTEE: The UW senate library committee is meeting this morning (the meeting started at 9 in Needles Hall 3004), and on the agenda is a pretty fundamental question: whether the committee needs to exist. It's unnecessary, in the view of a subcommittee that worked last spring to review the functioning of the senate and its committees. "There are individual committees for each of the three libraries which provide for faculty-library liaison in a more useful way," it suggested. ABOUT DISCRIMINATION: Another open meeting is being held today by the ad hoc committee on harassment and discrimination. Today's gathering, from 12:30 to 2 in Arts Lecture room 113, is slanted particularly for staff. The committee is reviewing the whole range of policies, procedures and committees that deal with discrimination, ethics, harassment and such. WHAT'S FOR LUNCH? Could be hamburgers, cheeseburgers and sausages barbecued in the engineering quadrangle. The every-Thursday barbecue (11:30 to 2:00) is a fund-raiser for the concrete toboggan team of engineering students. TEACHER TRAINING: Visitors from several Ontario faculties of education are coming to UW next week to talk to potential future teachers. In yesterday's Gazette, we said on the front page that the full schedule was to be found in the Notices column -- and there it wasn't. (It did appear in the previous Gazette, September 28.) The career resource centre in Needles Hall is the place to go for full details, but briefly: October 12 (next Wednesday): Lakehead University, University of Toronto, Nipissing University. ' October 13 (Thursday): Brock University, York University, University of Western Ontario, University of Windsor, Queen's University. $150,000 NEEDED: United Way pledge forms have been distributed across campus, as the campaign to raise $150,00 from faculty, staff and graduate students begins. There are 5,918 potential donors, says a brochure that went out with the pledge forms. Last year, 1,020 of them gave something to the United Way, raising a total of $144,570. Chris Redmond Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo 888-4567 ext. 3004 credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca