I will never forget a story told to me by one of my students, a middle aged woman who had been married to a farmer for many years. They lived in rural Alberta.
She needed to buy a new car so she went to the nearest town and discussed her needs with the salesman at the car dealership. When she came home, she discussed her options and the prices with her husband.
Her husband’s reaction was, “oh, that can’t be right. I’ll go talk to Fred myself.”
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The next day the husband talked to the same salesman at the same dealership and obtained a price $6,000 less than his wife had obtained the day before. His wife was furious. She had been deceived. The process was neither fair nor transparent and all because of her gender.
Of course, gender is not the only reason a business transaction might be unfair. However, one has to wonder why any transaction would not be transparent except to hide some aspect of unfairness.
In Great Britain people are engaging in civil disobedience because education and welfare payments are being cut back. One of the parties in the governing coalition campaigned on the promise this would never happen. They were not transparent in their dealings and people complain the result is unfair.
In British Columbia, a protest movement forced the legislature to hold a vote on the newly implemented Harmonized Sales Tax. Why do people hate the tax so much? Part of the anger is fuelled by the reality that the governing party campaigned on a promise not to raise taxes.
Then, once elected, they brought in the HST, which increased sales taxes on some items from five to 12 percent. This happened in the middle of a recession when most businesses had concluded they couldn’t increase prices by an equivalent amount. It wasn’t transparent and people conclude it’s not fair.
Relationships on university campuses across Canada are becoming increasingly strained. The long term pressure is a lack of funding to match increasing enrollments.
Faced with that pressure, many universities have engaged in behaviours that are neither fair nor transparent.
For example, the underfunding of students has reached such a critical level that more than 90 percent of Canadian universities now have food banks on campus. The University of Alberta has had one since 1991. Even the University of Lethbridge has one.
Hundreds of thousands of students rely on student loans to pay their tuition. The governments transmit these funds to students through the universities who charge the students an administrative fee in turn.
I know of one regional Canadian university that budgets almost a quarter of a million dollars annually to be received from these fees.
Why should the poorest students subsidize universities with borrowed money? These are the ones relying on food banks to eat. This practice is neither transparent nor fair.
If we want to build a moral economy, we can start with simple requirements in our everyday transactions. Whether as a seller or a buyer, a worker or a manager, let’s start with a commitment to fairness and transparency.
Christopher Lind is executive director of the Sorrento Centre in British Columbia.
