A fresh, pragmatic approach requires a renewed focus on the issues that matter most to faculty and an earnest desire to pursue innovative policy solutions. By taking a pragmatic approach, I will collaborate with dedicated colleagues who volunteer to work with UTFA to make a difference and find creative solutions to the most difficult problems. I look forward to working with faculty with differing political views as well as those who support my campaign.​

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On this page, you can read my ideas about:

Housing prices in the GTA continue to rise, imperiling our university's ability to attract or maintain talent, especially ones with families. UTFA members need for more assistance to buy homes, as well as to underwrite cost of monthly living.
All of us are affected by inflation, but our benefits package should reflect an awareness that renters in the GTA and those paying a large proportion of their salaries towards mortgages are much more affected than senior colleagues who bought homes near campus decades ago.

I will advocate for the university to initiate monthly rent and mortgage subsidies for faculty and librarians who earn less than $150,000, but pay mortgages or rent that exceed 40% of their after-tax income.

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U of T needs more faculty housing, especially units that can house a family. UTFA should begin conversations with the administration to explore building homes on land near the suburban campuses. This should have been part of the negotiations while Bill 124 capped benefits and pensions since additional units of faculty housing would not have been limited by Bill 124. A missed opportunity that I will rectify as president.

The child care benefit subsidy has been frozen since 2007 even though child care costs have soared.

• Increase subsidy to $1.5 million and raise value of daily subsidy.

• Increase eligibility, recognizing that especially if the subsidy is no more than $20 a day, that such payments will help those families who have a parent performing full- or part-time child care themselves, or treat grandparents to a double-double at Tim's on their way to the indoor playground, or deliver a warm pizza when everyone is home sick. This is easily solved by guaranteeing a minimum subside to each family based on the age of the child.

• Enable parents to apply the subsidy to afterschool child care, helping parents be productive for the full work day.

• Reduce administrative burden on parents.

Every year, UTFA members receive money from the university as a professional expense reimbursement allowance (PERA).

Although many UTFA members do not realize it, when I represented six departments on UTFA Council, I learned that there was much variance in how different departments allows members to access these monies. Some departments restrict the funds to conference travel and professional group membership fees, but others allow for purchases of tablets & phones. UTFA should ask chairs to be less restrictive and allow our members to be treated like adults in determining how to best spend these funds.

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This is especially true for families with children. Many conferences now offer childcare, but most of us are unable to charge the cost of a child's plane ticket to either PERA or external grant agencies.
 

Responsible Investing (RI) is widely implemented in Ontario’s jointly sponsored pension plans.  Fortunately, the UPP has made clear that responsible investing and the fiduciary responsibility to provide secure pensions are not incompatible, and have pursued decarbonization targets for two years.

I believe that we can use the size of the UPP for leverage on the social and governance aspects in the enviromental, social and governance strategies (ESG) of responsible investing.

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I recognize, though, that UTFA's first responsibility must be towards ensuring that the UPP provides for the pensions of today's retirees as well as future retirements. I cringe every time a colleague jokes that we can afford to live in the GTA, but not to retire in the GTA. Our pension committee needs to have individuals with the time, interest and knowledge to carefully assess the impact of social responsible investments on their intended targets and our capital resources. 

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I worry when UTFA announces that Council announces that they have voted "to call on the UPP to implement an immediate screen on any new investments in oil and gas and a rapid timeline  for complete divestment from the oil and gas industry." This could result in dramatic changes to our investment strategy, so I was alarmed when I realized that this motion originated with a sub-committee of the membership committee, not the pension committee, and the motion was not part of the agenda materials shared with Council members before the meeting. 

I hear from many faculty members who run grant-funded laboratories that there is a perception that UTFA does not do much for them. For example, provincial and federal governments impose indirect restrictions on the number of international graduate students. Several faculty told me that this has a significant impact on their research capacities, yet UTFA and our provincial and federal partners, OCUFA and CAUT,  have not lobbied for policy changes that would benefit such a large number of our members.  

Although paying their graduate students liveable wages is a priority, I heard from several faculty that when the graduate students successfully negotiated increases in their minimum stipends, the university simply passed on the extra costs to these faculty. UTFA did not negotiate on their behalf for any cost sharing. As President, I will ensure that UTFA advocates for these faculty with Simcoe Hall and will work to align our public advocacy, and those of OCUFA and CAUT, to better represent the priorities of our members. Without as much representation on UTFA Council or the Executive than some other faculties, it is important that the UTFA leadership pursue occasional meetings with these faculty to ensure that the association is attentive to their concerns.

Rebuild UTFA's In-House Legal Team

Most of UTFA’s work is carried out by attorneys: every member who has an issue with PTR, challenges an adverse tenure decision, or has a dispute with their chair over their workload can meet with an attorney for the association. Negotiations and association grievances also draw on the talents and hard work of UTFA’s legal team. Much of this work requires a very specialized knowledge: UTFA’s Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the administration, the contracts signed by our membership, other university policy statements, and the precedents established from similar, previous cases. When we hire attorneys who have never worked for UTFA, the learning curve can be quite steep. Fortunately, UTFA enjoyed the services of several diligent attorneys who were smart, competent and enjoyed their work with our members. Two worked with UTFA for over a dozen years. Two others for more than five years.

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All of our experienced attorneys left in the past two years. 

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No new hire remained for even a full year on the job. At least seven attorneys plus one articling student (whom we might have retained) departed UTFA between May of 2022 and June of 2023.

After several months of no attorneys on staff, a new General Counsel was hired at the end of August 2023. He departed at the start of January, 2024. Today there is no General Counsel, only a "Senior Legal Counsel" who started in January. The result is that UTFA's legal team has lost all of its institutional memory. No staff attorney remembers what happened to a PTR complaint last summer, or how a tenure denial case was resolved last year. If someone calls UTFA with a complaint, no staff attorney will be able to recall a similar case from 2022 and advise our member as to what the likely outcome of such a complaint will be.

Even with a large, competent legal staff, much work is handled by an outside firm, mainly Goldblatt Partners. Fortunately, our outside attorneys are well-regarded employment lawyers, but their services are expensive.  UTFA spent $1,052,285 on legal costs in 2022-2023, 21% of the association's annual expenses, a 37% increase from the $768,772 UTFA spent in 2021-2022. Without any, or many, staff attorneys, UTFA must rely even more on outside attorneys. Executives need to let our members know how this exodus is affecting us. 

Council must be apprised and allowed to discuss how principal agent issues might arise when so much legal assistance must be provided from one outside law firm. Other faculty associations first refer complaints to an in-house attorney who advises the leadership as to whether the member has a viable complaint that should be backed by the association with benefits that would justify the expense. UTFA has lost much of that capability. External attorneys have a different incentive structure since additional case-work could lead to more billable hours.

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My first phone call as President will be to the attorneys we lost to see if anyone will bring their knowledge back to our organization.

PTR & Other Benefits

Ontario's government enacted Bill 124 in 2019, and since then it has capped UTFA members' total compensation, including ATB (across the board) and benefits increases at 1% a year. Merit increases, like PTR, and benefits that do not go directly to the employee were not affected.

UTFA members' PTR pay for 2019-20 was affected by the pandemic and by a dispute between UTFA and the administration over the principle of whether or not the university was required to pay us PTR after the existing agreement expired. UTFA lost this arbitration decision. 

An arbitrator gave faculty and librarians an across-the-board raise to help us keep up with inflation. Professors making over $200,000 a year received more money than librarians making $83,000.  The high cost of living in the GTA means UTFA must be focused on ensuring that high performing members are justly rewarded. I will fight for a fair PTR process that rewards performance in research, teaching and service and insist that the award process is equitable in every department and unit. 

Like other unions and associations, UTFA owes it members a duty of fair representation. Furthermore, the Ontario Human Rights Code and UTFA's Memorandum of Agreement with the university administration require that UTFA consider all member concerns, regardless  of their political views, group identity, ethnicity, or national origin. As CAUT writes, "The duty of fair representation requires the union and its officers to always take a reasonable and objective view of a members’ concern, explore the relevant facts, and arrive at a thoughtful judgment about what to do."

We are a large and diverse organization that must always respect differences and be mindful that we will not always get along. This diversity can be celebrated and respected. As a result, UTFA needs a working harassment and non-discrimination policy. Having one is required by law, and would likely have helped UTFA and the incumbent president avoid one or both of the Ontario Human Rights Complaints they face. Academic freedom and free expression should never be an excuse for the association to do nothing about contentious and harassing emails (see PDF file from the OHRT that opens after being downloaded), nor should political loyalty outweigh a responsibility to do what is right to ensure that UTFA is inclusive of everyone.

I pledge to act this way as president.

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