November 26, 2025

As students from across the country gathered in Halifax for the 2025 Canadian Universities Debating Championships, CBC interviewed several attendees about the value of learning how to communicate in polarized times. Tournament tabulations officer Meghan Runge, who is also a student at Dalhousie University, explained that speaking to others civilly while also conveying important information is key for young people, and that it is important to listen and be empathetic to others’ point of view. “Like when you’re playing Ping-Pong, […] you don’t just whack the balls across the table. You’re going back and forth,” she said. University of New Brunswick student Nathaniel Hawkes concluded that debate also teaches young people when not to debate.

Several leaders have recently highlighted the important connections between Canadian PSE and the AI sector. In a recent interview with University Affairs, Government of Canada Minister of AI and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon asserted that postsecondary education must be involved in the strategy and development of AI “to make sure that AI is a tool used to benefit everyone.” He points out that “our academic and frontier research created AI,” but asserts that Canada will need to continue to invest and retain research talent to maintain its leadership position. Ontario Tech University President Steven Murphy echoed these comments in a recent article, in which he emphasized the importance of developing “AI for good” by aligning technological progress with purpose.

Niagara College has celebrated the official opening of its Academic Upgrading – Hamilton Campus. At this site, adult learners will have the opportunity to complete their high school equivalency, upgrade their skills, or complete courses such as English or mathematics. Courses will be offered free of charge to prepare students for postsecondary studies or apprenticeships. “This new location reinforces our dedication to accessible, inclusive education, responds to the region’s growing demand, and builds on our history of helping learners successfully transition into postsecondary studies,” said Niagara Academic and Liberal Studies Division Dean David Atherton. The centre received $757K in provincial funding to fill the gap left by the closure of a similar program earlier this year.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Bond University (Australia) have created a formal pathway that will enable KPU students to continue their education at Bond, where they will work toward a Juris Doctor degree. The formalization of the pathway was prompted by the fact that many KPU alumni were going on to complete their legal studies at Bond. KPU Melville School of Business Dean pro tem Alia Somji explained that “by combining KPU’s strengths of hands-on learning and career-focused training with Bond’s expertise in legal education, we can provide our learners with the educational foundation required to build a career in law.” Bond offers students four Canadian law classes to prepare them for Canadian examinations.

McMaster University and Halton Healthcare have renewed an educational partnership that provides McMaster learners with health professional education at Halton Healthcare’s hospitals and clinics. The agreement expands Halton Healthcare’s educational footprint. Through this renewed partnership, learners from McMaster’s medical, physician assistant, nursing, and other health professional programs will continue to be hosted by the Halton Healthcare Clinical Education Campus and several clinics in the GTA. McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences Dean and VP Paul O’Byrne said that the agreement enhances training with hands-on experiences and strengthens the region’s healthcare system.

In a recent article for Inside Higher Ed, Patrick Jack discusses the changing world of internationalization and suggests that the concept of the “big four” recruitment destinations—Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US—is becoming outdated. Jack points to the findings of a recent survey—summarized by Johanna Alonso of Inside Higher Ed—that demonstrates a significant decline in international enrolment at many institutions in Canada, as well as in the US and UK. Several members of the sector commented that global demand for international education is being redistributed to other countries rather than shrinking. “Global student mobility is becoming far more distributed, as students seek value, safety, poststudy opportunities, and predictability,” commented Vincenzo Raimo (University of Reading).

Communities in the Northwest Territories are feeling the impact of the 2017 suspension of the territory’s only teacher training program, according to a recent article by CBC. Joni Tsatchia—one of the last graduates of the program at Aurora College—told CBC that the program allowed her to train and work in her own community. “I wasn’t too far to travel back [home] during the holidays. And the majority of my instructors were Indigenous,” she said. South Slave Divisional Education Council Superintendent Souhail Soujah explained that a recent survey of Indigenous staff found that Indigenous representation among the teaching staff was “severely lacking,” and that the return of a teacher education program based in the North would be “extremely helpful.”

In a recent article for Toronto Today, University of Toronto faculty and students comment on how AI usage is changing teaching at the institution. Faculty members such as André Cire, Karen Reid, and Rahul Krishnan shared how AI usage has changed the way that students write, decreased their interactions with one another, and affected their performance on in-person exams. Several faculty members shared how they have adapted their assessments to combat AI overusage or abuse: Cire shared that he has found success in bringing work-integrated learning in the form of case studies into the classroom, while U of T Professor Bliss Cua Lim shared that she is designing assignments that contain reflections or interviews with relatives.

Bishop’s University’s football program will be transitioning back to the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) after competing in Atlantic University Sport (AUS) for the past eight seasons. This change was made in response to the additional travel costs associated with being part of AUS. The football program will begin competing in RSEQ again in the 2026 season. “This move is the next step in our program’s storied history that dates back to the 1800s,” said Bishop’s Principal Sebastien Lebel-Grenier. “We are happy to be returning to the RSEQ and offering our student-athletes the opportunity to compete with other Québec football programs.”

In a recent editorial, Zabeen Hirji (Royal Bank of Canada), Inez Jabalpurwala (Public Policy Forum), and Pari Johnston (Colleges and Institutes Canada) assert that Canada needs more skilled workers to fulfil its nation-building goals. Hirji, Jabalpurwala, and Johnston point to the many major projects that the country plans to embark on. They assert that Canada will need “big talent”—developed through a visible and viable postsecondary education system, incentives for businesses, and/or sector-specific centres of excellence—and a rare level of policy-making consensus to achieve these project goals. “Canada has reignited its ambition to get the economy moving,” they assert. “It must be paired with the right kinds of investment in talent and reskilling and upskilling to drive productivity.”