By Alex Consiglio

Humber President John Davies suggests the federal opposition parties are merely playing politics in challenging the Harper government to roll back corporate tax breaks and spend more money in areas such as education.

“That’s a debate that has more of a political content to it than it does a practical outcome in terms of funding at the college level,” Davies said.

Last week, the NDP and Bloc Quebecois backed a non-binding Liberal motion to increase the corporate tax rate to 18 per cent from 16.5 per cent and cancel a further reduction to 15 per cent planned for next year.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said the action would save $6 billion, some of which would be spent on post-secondary education if his party took power in the next election.

“I think that’s a political positioning piece,” said Davies.

Etobicoke North Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan backed her leader’s position, adding that more money should be spent on research grants for post-secondary schools.

“I’ve been meeting graduate students who are leaving Canada because they can’t get funding here,” said Duncan. “We absolutely need more investment in research and our students.”

But Davies noted the Harper government increased funding of Polytechnics Canada – an organization of nine research-intensive colleges, including Humber – by nearly $10 million from 2008 to 2010.

“I think we’re doing a good job at the amount we have in (federal) research grants,” he said.

Greg Narbey, a political science professor at Humber, scoffed at the Liberals latest promises, saying the Opposition is trying to pit ordinary Canadians against big business.

“I think they’re saying it, in part, to get elected,” he said, noting there are probably more votes from “families with kids in post-secondary education than there are from shareholders in large corporations.”

Still, he said, voters probably won’t buy the notion that a Liberal government would earmark $6 billion for education.

“It’s not going to go into a dedicated post-secondary fund, it’s probably going to go into general government revenues – and God knows how it gets allocated then.”