The Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia 1981-90

It may be uninspiring to begin a sketch of the UBC Law Faculty since 1981 by talking about money, but the Faculty's financial circumstances during this period are the key to much of what follows. For about five years from 1982, the provincial government's fiscal watchword was "restraint", which so far as the universities were concerned meant, in the early years, actually cutting operating grants and, later on, keeping a fairly tight lid on them. UBC's budget fell in absolute terms for three successive years, and continued to slip in real terms for another year or two. The Law Faculty did not escape the general retrenchment, but since, as with any law school, there was little to cut except for faculty positions (one or two secretarial positions went by the boards fairly early on) the axe was wielded a little less forcefully here than in some other parts of the campus.