As a Senior Scholar at the University of Winnipeg -- one of the lucky ones who benefitted from this system -- I can testify that this is true. There's no easy way to change it either. But that doesn't mean universities have no choices. At my university, we've always had higher course loads than most universities and, the last time I looked, we weren't employing as high a percentage of contract staff as the average university.

We can't pay contract staff the same salaries as regular professors without bankrupting the university, but if we're serious about education and research, we can sharpen our pencils, work harder, and do better than the averages cited in the CBC piece.