STU

Premier Susan Holt in her recent State of the Province Address hinted her government would be looking at some ‘difficult but necessary’ budget decisions, as the province is currently in a deficit.

Following the circulation of a leaked government document containing ideas that target a post-secondary budget reduction of $35 to $50 million, New Brunswick universities and their communities have been faced with the possibility of cuts to post-secondary funding.

President and Vice-Chancellor of St. Thomas University Dr. Nauman Farooqi addressed STU faculty, students, and alumni in an email sent on the evening of Feb. 25.

The email explained that Premier Holt called Farooqi regarding ideas from the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training, and Labour on the future of the province’s post-secondary sector.

Premier Holt assured Dr. Farooqi that the provincial government has no plans to close or merge St. Thomas University – despite suggestions of such in the leaked document – but Farooqi says the impending fiscal challenges for post-secondary institutions remain.

“Developments over (the last) two weeks have been concerning and led to great uncertainty. I trust that you find the Premier’s message to our community reassuring,” Farooqi wrote.

Shaun Narine has been a political science professor at St. Thomas University for 24 years. He says the potential cuts were brought to the whole post-secondary sector very suddenly.

“One thing that the province keeps emphasizing is that ‘no decisions have been made’ and they are putting out these ideas, they want to see how universities react, they want to see what kind of feedback they get, what kind of counterproposals they get,” said Narine. “On the other hand, the [provincial] budget is coming in on March 17, and this whole thing was dropped on universities – the whole post-secondary sector – at the most a couple of weeks ago, which suggests that maybe a lot of decisions have been made.”

Narine says cutting 10 to 15 percent out of the budgets for the post-secondary sector would be shortsighted and devastating to universities like St. Thomas.

“It would destroy us in all likelihood or make it very difficult to run a credible university with credible programs.”

Creating this kind of uncertainty for the entire post-secondary sector would make it difficult for students to commit to higher education in New Brunswick, according to Narine.

Narine first arrived to New Brunswick in 2002. At the time, he noticed the province’s issue with outmigration due to people leaving for better job opportunities in other parts of Canada. Over the years he has been in New Brunswick, Narine has begun to notice a reversal in outmigration thanks to opportunities the province offers, one of which is the post-secondary sector.

“As it is, the entire post-secondary sector across Canada was being heavily hit by the federal government’s decision to make it much more difficult for international students to come in. Now, in New Brunswick, to be hit by this possibility of having the sector gutted by the Holt government, would be extremely harmful.”

“If you are going to hack out the post-secondary sector, you are actually doubling down on a situation where your population is not nearly as educated as it needs to be to be competitive in an international environment,” said Professor Narine. “People power, the knowledge base of your society, is what makes your economy function. You don’t build for the future by gutting your post-secondary institutions.”

The issue of a lack transparency is also a concern for many, including Narine, who thinks it displays a lack of confidence in the government’s plan.

“You are left with the suspicion that the reason the government is doing this with what appears to be extreme speed is because they want to do something that is going to be very unpopular as quickly as possible – a kind of fait accompli (accomplished fact) – and push it through before opposition can organize,” said Narine.

He says none of the recent occurrences between post-secondary institutions and the provincial government inspire faith and trust in what might be occurring.

“There are not a lot of examples of other industries in New Brunswick that have a pipeline to new people. This is something that I think the provincial government is at risk of fundamentally undermining,” concluded Narine.