UPDATED: Students Against Cuts NB to rally before budget day

With a lacklustre community consultation, a survey involving leading questions and unclear wording, New Brunswick Liberal Premier Susan Holt is moving towards a drastic $35-$50 million cut to the post-secondary education budget while simultaneously providing $45 million in tariff relief funds to Irving Paper Ltd. In response, university students are organizing through direct action.

The government’s justification for this major funding allocation to Irving Paper Ltd. was to protect an estimated 183 jobs and $20.6 million in annual payroll. With universities and colleges being on the chopping block, it is hypocritical to “protect” job opportunities that have and will continue to become increasingly difficult for youth to access.

New Brunswick’s job market and economic prospects increasingly rely on current students, and on students remaining in the province post-graduation. With a wave of 105,000 workers retiring over the next decade, reducing funding to universities and colleges is a disinvestment in the workforce. Making education less accessible during the cost-of-living crisis in a province that historically has held records for high poverty rates will do further damage to the provincial budget and economy.

Due to the threat of slashed post-secondary funding, students across the province are uniting and mobilizing.

Students from St. Thomas University (STU), Mount Allison University, Université de Moncton, the University of New Brunswick (UNB) and the New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) are mobilizing, speaking out, and taking direct action. For example, thousands have signed the petition, “NO cuts to post-secondary education in New Brunswick.”

Last month, a two-page list of ideas of how to cut funding to post-secondary education penned by Dan Mills, deputy minister of post-secondary education, included privatizing Mount Allison University and merging STU and UNB. There was immediate backlash and Holt was forced to say those options are off the table.

In 2025, Maclean’s ranked Mount Allision as the top undergraduate university in the country. STU is an accessible, primarily undergraduate liberal arts university providing a unique experience for students, and UNB was recently ranked by Times magazine as the 14th best in the country, above Western, Queens, and University of Ottawa.

Still on the table are proposals to decrease grants by 10 per cent and implement a tuition cap.

Jean Sauvageau, president of the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations, told CBC said the proposed cuts would be “devastating” to the province’s universities, and could include reducing the number of courses offered and services provided.

The proposed slashing of post-secondary education funding was not in the Holt Liberals’ platform. Their platform on post-secondary education states: “Post-secondary students are not immune to the cost-of-living crisis. In many cases, their income and student loans are not designed to keep up with rising rents, grocery prices, and other expenses.”

Students Against Cuts NB planning multiple protests

Students from across New Brunswick are organizing multiple protests. The March 12 rally at the New Brunswick Legislature in Fredericton has been cancelled due to weather conditions.

Supporters are encouraged to join the next demonstration on March 17 at the New Brunswick Legislature in Fredericton where New Brunswick will tabled its budget. Stay tuned for more information on demonstrations being planned that day. Mount Allison Student Union is providing transportation to Fredericton on March 17.

Join the Students Against Cuts NB. There is power in numbers, solidarity and allyship are crucial in times of crisis, such as this one, amid looming threats of funding cuts.

Contact your MLA, Premier Susan Holt and Minister of Post-Secondary Education Jean-Claude D’Amours. There is still time to remind them that New Brunswick youth deserve better. Students deserve more than false promises.

Austerity and disinvestment in New Brunswick’s youth will have a domino effect. Budget cuts now will have long-term impacts, adding additional strain on public institutions and, in turn, require more public investment.

As a New Brunswicker, a former student of Mount Allison, and a current UNB graduate student housing researcher, I stayed in New Brunswick for the opportunities offered by the province’s educational institutions. The sociology departments at Mount Allison and UNB foster rich learning environments for students, and neither should become even more unaffordable.

New Brunswick has community, a strong non-profit sector, an environment which can foster education, a future for youth, and a potential for economic growth. Stripping away investments from universities and colleges will erode the opportunities and what is special about this province.

This article was updated on March 10 at 5:06 p.m. to include information on the cancellation of the March 12 rally and details about upcoming demonstrations on March 17.

Alison M. Parrell is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick.