Resist United Conservative Party Budget Attacks on Post-Secondary Education

– Dougal MacDonald –

Alberta’s ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) announced its first budget on October 24, claiming it will “tackle out of control spending,” “take care of the most vulnerable,” and “put Albertans back to work.” The budget includes damaging cuts to post-secondary education instead of increased investments, decreasing the total budget from $5.4 billion to $5.1 billion for 2019-20, and predicting a further six per cent cut down to $4.8 billion in 2022-23.

Individual post-secondary institutions will also have their operating grants cut by up to 7.9 per cent, with specific amounts based on each institution’s “financial capacity.” To give one example, the University of Alberta’s Campus Alberta grant will be cut $44 million (6.9 per cent) in this 2019-20 fiscal year. The University of Alberta Infrastructure Maintenance Program (IMP) funding, which was $35 million last year, has been reduced to zero this year, even though the university is currently facing $372 million in deferred maintenance.

As well, the UCP has eliminated the tuition fee freeze brought in by the previous government creating increased financial hardship for students. Post-secondary institutions will now be permitted to increase student fees seven per cent each year over the next three years, up to a maximum of 21 per cent by the 2022-23 academic year. Student loan interest rates are rising from prime to prime plus one percentage point; the Bank of Canada sets the prime rate, which currently is 3.95 per cent. The province is also ending education and tuition tax credits in the 2020 tax year. Average student debt in Canada is currently about $26,000.

Like Premier Doug Ford in Ontario, the UCP plans to tie funding for universities to how many students graduate and how many get jobs. This once again underlines that the UCP’s conception of post-secondary education boils down to providing free training to fulfil the narrow aims of the monopolies that control the economy, including the training of neo-liberal ideologues to perpetuate the status quo. Thirty-five U.S. states already give financial rewards to post-secondary institutions that meet pre-set government goals.

Workers in post-secondary education will be negatively affected by the cuts. In fact, the budget states there will be 764 fewer post-secondary jobs by March 2020. Actual staff cuts have already begun, with 26 support workers just fired at the University of Calgary. One union representative said support staff at the university are already suffering burnout and “losing more is going to hurt them and students as well.” As is well known, these staff’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions.

Unfortunately, some post-secondary upper administrators are simply caving in to the provincial government. For example, University of Alberta President David Turpin has already committed the university to making internal cuts because of the expected funding reductions by the government. However, this lack of resistance is not surprising since on August 16 the UCP replaced the chairs of all the Boards of Governors of Alberta’s universities, colleges and technical institutes with corporate executives, e.g., the new board chair of Calgary’s Mount Royal University is the CEO of oilsands monopoly Cenovus.

Education is a right that all people have by virtue of being human. It is not some kind of privilege conferred by Jason Kenney and his ilk. The UCP budget cuts to post-secondary education are an attack on the right to education but the people are saying No! to the attacks and No! to making universities the handservants of the monopolies. Instead, they are asserting that we need a society that provides rights with a guarantee, including the right to education, because we need enlightened and educated people who will open a path forward for the progress of society.

(Photo: AUPE)

This article was published in:

Renewal Update No. 44, October 25, 2019

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Resist United Conservative Party Budget Attacks on Post-Secondary Education – Dougal MacDonald