Next Monday, New Brunswick will go to the polls in the first of two likely provincial elections in this academic year (Saskatchewan looks set for October; BC could conceivably go early in the new year, but could also go the full four years and vote in fall 2021).  So, let’s take a look at what the parties are saying.

Let’s start with the People’s Alliance, which is basically the old Confederation of Regions why-do-the-frenchies-get-so-much-attention coalition with a little bit of Ross Perot common-sense-government-efficiency talk thrown in.  Their website contains the following statement:

Given that we are only four days out from voting, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Alliance are not, in fact, going to release a platform.  Which is fine, because they are polling about half what they did in the last election and are probably going to lose at least two of their three seats anyway, so in a sense it doesn’t really matter.

Sitting just above the Alliance in the polls is the Green Party, which seems like it might gain a seat or two and even conceivably (though it’s a pretty remote possibility) hold the balance of power in the next legislature.  Their platform is big on student aid in an utterly incoherent way that is only really understandable if you have paid attention to New Brunswick student aid fairly closely over the past fifteen years.  Basically, over that time, we have had Conservative governments favouring big transfers to PSE graduates though a tax credit system and Liberal governments which have favoured big transfers to PSE students (particularly low-income ones).  When one government takes control, it cancels the programs begun by the other so as to fund its own priorities, which sets the scene for massive policy whiplash.  The Greens’ big idea about how to solve this problem is to – wait for it – DO BOTH.  No problem cannot be solved by writing more cheques, apparently.  Oh, and they’d also like to get rid of the credit checks on student loans for independent students (good), get rid of interest on student loans (massively sub-optimal use of money) and “adequately fund public universities so they can gradually reduce tuition fees”, with a long-term goal of achieving free tuition. 

Over to the opposition Liberals, whose platform is largely based around the idea that the province’s population should grow by 100,000 over the next ten years, which is good in the sense that it correctly diagnoses that population decline largely kiboshes every single other reasonable policy goal the province has but is outlandish in the sense that it took the province over 40 years to grow from the 650,000 level to the current  750,000 level.  As far as PSE goes, the Liberals are apparently not even bothered to defend their legacy of a targeted free tuition program; instead, the only thing they promise is to eliminate interest rates on student loans.  Other then that?  Nada. (The good news from the Liberals?  They haven’t repeated their 2018 promise for a Blueberry Innovation Supercluster.  I’m going to take this as proof that ridicule works).

Meanwhile, the governing Conservatives, who have held a healthy polling lead throughout the campaign and are odds-on to win a majority government, chose not to publish a consolidated manifesto but rather simply issue a series of promises on a rolling basis.  None of them have anything to do with post-secondary education.

Of interest, perhaps, is the fact that none of the parties chose to cost their platform.  Maybe this is just because the numbers of zeroes in a promise has lost all meaning in COVID; but maybe also this is a big new trend, since the last provincial election before this (Manitoba’s) also saw no party choose to cost their platform.  Maybe political parties have decided that only suckers bother costing because it provides targets for opponents to shoot at.  That would be an unfortunate development, but it would be in keeping with the view that campaigns are more about mobilizing bases rather than convincing moderates.

But perhaps more important is that it is one more election in which funding higher education institutions are simply not considered part of a winning package.  Another election in which subsidies to students get a look in, but subsidies to higher education institutions do not. 

I am starting to get worried, and not just for the province of New Brunswick.  We seem to have passed the point where higher education is seen as a driver of economic growth, and now see it only as a reason to hand out larger subsidies for youth.  This is not the way to build a better country.  Universities and colleges need to find a way to turn this neglect around – quickly.