As a result of provincial budget cuts, the University of Calgary (U of C) will let go of 250 university employees within the next year.
The budget shortfalls come as a result of the United Conservative (UCP) government’s five per cent drop in post-secondary education funding from 2018 to 2019, and will cost the U of C $32.9-million, according to vice-provost and vice president (academic) Dru Marshall.
The cuts come midway through the university’s fiscal year.
“When you have to eliminate that much base, there’s going to be significant pain on our campus as a result of that,” Marshall said in a town hall on Nov. 19.
Rather than attempt to make up for this loss of funding through tuition increases, academic programs, and strategic initiatives, said Marshall, the university decided reductions to its workforce were most plausible.
About 100 positions have been lost to vacancies, retirements, and resignations. The remaining 150 people were terminated.
“This is a very painful process for all of us on campus,” added Marshall.
The nature of the positions cut by the university will have detrimental impacts on the quality of a variety of services available to students on campus, said Kevin Barry, vice-president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
“Anybody who provides advising, counselling, audio visual services, people that work in the labs with the students, exam centres—every piece of a university student’s life—is affected by these [cuts],” he said.
“The workers aren’t just devastated by the fact that they’re going to be losing colleagues, but the services they provide to the students are near and dear to their hearts, and this really does cut them deeply.”
Going forward, the union plans to show its support for the 250 workers by holding additional rallies and protests across the province.
“There’s a local leadership looking after the group,” he said. “We held a rally at the university—probably the biggest one—in support of our membership and trying to tell our membership about the attack this government is putting on frontline services.”
Ontario Education Cuts
While Ontario has seen its fair share of cuts to provincial spending on university education, executives at Carleton University say measures have been taken to ensure the cuts will not heavily impact campus life.
Carleton president Benoit-Antoine Bacon said Carleton’s “fiscal prudence over a long period of time” allowed it to absorb the $20-million it lost this year, due to Ontario premier Doug Ford’s mandatory tuition slash of 10 per cent.
“When annual operating budgets are established, a portion of the available funds are allocated on a year-to-year basis as opposed to ongoing commitments,” he said.
“This provides more flexibility in adjusting annual budgets in times of fiscal restraint.”
Angelo Mingarelli, a mathematics professor and president of the Carleton University Academic Staff Association (CUASA), said if the provincial government continues implementing budget cuts, he is unsure if the union will be able to sustain its 45-year streak of minimal conflict with the provincial government.
“When I looked at what was happening at the University of Calgary, I thought, ‘It’s not going to happen here,’” he said. “At least, not right now. Even next year—I think management can absorb next year’s cuts.”
“After that? I don’t know what Ford is going to do. If the university starts laying off people, a strike is possible.”
The majority of the cuts to Ontario University funding were proposed through Bill 124, which was meant to counteract the province’s deficit by making cuts to public services. The bill has unfairly favoured certain areas of the public sector over others, said Mingarelli.
“It doesn’t touch us yet because we’re in the middle of a collective agreement, but this bill includes exemptions like police associations and municipalities,” he said.
“The government is picking on us, and Ontario needs an educated society—but we’ll manage. We’ve done this before, and we’ll manage.”
Feature image provided courtesy of The Gauntlet.
