News

The Halifax Index 2013, released yesterday by the Greater Halifax Partnership, found that workers aged 45 and older made up fully 97% of labour force growth between 2006 and 2012. These findings starkly illustrate the barriers younger adults are facing in trying to find jobs across Nova Scotia, at the same time as the local 18-29 year-old population is expected to shrink 25% between 2011 and 2031.

Nova Scotia’s universities must be funded more fairly based on students’ and the Province’s ability to pay, says a report released today by StudentsNS. The report, “Fairness in Nova Scotia University Funding: Who Pays and How Much?” recommends linking students’ tuition to their ability to find jobs and supporting education quality through stable and predictable university funding.

Today the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC) released its annual enrolment digest. It showed that in the past ten years the number of Nova Scotia students at Nova Scotia universities has fallen 10.4% while International enrolment has risen 150%.

StudentsNS, which represents 37,471 Nova Scotia students, announced today that it is moving its accounts from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to Credit Union Atlantic (CUA), following recent revelations that an RBC contractor misused the Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) program to outsource IT operations and replace 45 Canadian employees. At least one replacement foreign employee was brought into Canada with a TFW visa, on the pretense that no one in Canada had the required skills.

Today, Nova Scotia students are very pleased as the Province has invested $4.6 million to improve the student assistance program for the third year in a row, bringing the government’s total new investments in student assistance to almost $23 million over the past three years.

The Dalhousie Faculty Association’s report last week revealed that in ten years Dalhousie diverted over $85 million in operating funds into capital spending and increased its debt 650% to $106 million. Students were dismayed by these findings, which show the institution has made significant cuts to academics and support services and raised fees on false pretenses.

Nova Scotia student unions representing 37,471 members have voted unanimously to oppose any new ancillary fees until their institutions agree to clear and binding terms of consultation. Students will boycott any event that could be considered a ‘consultation’ around new fees, unless they receive written assurance from their institution that the event will not be considered a ‘consultation’.

The results of the Saint Mary’s University Students’ Association (SMUSA) annual elections were announced yesterday evening. SMU Students voted overwhelmingly in support of full membership in Students Nova Scotia. In moving from associate to full membership SMU students will roughly double their financial contribution and obtain full voting rights within StudentsNS.

Today, students at StFX and across Nova Scotia are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, as a tentative agreement has been reached between the StFX administration and the StFXAUT. The agreement, which will go to a vote of the AUT members tomorrow, would allow students to return to class on Monday. 

Students Nova Scotia today joins with the St. FX Students’ Union in calling on the St. FX Administration and AUT to move into binding arbitration and end their labour dispute. Importantly, students are not calling for a resolution within the framework of final-offer-by-package arbitration earlier proposed by St. FX’s administration. Rather, students would hope that the open arbitration could be permitted to find reasonable middle ground between the parties’ last proposals.