New AB budget to be announced by NDP: SU looking for increased mental health funding, employment opportunities for students

The new Alberta budget will be unveiled on Oct. 27, which will detail how the post-secondary sector will be funded for the 2015–16 fiscal year.

Minister of Finance Joe Ceci unveiled the date of the Alberta New Democrat Party’s (NDP) budget on Monday. The New Democratic Party’s first budget will reportedly stabilize public services while outlining a plan for jobs and economic growth.

University of Alberta Students’ Union Vice-President (External) Dylan Hanwell said he wants to see two main priorities addressed for the U of A in the upcoming budget: campus mental health and the Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP).

Current provincial funding for U of A mental health programs will expire in late spring of 2016, which will hopefully be renewed in the budget. Additionally, the Students’ Union is hoping to see some sort of direction in STEP, Hanwell said. STEP was cancelled in 2013, but had previously existed to give students summer work experience. Last spring, the NDP announced they would restore STEP to create 3,000 student jobs each year with annual funding of $10 million.

Mental health funding and STEP are two of the six lobby priorities of the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS). CAUS represents over 100,000 students from five institutions across Alberta, and attempts to use that collective power to lobby for student interest.

Mental health funding is the biggest priority for the SU right now, Hanwell said. The current mental health funding employs professionals working in Counselling and Clinical Services and the Community Social work team. To keep its current employees, Hanwell said mental health funding can’t wait until the spring sitting.

Working with the NDP has been “really good so far,” Hanwell said.

“For the first time, we’ve had MLAs call us, wanting to set up meetings with us,” he said.

Former Minister of Finance Robin Campbell and the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta announced that the Campus Alberta grant would be reduced by $28 million in 2015–16 and $60 million in 2016–17 at the budget announcement in March.

Current Alberta Minister of Innovation and Advanced Education Lori Sigurdson announced restoration of the cuts to the Campus Alberta grant, the reversal of market modifier tuition increases and the enactment of a two-year tuition freeze in June, which would prevent tuition from increasing with inflation.

These changes to post-secondary funding were announced in the weeks following the election of the NDP.
The additional funding to post-secondary would be “reconciled in the Fall budget,” Sigurdson said back in June.

Students and Albertans will now see where the new funding for education will come from at the end of October.

“I’m looking forward to (working with the NDP) on the budget, but at the same time, we still need to push for things like mental health funding,” Hanwell said.

“There’s always more that we think students need to be successful at the U of A.”