Students’ Union readying to react to provincial budget

The University of Alberta Students’ Union is still mulling over its options as how best to react to the 2019 provincial budget.

The United Conservative Party’s first budget was released on October 24 at the legislature with significant impacts to post-secondary education affordability and the level of financial support institutions would receive. While the Students’ Union (SU) issued a statement explaining it was “disappointed” by the budget and vice-president (external) Adam Brown was interviewed, no other formal response from the organization has been made publicly.

On October 31, the SU announced it would host a town hall on November 6 about the budget to collect feedback and inform students about the impacts the budget would have. The U of A also hosted a town hall on October 30.

At a Students’ Council meeting on November 5, SU councillors and executive discussed plans for reactions to the provincial budget.

When asked why the SU is hosting a town hall on the heels of the university hosting one, President Akanksha Bhatnagar said there is a different scope than what the one hosted by university administration had.

“It is a little bit of a different scope than what the university did,” she said. “[They] hosted a town hall to update people on the budget implications and [their] impact.”

“Our town hall is focusing on ways we can respond to how the budget will impact students,” she added.

She also said that for the students that did attend, it may have been difficult or intimidating to speak up to administrators because it was hosted in a formal governance space with faculty and high-level officials. She hopes the SU event will be different as it is taking place in a more “community friendly” space.

UASU Town Hall only phase one of reaction to budget, assures President Bhatnagar

The Students’ Association of MacEwan University (SAMU) is hosting a rally against the provincial budget on November 18. The event will start at MacEwan, and students will march to the legislature. The Facebook event has 112 people listed as going and over 600 interested in attending.

When asked if a town hall is enough of a response, Bhatnagar said the UASU will take whatever feedback students give “seriously.” She said immediately following the town hall, councillors and the executive will decide when they will hold an emergency council meeting to formalize a response to the provincial budget.

“The town hall is only phase one of our response,” she said. “If students come to this town hall telling us they want us to demonstrate in a different way, then we will.”

“Whatever we do decide to do, we need a lot of buy-in from students,” Bhatnagar said. “The reason we are opening it up to feedback is because we genuinely want to hear the most unique ways to respond to this budget.”

President Bhatnagar wants “actual action,” not just a demonstration

Bhatnagar said in whatever way the SU decides to respond to the provincial budget, it wants “actual action” to happen as a result.

“Protests have interesting responses,” she added. “The University of Alberta Students’ Union looks for actual action when we are going and advocating to government. I am not fully bought into the idea that a protest is the way to do that.”

Arts councillor Juan Vargas Alba asked Bhatnagar to clarify what she meant when she said “actual action.”

He cited the examples of Quebec student protests and recent demonstrations by the Chicago Teachers Union against austerity measure budgets in generating conversations and actual change.

“The Quebec students’ protests [got] a lot of wins for students in the face of ruthless austerity measures,” he said. “I was wondering if you could reclarify what actual action means to you.”

Bhatnagar said she doesn’t know if SAMU is bringing any asks forward or just exclusively mobilizing students.

“To me action is collectively getting people together on the same message and bringing an ask directly to the government,” she said. “If we were to engage in a protest, which I am not opposed to at all, we would bring forward a set of asks so we can pass those off.”