New Brunswick’s newly-elected Liberal government unveiled its first provincial budget in the legislature on March 31, where Finance Minister Roger Melanson said “difficult decisions” had to be made to keep the projected deficit to $476 million.

The Liberal government’s first budget as a majority is another dud for Ontario’s post-secondary institutions, say critics, with no new funding for the second year in a row. Finance Minister Charles Sousa tabled his budget on 23 April with a message all about creating more jobs and economic growth.

Western University’s board of governors, president and senior administration are reeling following revelations president Amit Chakma doubled his salary in lieu of taking an administrative leave, while staff positions were cut and class sizes increased.

Saskatchewan Finance Minister Ken Krawetz tabled his fifth and possibly his final budget on March 18, which academics and students say follows the path of austerity mapped out in the last two.

Austerity is a powerful buzzword these days, with few signs that its potency or impact will lessen any time soon. It is touted as a strategy for dealing with structural economic crises. Yet it is frequently also used in a much more promiscuous way, in attacks on public services of all sorts — including education.

A mix of six former and current professors at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business have bolstered their charges of unfairness as they seek a judicial review of the process by which a university tribunal found they’d harassed colleagues and interfered with decisions on promotion and tenure.

Seth Sazant and John Eustace are joining CAUT as assistant executive directors to replace Neil Tudiver, who retires this month after 15 years of assisting member associations with collective bargaining, and Nsé Ufot, who left in February to pursue other opportunities.

Alberta’s post-secondary education system, still reeling from a massive cut in funding in 2013, has been hit again in this year’s provincial budget. The government’s line is that the smaller-than-expected cuts are meant to give institutions time to make the transition to a new, more “financially sustainable” funding model.

Thousands of Canadians across the country gathered earlier this month in a national day of protest against the federal government’s proposed national security legislation.

March marks both International Francophonie Month, and Aboriginal Languages Month and this seems as good a time as any to reflect on the linguistic and cultural diversity that enriches academic life in this country.

While BC Finance Minister Mike de Jong may have characterized his Feb. 17 budget as having scored a “fiscal hat trick,” for the third consecutive set of balanced books from the governing Liberals, he’s acquired plenty of detractors quick to condemn the plan as a mirage of user fee hikes in post-secondary education.

CAUT’s new equity committee met for the first time in August 2014, with attendance from two representatives of each of the five equity-seeking groups: Aboriginal academic staff, academic staff with disabilities, LGBTQ2S academic staff, racialized academic staff and women academic staff.

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Jan. 30 that the right to strike is constitutionally protected. The 5–2 decision in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan found that the Public Service Essential Services Act infringed on protected charter rights.

It’s now even harder for qualified Canadians to be hired into scarce full-time academic positions in their own country. That’s the fallout of a February agreement between the federal government and post-secondary institutions that outlines special exemptions from the temporary foreign worker rules.

A committee ap­pointed by CAUT in March 2014 to investi­gate alleged inappropriate conduct in the faculty of archi­tecture at the University of Manitoba has uncovered violations of acade­­mic freedom and interfer­ence in the work of acade­mic staff.

An investigation into the University of Manitoba’s economics department has found serious violations of academic freedom and a workplace climate that has become “corrosive and dysfunctional to the point of crisis.”

The University of Manitoba is implementing significant budget cuts over the next two years, yet university president David Barnard has not provided any compel­ling evidence as to why.

What would American universities and colleges look like without adjuncts, those fully-qualified academic staff members hired to teach on a course-by-course or temporary basis? The simple answer would be “empty” since the majority of university and college courses in the US are taught by adjuncts.

As races shape up for the 2015 federal election, we need to ensure the well-being of our universities and colleges remains an important focus of political discussion. The contributions of the sector’s educators and researchers are undeniably essential for the health and future prospects of society; without a strong post-secondary sector it’s simply not possible for a modern society to thrive.

The salaries and benefits paid to top administrators at Alberta post-secondary institutions continue to soar in the face of government funding cuts and rising tuition costs.