“New Brunswick’s political party leaders were grilled on issues pertaining to women’s equality at a roundtable discussion today, International Women’s Day, in Moncton.”

“The students’ manifesto demands that the government restore post-secondary funding, and provide more grants instead of loans to students applying for financial aid. “We are aware of arguments that would have us believe that our university degrees are a privilege that grant access to higher salaries and rewards. These arguments serve to justify the payment of tuition as a sort of access fee to a privileged stratum of society. We reject these arguments. While we agree that those who benefit more have a greater responsibility to support public institutions which guarantee the freedom of all, we feel that the Canada Income Tax Act currently serves this function, and should be used appropriately in the public interest.”"

-STU and UNB students are organizing against the neoliberal model for post-secondary education.

-So I guess the debate is supposed to be cathartic or something.

“If Atcon can’t repay [Scotia Bank], and the receivership documents filed in Miramichi court last week suggests it can’t, then the provincial government will have to pay out a significant amount of money [up to $70 million.

The provincial government is actually in a weaker position to recoup its money than was earlier believed because of a refinancing of Atcon that unfolded quietly last fall.”

– Once again it is the workers who shoulder the risk.

–Students need to mobilise to fight this increase. The University of New Brunswick is wasting millions of dollars on projects that have nothing to do with their primary mission, but at the same time are raising fees on students. With wages in New Brunswick at the low end of the national scale and debt-levels among the highest in the country, students cannot deal with fee increase from an administration that refuses to put students first.

“”We’re not against new schools, but we want schools that are owned by the taxpayers of New Brunswick, not schools that are owned by multinational corporations and are simply leased back over 30 years,” said CUPE spokesman Danny Legere.

A recent report in N.S. on P3s revealed that, “two of the developers subcontracted some of their responsibilities to the regional school boards, which were delivering the services at a lower cost than what was paid to the developers — a difference of about $52 million over the 20-year life of the contracts, according to the report.”

“Young people in the Restigouche region are being encouraged to think positively about the area’s future despite the struggling economy… “It’s our choice, when we wake up in the morning, it’s our choice to choose our attitude, the way we see the world,” Barry said.”

-N.B’s department of Social Development organizes a motivational speaker tour to encourage youth in the north to think the rain away (so to speak).

Abel Leblanc “gave the finger” to a Conservative MLA, said, “I’ll walk outside with any one of yas here,” LeBlanc said. “Don’t ever laugh at me. Yes, I gave you that. And I’ll give you that again. And I’ll give you this if you want to go outside. You’re a punk!”", and called him a girl– using “girl” as a pejorative.

“Premier Shawn Graham says he had “no choice” but to ask Tourism and Parks Minister Stuart Jamieson to resign from cabinet for suggesting the proposed deal between NB Power and Hydro-Québec be put to a referendum.”

– Perhaps Jamieson has ambitions of running again.

“”I have the upmost [sic] respect for Mr. Jamieson and it has been an honour to serve with him. However, the custom of cabinet consensus must be maintained,” he (Shawn Graham) said.”

““The papers are presenting the view that what’s good for the Irving company is good for the province” Steuter says. “What we need is good investigative reporting to dig deep and provide New Brunswickers with a clear analysis of all sides of the proposed deal. Monopoly media ownership does not offer this and the public is paying the price.”

Irving-owned business including Irving Oil, and Irving Tissue have come out in favour of the sale, which guarantees electricity rate cuts for five years for current, large industrial users. Irving companies stand to benefit significantly from lower power rates following the proposed sale of NB Power to Hydro-Québec because they dominate the manufacturing sector of the province.”

UNBSU effectively bans teams of candidates from running in SU elections, continues using online voting, allows fines levied by the CRO to count against campaign expense limits.

–This is clearly a responsive to the challenge raised by the United For Change team in the elections last year. United For Change campaigned vocally on politics instead of vague and empty slogans (cf. Former president Bethany Vail’s promise to, “engage, entertain, electrify”).

“The change was recommended by the [UNB Student Union's Governance Review Committee], allegedly to address the issue of what it called “over-representation” of international students on council. … VP Academic Shannon Carmont noted that there, “are a ton of marginalized groups on campus,” such as student-parents and First Nations who do not have a voting representative on council.”

Instead of expanding council to include all constituencies represented within the undergraduate population, the UNBSU have chosen to restructure in a discriminatory way.

“The New Brunswick government has been promoting a savings of $1,400 for electric heat residential customers during the first five years of its deal to sell NB Power to Hydro-Québec.

A new government leaflet being distributed in mailboxes across the province promoting the sale also suggests savings in that range for people who heat with electricity. A charts shows $97 in residential savings in year one of the deal, which eventually grows to $1,392 in savings over the five years. But that figure requires a consumption rate of more than 27,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, which is more than what most New Brunswick residents use, other government figures show.”

“Manufacturing facilities connected to J.D. Irving Ltd. dominate a list of 50 companies that would benefit from $91 million in power rate cuts following the proposed sale of NB Power to Hydro-Québec.”

“The New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity plans to make its cause an election issue. It wants provincial politicians to extend pay equity legislation to the private sector.”
-The NDP received an A+ from the Coalition, the Green Party (its leader the former liberal executive director Jack MacDougall) received a B.
-Jack MacDougall confused “pay equity” (equal pay for work of equal ‘value’ and qualification) with wage parity (paying male and female employees doing identical jobs the same amount)– according to people who attended this press conference for the parties to present their positions on pay equity in the private sector, MacDougall did not even want to enforce the latter in the private sector. Ha! It appears that this is the type of environmental party that thinks it would be better for the environment if women were doing unpaid housework in the kitchen.

“Three people were found guilty in Halifax provincial court Friday on a number of charges stemming from a violent protest in June 2007 at the Atlantica business conference.

George Dalli was convicted of resisting arrest, obstructing a police officer and unlawful assembly; Asaf Rachid was convicted of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose and unlawful assembly; and Colin Bell was convicted of unlawful assembly.”

-The “weapon” was a marble.

“When asked whether she thought the economic crisis was being used as a smokescreen to attack workers, [NBCNHU President] Black said, “Any economist that you talk with that has the working class people in mind will tell you that it is a capitalist agenda to move forward with a wage freeze, and to blame it on an economic crisis.””

New Brunswick Auditor General, Mike Ferguson states: “[The sale of NB Power] will not change the provinces net debt at all … there will be no impact on the provinces net debt, because the province has always been deducting off NB Power’s debt anyway [as it is backed by assets like dams and power plants that pay for themselves] … selling the utility may actually make New Brunswick’s debt worse by shutting down a source of revenue”

“John Levi was charged with seven counts of assaulting a police officer and one count of dangerous operation of a vessel on Tuesday at the provincial court in Richibucto, N.B.

After Levi was charged, he vowed that he would bring counter-charges against the DFO officers who he said stopped him and his son from exercising their traditional fishing rights.”

Hassan Arif has pointed to a flaw in the only “direct benefit” the New Brunswick government has promised New Brunswickers from the sell-off of NB Power.

“A proclaimed benefit of the deal is that “residential, commercial and wholesale” rates will be frozen for five years and industrial rates will be reduced to the lower Quebec rates. However, there are several loopholes to this in the memorandum of understanding, one of them being the “heritage pool supply,” which is the amount of electricity allocated to New Brunswick by Hydro-Québec under the deal.”

The recently announced sale of New Brunswick Power to Hydro Quebec is another alarm bell for the Canadian economy. The sale is aimed at enhancing the transformation of Hydro Quebec into an export industry — selling power into the U.S. market. It’s part of a bigger picture.