Fundraising lags while tens of thousands of student aid dollars spent on ad campaign

The NDP have learned that the Pallister government has raised only $1.8 million from private donors for bursaries in the first six months of the year. At the same time, the Government is spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to convince students and families that education isn’t getting more expensive, NDP Education Critic Matt Wiebe revealed today.

The Pallister government is misleading families by trying to portray funding announced today as something new, NDP Education Critic Wab Kinew said.

“Today, the Pallister government tried to claim it was doing students a favour ¬– two days after they said they’ll make students play $58 million more in taxes,” Kinew said. “In reality, the amount of funding announced today is the same as last year – it’s just repackaged with earlier availability dates,” Kinew said.

“We have learned today that the Pallister government directly interfered for political reasons in an ongoing labour negotiation,” said NDP MLA Wab Kinew. "The U of M and the faculty association have been bargaining for months and were already in mediation, but the Pallister government has forced them to start over by appearing to impose a wage freeze on all public sector employees.