Former NB premier tells faculty to lower salary demands

Former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna says universities should be viewed as “profit centres, not cost centres,” that the province’s professors should lower their salary demands, and that the province should be able to legislate faculty back to work in the event of a strike. McKenna, now a Bay Street businessman, shared his vision of PSE in NB with guests at a dinner this week honouring outgoing St Francis Xavier University President Sean Riley. "If our universities in Atlantic Canada are engines of growth, then we need every part of the engine to be working together," says McKenna. "And we've had 3 strikes in the last year…this is at a time when our resources are so very limited." The former premier also called on the government to rethink capping tuition, saying, “cut-rate tuition fees equal cut-rate education.” CBC News | Globe and Mail