The 1963 Byrne Report (Royal Commission on Finance and Municipal Taxation) resulted in a radical restructuring of local and provincial governments in New Brunswick.

The recommendations included transfer of financial responsibility for education from local to provincial government and reduction of the number of school districts from 422 to 60 (further reduced to 33 upon implementation) and led to the relocation of St. Thomas University from Chatham to Fredericton, creation of a Saint John campus for the University of New Brunswick and creation of the University of Moncton.

The Report of the Commission on Post Secondary Education, released last Friday wants to turn things upside down once again but in my opinion doesn’t go far enough. The Commission would redefine post-secondary education in New Brunswick by establishing a multi-tiered system that would add three new polytechnics (there are seven others in Canada) to the existing mix of community colleges and universities.

The polytechnics would be created on the backs of our community colleges, the Saint John campus of the University of New Brunswick and the Edmundston and Shippagan campuses of the University of Moncton.

There would continue to be five universities (including the Atlantic Baptist University) but the eleven community colleges would be reduced to one with four campuses. The Saint John campus of UNBSJ would be merged with community colleges in Saint John and St. Andrews to form one polytechnic.

The Edmundston campuses of the University of Moncton and the Edmundston Community College would merge to become a second polytechnic and the University of Moncton campus in Shippagan would merge with community colleges in the Acadian Peninsula, Bathurst and Campbellton to form a Northeastern Polytechnic. The single community college would have campuses in Dieppe, Moncton, Miramichi and Fredericton.

Consider the context. We are a province of 750,000 people with 19 campuses offering some level of post-secondary education. We already have three levels of post secondary education beginning with community colleges which offer two year programs in occupational trades and offer graduates certificates or diplomas in specific employment fields.

The proposed Polytechnic institutions would offer a variety of applied university level courses that would be primarily technical and vocational in nature. The mission of a polytechnic is the advancement of applied knowledge and (commercial) research and provision of programs that provide a balance between theory and application. Subjects taught in polytechnics include things like marketing, business management, forest management, chemical engineering, computer science, etc. Toronto’s Ryerson University is an example of a polytechnic.

A liberal arts university is one that offers undergraduate studies in the liberal arts and sciences. Its intent is to impart general knowledge and develop intellectual capacities including the ability to learn, to inquire, analyze and reason (Mount Allison University and St. Thomas University fit this description). Many employers prefer to hire people with a liberal arts background because of this learned capability. Others prefer graduates with more disciplined skills in engineering and technology.

A full-service university is a large and diverse institution of higher learning created to educate people for a profession, an institution of education and research which grants undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate degrees in literature, science, business, theology, law, medicine, and other. The University of New Brunswick fits that description. A national university is a university created or run by a government. Some national universities are closely associated with cultural or linguistic aspirations. The University of Moncton would fit both of the above descriptions.

About 20% of our population is of an age when they could be attending a post-secondary institution. Only a fraction of this group does so - for cost and other reasons. My guess is about 30,000 people. The structure proposed by the Commission, would consolidate part of the system but add a new layer of instruction and three layers of administrative oversight.

The problem with these recommendations is that implementation would arbitrarily assign large segments of our post-secondary student population to industrial or workplace educations and effectively deny them (by virtue of location and financial circumstance) access to a liberal arts education and graduate studies in the professions.

There are other considerations. A national university attracts millions of dollars in research and development funding. A group of small universities and provincial polytechnics would receive few national research projects and be reliant on local sources of funding. Major universities attract the best in teaching staff. Smaller universities and remote polytechnics would have difficulty attracting the best and brightest.

That said, there is a role for a polytechnic presence in New Brunswick but I don’t think it has to be separated from our universities. The reform proposed in the Commission’s Report pales in contrast to the Byrne Report.

It should go further and reduce the number of universities in New Brunswick to two. The two universities should be mandated to organize themselves in such a way as to enable them to offer university, polytechnic and community college programs that would be accessible to all students across the province. Where class sizes are too small to justify an instructor, plug them into a larger campus via the internet.

The two surviving universities (the University of New Brunswick and the University of Moncton) should be “national” universities with polytechnic and community college divisions. The University of New Brunswick should include Mount Allison, St. Thomas and the university/polytechnic/community college amalgams proposed for Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton.

The University of Moncton should retain its Edmundston and Shippagan campuses but offer a menu of university, polytechnic and community college programs in the northeast.


Lower administration costs, more flexible options for our students, higher quality graduate outcomes, a more competitive workforce, and a fully integrated post secondary education system would be the upshot. All are keys to our goal of self-sufficiency.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com