A re-elected Liberal Government will invest to restore trades in schools across New Brunswick until every high school has modern trades infrastructure.

“To right a wrong we saw a few years ago in New Brunswick, a re-elected Liberal Government will continue to invest to restore trades in every high school in our province. By giving our youth opportunities to learn these important skills we will strengthen our workforce,” said Gallant.

Gallant specified that investments in establishing modern trades infrastructure at all schools in New Brunswick will be made through the province’s Strategic Infrastructure Initiative. These investments will expand across the province the same kind of improvements that have been made over the last four years at schools like Riverview High School, Centre scolaire communautaire La fontaine in Neguac, Petitcodiac Regional School, and Caledonia Regional High School in Hillsborough.

Gallant also announced today that a re-elected Liberal Government will take steps to boost enrollment in trades programs by working with our community colleges to promote trades and encouraging students who develop a love for the trades in high school to pursue a career in the trades.

“We will create more opportunities for youth in our province by investing to put trades back in our schools, by providing free tuition and tuition relief for more low-income and middle-class families, and by investing in youth employment,” added Gallant.

With respect to investing in youth employment, Gallant announced last week that a re-elected Liberal Government will permanently double investments in the Youth Employment Fund as a means of enhancing opportunities for youth through experiential education. The Gallant Government created the Youth Employment Fund in 2015, and this program has allowed 6,000 young New Brunswickers to gain valuable work experience here at home instead of leaving the province.

Gallant has also announced that a re-elected Liberal Government will enhance its signature Free Tuition program for students from low-income and middle class families, as well as enhancing its Tuition Relief for the Middle-Class program by ensuring more New Brunswickers qualify for financial assistance to attend a college or university in the province.

The Liberal Government recognizes the critical value of a free or affordable public education, both to individuals and to the province as a whole. This is why the Gallant Liberals have invested more in early childhood development and education than ever before in the history of the province, having cancelled the planned cuts by the previous Conservative Government and increasing the overall Education and Early Childhood Development budget by 15.9 percent since taking office in 2014. Along with the new 10-year education plans, the Liberal Government has implemented the following transformational changes in education:

• More affordable and higher quality early childcare, including free childcare for lower-income parents and financial support for middle-income earners;
• The addition of 3,000 new childcare spaces and a commitment to expand the total number of spaces in New Brunswick to 30,000 by 2020;
• The hiring of over 100 teachers for schools and classrooms in New Brunswick;
• Investments in literacy that have already generated improved test results; and
• The return of trades to the New Brunswick school system and the addition of new programs like coding.