This Is Why We Leave

“I would honestly love to live my entire life in New Brunswick, it’s a beautiful place to live, but without sustainable work I cannot afford to stay,” says Strang.

Strang says to applying to several hundred jobs all over Canada after graduating in 2012 with a degree in Environmental Studies.

“The first and only offer I got was a position in Alberta,” says Srtang, “I didn’t want to leave home but I had no choice, I had to take the opportunity.”

Strang is now an Aboriginal Engagement Facilitator in Calgary for the environmental consulting company, TERA Environmental.

Another student, Stephanie Totten is currently studying sciences at the University of New Brunswick Saint John and will be graduating in 2014 with a degree in Health Science and Radiography.

Totten, like Strang and many other New Brunswick students, intends to leave the province upon the completion of her degree.

“Even though I think I could get a job in my field,” says Totten, “I feel like my earning power is limited in New Brunswick.”

Despite planning to leave the Maritimes for work, Totten says her university experience in New Brunswick has been beneficial.

“New Brunswick has a lot of great things to offer students, like small class sizes and great professors. I think [it’s] a good place to go to school, I’m just not sure about the job prospects available.”

University graduates are among those who are feeling the strain of New Brunswick’s financial problems. As the deficits grows and debt rises, jobs begin to disappear and so do the young educated students in the province.

Strang says that before leaving the province for employment in her field, she was forced to work two minimum wage jobs. During this time she seriously questioned her decision to attend university in the first place. Students all over New Brunswick are faced with a similar discouraging situation.

“You spend all this money trying to get ahead and then end up working a minimum wage job trying to pay off the student loans you compiled,” says Strang.

With money and jobs becoming scarce in the Alward Government’s New Brunswick, it’s not surprising that students are continuing to take their educations, skills, and careers further west.

In order to rebuild a economically solid and sustainable province, the Alward Government needs to focus on keeping young new workers in the province with better job opportunities.

“There needs to be a larger focus on job creation; if New Brunswick wants a growing economy [the government has] to invest in it,” says Strang, “A good economy is sustainable, it maintains itself by constant input and output.”

Ocean-Leigh Peters is an aspiring journalist from Sussex, New Brunswick. She is a recent graduate from the University of New Brunswick Saint John with an English honours degree, and will be studying Journalism at the University of King’s College in the fall.