By Kelsey Marcotte
The 2018 federal budget was released in late February by the Liberal government and some students in Winnipeg are uninformed of the changes it could bring to their lives at home and at school.
Aimee Leskiw, an Asper Business and University of Manitoba student said she isn’t very familiar with the budget or any of its policies.
“I don’t pay for my school, so I don’t really pay attention to that stuff,” Leskiw said. “I like the summer job digital platform idea, but that was my only real take-away from it.”
U of M /KELSEY MARCOTTE / THE PROJECTOR
The budget focuses on preventing sexual violence on campuses, providing $5.5 million to Status of Women Canada to implement better programs for helping victims of sexual violence, according to the Government of Canada website. The budget also focuses heavily on gender equality and closing the wage gap.
“I heard about the wage gap stuff, which is obviously important,” Leskiw said. “But I really don’t know much else. It was pretty boring to read, honestly. I probably only read a couple pages at most.”
Students at Red River College are seemingly in the dark about the new budget, too. Jessica Shapansky, a nursing student at the Notre Dame campus, says she didn’t even hear about it at all.
RRC’s Notre Dame Campus /KELSEY MARCOTTE / THE PROJECTOR
“I didn’t even know what that was until I just looked it up,” Shapansky said. “I honestly probably won’t ever read that. If there’s anything that’s important for me, I’m sure I’ll hear about it.”
The new budget has an entire section devoted to supporting researchers and innovators, making the programs easier to access, to use and to market all over the world.
“I just don’t think it really affects me or pertains to me,” said Shapansky. “If it did I probably would have heard about it. I just don’t really care.”
