Open Letter to Hon. Andy Scott, MP, and Hon. Bradley Green, MLA

I am writing to you because I am a recent university graduate who is being forced to leave New Brunswick to look for work. I have lived in New Brunswick my entire life, and I do not wish to leave. However, the lack of employment opportunities for educated young people in this province, and in particular the Fredericton area, is leaving me with no alternative.

In addition to a Bachelor of Arts degree, I also have a diploma from a private vocational college. I have had to borrow every cent to pay for my education, which leaves me with well over $50,000 in student debt. I was laid off from a research position at my alma mater more than a month ago, and since then it has become painfully clear that the only opportunities available in New Brunswick are low-paying, service sector jobs. I check various employment websites and newspaper classifieds daily, and have kept in contact with former professors as well as former employers, and there is simply nothing else available.

Were I to accept one of these service positions despite being immensely overqualified, I would barely be able to pay my monthly housing costs and utility bills, let alone make student loan payments. The letters I am receiving from the National Student Loan Service and other similar organizations suggest that when my repayment schedule begins this November, my monthly payments will be more than what I pay in rent each month. With this in mind, how am I supposed to make ends meet working for seven or eight dollars an hour in a call centre?

I am writing to both of you, as my Member of Parliament and Member of the Legislative Assembly respectively, to enquire as to what you and the Federal and Provincial governments are prepared to do to help me and others in my situation. And there are thousands of us. I am aware of the interest relief programs which are in place, but these are a band-aid solution at best. What am I to do once my thirty month maximum has been reached? Furthermore, until I find full-time employment, I do not qualify for interest relief in the first place.

I have many friends and family members who have all left New Brunswick for greener pastures, all of them well-educated and saddled with huge amounts of student debt. Before I join them, I am looking to you, Mr. Scott and Mr. Green, for a good reason to stay.

Sincerely,

Mary

Catch-up

Well I've just come from band practice and I'm feeling pretty wired. Adrenaline or some shit. Also I have a huge blister on my right middle finger which is making typing somewhat challenging. Fack!

I am unemployed yet again. For just over a month now.

Here are the boring details, for your interest:

Last year in October I got two part-time jobs, see When It Rains It Fucking Pours. One was a crappy Christmas retail job which I lamely attempted to chronicle via My Shitty Job. Unfortunately, retail drudgery soon sucked out my will to write about it. I think they make it that way on purpose. Anyway, as expected, jerks laid me off in January, with a promise to hire me back within a month. This rehiring did not come to fruition, luckily I wasn't very disappointed. I did miss the money, but certainly not the racist and homophobic remarks of my superiors even though they weren't directed at me.

My other job was as a part-time research assistant at my uni. My boss was awesome, and I mostly liked the job, even though I wasn't getting a lot of hours. I got hired full-time for the summer, which kicked metric tons of ass. I mostly got to sit around my house doing internet research and editing manuscripts. Sometimes I had to take the minutes of conference calls or lunch meetings, but I also got lots of free lunches. The money was craptastic, but a really fun job overall. The fun ended about a month ago, and I'm back at the job hunt. I don't know if I'll be updating this thing as religiously as I did last time, but whatever. For one thing I'm not ready to publicly discuss some of the employment options I'm looking at in my desperation, but there you have it.

Side note: Blogger thinks "homophobic" is a spelling error. Ditto with "fucking" and "Blogger." Heh.