The Horizon Plan was established at McGill’s February 7 Town Hall meeting, which introduced substantial budget cuts. It is a budget initiative focused on cost reduction and resource efficiency. The budget plan for the 2025-2026 fiscal year (FY) projects a 45 million dollar “budget correction“, as part of McGill University’s endeavor to address the budget deficit. The budget reduction includes a 20.7 million dollar cut in academic, administrative, and support salaries.
Professor Derek Nystrom, Secretary for the Association of McGill Professors of the Faculty of Arts (AMPFA) and Associate Professor of English, stated to the Daily that “the ‘Horizon Plan’ has been communicated mainly through press releases and one- directional town hall meetings from the administration, rather than developed through genuine shared governance, so I have very little solid information about how the cuts that I and my colleagues are feeling [the repercussions of] have been determined.” He also clarified that his comments are based on his own personal views and may not be the same as those of AMPFA.
While the Horizon Plan is meant to be a long term solution to McGill’s financial concerns, Professor David A. Stephens, Academic Lead at Horizon McGill and Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, told the Daily that “Horizon was not established to manage McGill’s budget deficit.” Rather, “budgets are set by the Provost’s Office, and it is Faculties/Units who determine how to spend their funds.” He clarified that “Horizon’s mandate is to help us use our resources as wisely as possible, strengthen academic program delivery, and help McGill work better.”
Horizon McGill asserts on their website that “Decisions related to budget, staffing levels and unit resources fall outside of the Horizon team’s mandate, as does oversight of Faculty/unit projects.” However, they also stated there may be more layoffs as well as attrition, such as retirement, in the future, though McGill does not intend to provide retirement incentives. Layoffs are already expected to cut 350-500 jobs.
According to Christian Blanchette – the president of the Bureau de coopération interuniversitaire (BCI), responsible for Quebec’s universities – the budget deficits arising for several Quebec universities stem from lack of government accommodations for inflation and increasing salaries, as well as a decrease in international student enrollment. The latter is a result of the Quebec government’s limit on the enrollment of international students – who pay quadruple the tuition of Canadians – at post-secondary institutions, decreasing by 20 per cent this year.
Prof. Stephens further stated that “Given government cuts, growing competition for top students, and other challenges, we need to make the most of our resources.” He also attributed the introduction of the Horizon Plan to “inefficiencies” which McGill has developed over time in their administrative processes.
Horizon McGill is utilizing UniForum — a platform for comparing services between universities — to collect data through two forms: the service effectiveness survey, taken by faculty and staff regarding administrative and support services used (not those provided), and activity data collection, where managers report on the allocation of administrative and support functions. The latter tracks data as an aggregate rather than by the individual. Prof. Stephens clarified that the employee satisfaction data gathered did not include academic functions.
“Despite McGill’s efforts to describe Horizon as a ‘home- grown’ effort, it is the product of a consulting firm called NousCubane or the Nous Group [which owns UniForum], which McGill hired and is allegedly paying hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Prof. Nystrom, clarifying he cannot confirm the actual amount the firm is paid. He added, “Apparently, the administration sees this as a smart way to deal with a budget crunch: hire a bunch of expensive outsiders rather than work with their own faculty, staff, and students.”
The Nous Group has already greatly reduced budgets at other universities. Critics fear the firm is corporatizing these institutions through encouraging centralization and streamlining decisions to higher ups.
According to Prof. Stephens, earlier in 2025, data collection was completed by Horizon McGill for the 2025 Fiscal Year (FY25), running from May to April. The quality of the data was reviewed over the summer. Prof. Stephens stated that: “By December we’ll better understand how much McGill spends on those [administrative] functions compared with other universities.” Later, he added, “We aim to have a preliminary dashboard outlining [McGill’s] progress later this fall.”
After data is collected about faculty and staff satisfaction regarding administrative processes, Horizon McGill looks at the time and money spent on those functions, and compares them to the other universities that are UniForum members. If there is a lack of faculty and staff satisfaction, as well as a greater amount of resources being spent on a service compared to UniForum member universities, the Horizon team will work to analyze and improve the situation.
Lisa Shapiro, the Dean of Arts, is a part of the institutional data group and is currently the only Faculty of Arts member listed as a member of Horizon McGill. In response to being asked how Horizon McGill ensures appropriate representation of the Faculty of Arts in decision-making, in the management office and work group, Professor Stephens said that “We are working with academics and administrators from all Faculties and Units across McGill.”
Prof. Nystrom states that “The cuts have meant that Arts departments are getting pressure to increase enrollments without adding faculty or TA support.” Elaborating on the impact, he adds that “undergraduates have fewer class choices and are often unable to enroll in classes they need for their program requirements because the courses are already at capacity.”
A U1 first year in the Faculty of Arts faced these challenges firsthand: “I had a scholarship, which means that I could register for class three days before everyone else, and yet, I registered the second when Minerva was opened, and I only got three classes. One of them was not for my level, so I had to drop it, so I only had two classes.” The same student later added “the fact that I had a scholarship means that I had to have at least five classes per semester…and if I don’t have it, well, I lose the scholarship.” As an international student, she faced additional challenges: “[As] an international student [from France], if I don’t have four classes, my study permit is not correct, and so I would have had to go back to France.”
“So basically, I went to every counselor, advisor. I went to Arts OASIS, but they didn’t know anything…I went to see advisors, other than the Arts OASIS department, and basically they all said that they did not have power over…registration,” she continued. She added later that “I think I got my [last] class three days before [the add drop deadline].”
In the English Department, Prof. Nystrom noted that retired faculty have not been replaced, meaning “we do not have the ability to offer as many diverse course offerings as we have in the past.” He further emphasized that “there are fewer faculty and staff available to support and guide them [students] through our programs.”
Prof. Nystrom said that since the cuts, “faculty find themselves overworked without adequate teaching support, which not only affects the quality of our instruction but also the time and energy we have to pursue our research.” He adds that these pressures are also being felt by graduate students, who have been denied teaching opportunities due to a decreasing number of TA positions. Ultimately, “these working conditions are already significantly degrading McGill’s status as a world-class research and teaching university.”
In Prof. Nystrom’s words, “the only real solution to [budget] dilemmas is not to hire outside consultants with a track record of taking a wrecking ball through other universities, but in working with faculty, staff, and students here to determine how best to address these challenges.”