The Conservatives have introduced a resolution in the legislature calling on the Liberal government to make a quick decision on the future of the University of New Brunswick Saint John.

"Why are you not standing up and fighting for the people of Saint John?" Conservative MLA Margaret-Ann Blaney asked the government side on Thursday.

The same resolution was previously passed unanimously by the university's student union on Nov. 29 and asks the government to announce what the future holds for the school by the end of January.

"At the very least the government has to give a date as to when this announcement will be made," Blaney said.

September's final report from the Commission on Post-Secondary Education recommended merging the University of New Brunswick's Saint John campus with the local New Brunswick Community College to create a new polytechnic institute. Similar recommendations were made for the two Université de Moncton campuses in Edmundston and Shippagan.

The recommendations spurred protests, so a working group was put together in the fall to reconsider them.

It was expected to report back to the government in time for the throne speech in November, but Premier Shawn Graham said the government needed more time.

The working group's findings now aren't expected until February.

The university's administration has argued that the delay in determining the school's future is having a serious impact on the enrolment numbers for next fall as students question if they'll even have a university to go to in the city.

"We will insist that the university in Saint John will be improved and will be enhanced," Post-Secondary Education Minister Ed Doherty said in response to the Tory resolution.

Student union vice-president Jordan Graham travelled to the legislature to watch the resolution be tabled and said he felt it hasn't put the university's efforts any further ahead.

"We don't have any answers," Graham said. "We're still in the same cloud we were. We're being told it's student focused, but I'm a student and I'm not being focused on."

The Liberal government has promised the institution will continue to be called a university but has not yet guaranteed that it will keep its current programs or liberal arts focus.