Promises of federal funding can determine how far or how quickly provinces move forward on their own agenda items, and Alberta wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to know his to-do list will have to wait.
Premier Danielle Smith announced the province will take steps, through legislation introduced this month, to strengthen the work she says is most important to Albertans and to her provincial government. United Conservative Party. This latest attempt to confront the federal government in Ottawa continues to reinforce his party’s view that Mr. Trudeau, a Liberal, has imposed his ideological agenda on Albertans.
“Albertons don’t want federal funding to show the world how virtuous we are or burnish Canada’s image on the international stage,” Smith said at an April 10 news conference. taxpayers first and foremost, but this federal government has not let reality get in the way of its good credentials and has never missed an opportunity to wrest more control from the provinces.
(Read Ian Austen’s 2022 article: Western Canadian Conservatives pass law rejecting federal sovereignty)
The bill, called the Provincial Priorities Act, would essentially make the Alberta government an arbiter of federal funding deals, with the power to invalidate deals its municipalities and health agencies, for example, make with Ottawa. Consultations on the bill are planned for this summer and it is expected to come into force in early 2025, the government said.
Postsecondary institutions are also covered by the proposed legislation, alerting university administrations to the risk that the government will infringe on academic freedoms.
Rajan Sawhney, the minister of higher education, was not present to answer questions at the press conference announcing the bill and remained largely silent on the issue. But Ms. Smith provided insight into the government’s thinking on the CBC/Radio-Canada program.Power and politics“, saying there was not enough “balance” on college campuses and that she intended to conduct a review of federal research funding to assess the gaps. She focused on journalism schools and felt there weren’t enough conservative journalists and commentators coming from those programs.
“I’ve heard enough that the federal government uses its power through researchers to only fund certain types of opinions, certain types of researchers, and I don’t think that’s fair,” she said. said, adding that this could mean Alberta is using some of its “own purchasing power” to support this research.
But Alberta’s colleges and universities have experienced years of staggering financial cuts that have created a post-secondary education system “on life support,” the University of Calgary Students’ Union said in a statement. answer to the provincial budget, published in February.
Bill Flanagan, president of the University of Alberta, said in a statement that he and other post-secondary partners would use the bill’s consultation period to push for “targeted exemptions.”
Federal research grants are evaluated by independent peer committees and grants are awarded by three main agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Research Council of Canada. humanities of Canada.
Daniel Paul O’Donnell, president of the Confederation of Alberta Teachers’ Associations and professor of English at the University of Lethbridge, has served on some of these committees.
“There is a danger that people will self-censor to ensure they get through Alberta bureaucrats,” he said.
He told me about the strict process behind each application review and the different criteria, such as the researcher’s qualifications and the university’s ability to support research, that determine grant approval decisions.
“It would be unethical to create a research question to ensure funding is aligned with the interests of the provincial government,” said Professor O’Donnell.
Trans-Canada
Vjosa Isai is a journalist and researcher for the New York Times in Toronto.
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