"Should we be freaking out?"

Sadly, yes

This afternoon, a colleague from one of the science disciplines called me.

“Lisa, should we be freaking out about the province saying it wants to approve federal government funding?”

My response: “Well, it might be nothing. Though the signals the Premier sent with her statement about the ‘social research fund’ weren’t good. But she sometimes goes off script. I’m optimistic they’ll walk it back today.”

And then I saw this:

Given the opportunity to reassure the post-secondary sector that the province respected the independent adjudication process for grants, the Minister of Adanced Education replied with “Albertans have a right to know exactly what these grants are and what they are funding.”

Which wouldn’t be alarming, except that this is all in the public domain. Want to know who got a SSHRC insight grant in 2023? It’s right here on the Internet. Better yet, it’s organized by province so the federal dollars headed to Alberta are right there at the top of the list. You don’t even need to scroll to the bottom of the page! And you certainly don’t need to pass legislation requiring the post-secondaries to get approval on every agreement with the federal government.

To be fair, there are certainly other agreements with the federal government. Faculty members are sometimes partially seconded to federal government departments. There might be a legal agreement covering that. There may well be research contracts, with federal government departments selecting Alberta post-secondaries to lead research on a particular topic. None of this is kept secret. In fact, universities have entire communications units devoted to trumpeting these ‘wins’ in the media. So what, exactly, is the province looking for? (Feds under the bed??)

The Minister’s tweet appears to suggest that there’s something nefarious or problematic about the federal government funding research in Alberta. Would the province prefer that the federal government not fund Alberta researchers? Does the Minister of Advanced Education think that Alberta faculty members are up to no good with their federal government grants?

The provincial government’s Post-Secondary Learning Act designates four universities as “Comprehensive Academic and Research Universities” (U of A, U of C, ULeth & Athabasca). The Ministry’s website says: “CARUs lead the province’s research and innovation agenda and can undertake all forms of research, including discovery.” By applying for research funding from the federal tri-councils, faculty at these universities are doing exactly what the government has indicated they should be doing.

I have been anxiously tracking the moves several American states have taken to control their state universities. Florida stands out, but isn’t the only state headed down this path. Suggesting that the province plans to get involved in vetting grant funding flowing to Alberta’s post-secondary institutions is an alarming signal that we might be embarking on this same path.

Up to this point, conservative provincial governments in Canada have limited themselves to insisting that post-secondary institutions adopt policies guaranteeing free speech. Alberta institutions dutifully did this after the Kenney government was elected in 2019. Ironically, now the provincial government appears to be toying with the idea of imposing ideological litmus tests on what research can be funded at its institutions.

The only ray of hope in the Minister’s tweet is the statement that she would be consulting with the post-secondaries to ensure that the government’s process aligns with the institutions’ priorities. These priorities aren’t difficult to figure out: to ensure that faculty members at Alberta institutions have the same access to federal government grant money as their counterparts at other institutions. To ensure that concerns about provincial government interference doesn’t send grant money or researchers to other provinces rather than keeping them here. To maintain the independent, non-political adjudication processes for research funding.

So, to my colleagues asking if we should be freaking out, my answer is now a tentative ‘yes.’ The government had the opportunity to reassure the sector today and has not taken it. There now appears to be a good chance that Alberta’s universities will be collateral damage in the war with the feds.