Now that Premier Danielle Smith has overwhelmingly passed her party’s leadership review in Red Deer, she returns to the legislature this week where she must face some thorny issues that extend well beyond her loyal base.

This includes the fallout from Bill 18, the Provincial Priorities Act, which is a top concern for Alberta post-secondary institutions and municipalities who fear it creates overlapping bureaucracy and will hamper their autonomy.

Although the bill passed in May, the Mount Royal Faculty Association and Mount Royal Staff Association held a rally in September to protest what they feel is a hypocritical and ill-informed piece of legislation. 

“The provincial government says that it’s to support Alberta’s government in pushing back against overreach by the federal government,” said Brenda Lang, president of the faculty association. “From our perspective, this is actually an example of the provincial government’s overreach.” 

Bill 18 is just one in a trio of bills Premier Danielle Smith’s government passed in the spring to give the province more say over the money that cities, public schools and post-secondaries receive from the federal government. Smith says this is being done to align institutional outputs with provincial goals. 

Critics, however, view the bills as restrictive, arguing they reduce freedom in a province which claims they are protecting it, and has less to do with policy than brawling with Ottawa.

What is Bill 18?

According to the Government of Alberta, Bill 18’s official purpose is to require “provincial entities to obtain approval from the provincial government before entering into, amending, extending or renewing” agreements with the federal government. The bill defines a “provincial entity” as anything from a health agency or municipality to education boards and universities.

The bill gives the province authority to vet all federal funding that enters Alberta, whether it’s for housing projects in cities or research projects at universities.

When Smith announced the bill in April, she said one of its goals was to counter the “destructive agenda” Justin Trudeau’s government has imposed on Alberta taxpayers. 

“We see this when they actively work around us to sign funding agreements with municipalities and provincially regulated and funded organizations that run counter to Alberta’s interests and priorities,” Smith said. 

The legislation, Smith added, is about “taking back more of our jurisdictional control, and telling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet that they cannot make deals without our express approval.”

Why is the bill so controversial?

For those against the bill, this threat of federal overreach does not exist, because the Canadian government is not telling provincial entities how to use any funds they distribute. Because of this, municipalities and post-secondaries feel the province is, ironically, stepping outside of its jurisdiction. 

Trevor Harrison is a retired professor of sociology at the University of Lethbridge. He says while education falls under provincial administration, universities play an important role in the national economy. PHOTO: SUPPLIED BY TREVOR HARRISON

In her announcement, Smith said Section 92 of the Canadian Constitution specifies that municipalities fall under provincial — not federal — jurisdiction. Section 93 also states education is within the province’s administration too.   

But when it comes to universities, the situation is more complex, as the Constitution does not directly mention post-secondaries, said Trevor Harrison, a retired sociology professor at the University of Lethbridge.  

“The problem is the original constitution from 1867 is pretty limited in terms of what governments are supposed to do, and the country has changed a good deal since then,” he said. “There were really no mass public post secondary institutions.”

Harrison added universities have become important not only socially, but politically and economically as well. 

“There’s some real problems when you start to say the feds should not be involved in something that really is part of the national economy.”

Bill 18’s affect on research

One of the concerns for Lang and other academics is that the bill will add another layer of red-tape to the already arduous process of applying for post-secondary research grants.

She explained how roughly 98 per cent of federal research funding distributed in Alberta comes from the Tri-Agencies — the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The Tri-Agencies examine the validity of each research proposal through a peer-reviewed process involving other experts on the research area in question. 

“It’s not necessarily based on the topic, it’s on the appropriateness of the proposal that the researchers submit,” Lang said. “Many of those peer reviewers are actually Albertan academics, so there isn’t any government involvement.” 

Bill 18 was also drafted with “zero consultation,” which is reflected in the bill’s failure to account for how Tri-Agency funding works, Lang said.

“That’s the piece that the provincial government did not actually understand and didn’t bother to check before the legislation was enacted,” she said. 

Mount Royal Faculty Association President, Brenda Lang, says Bill 18 was drafted with “zero consultation” from academics about how the research application process works. PHOTO: FRANCINE AMORADO

Beyond the immediate implications of Bill 18, Harrison said questions of ideology, and its role in research, are also at stake.

He said much of the dialogue in support of the bill argues academics engage in “ideological research” that pushes a “woke agenda.” 

“We even heard the premier somewhat recently … talking about wanting people who come to the province to share the values of Albertans,” he said. “You can extend that and say, ‘Does this mean that researchers who are doing certain kinds of research are not espousing or following the values of Albertans?’”

In this way, the bill could threaten academic freedom, as Lang added researchers may no longer feel free to explore — or be able to receive funding for — topics that contradict the government’s agenda, like climate change and transgender or sexual identity.  

Consequences for post-secondaries

How the province plans to enforce the bill is not entirely clear, Harrison said.

“Now one can say, ‘Okay, maybe this is just kind of a bureaucratic step and the province is just going to rubber stamp it anyway,’” he said. “But there is always the chance that they’re going to say, for whatever reason, this does not, as the premier said, ‘align with our priorities.’”

Harrison added there are other ways the government can implement the bill, such as restricting provincial funds if a post-secondary accepts federal money without their consent. 

Harrison says if universities accept federal funding without Alberta government approval they could lose provincial funding, making it harder for them to attract researchers. PHOTO: FRANCINE AMORADO

Increasing red tape and threatening to reduce funding could make it harder for Alberta to attract researchers to its universities, Harrison said.

“Researchers want to go where they can actually do their research,” he said, adding “post-secondary is a big driver of the economy. There are a lot of jobs and a lot of money at stake here.”

Lang agreed, describing how with fewer researchers in the province, institutions will fall behind when it comes to spearheading research.

Students could also lose opportunities to participate in research projects during their studies, she said. 

“Even just here at Mount Royal, where we’re not a research intensive institution … there were over 135 students who actually had jobs as research assistants, and many of those jobs were tied to the federally funded research.” 

Municipalities are not pleased

Bill 18 also affects over 300 municipalities within the province, and while academics have been more vocal in their opposition to the bill as of late, cities are just as outraged. 

After Smith introduced the bill, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek slammed it for turning funding processes into “a bloated bureaucracy.”

“While we wait for a newly-minted ‘Provincial Bureau of Overreach’ to plod through agreements, other cities across this country will be eating our lunch,” Gondek said.  

Harrison said cities are concerned the province will shift federal funds for certain municipal projects to other areas they are interested in. 

Cities are also at a disadvantage if the Alberta government chooses to withhold their provincial funding, Harrison said, creating a carrot-and-stick situation where cities must get onside to receive money.

“Municipalities are probably in an even weaker position than post-secondaries are, because the only thing they have is their tax base. Otherwise they don’t have any money coming in,” he said.

Changes may be coming

While the bill has received royal assent, it’s not expected to come into effect until 2025. Since it was announced, the province has begun consulting with academics, and Lang is hopeful post-secondaries could be exempted from the bill.

She said while this would be a step in the right direction, ultimately she would like to see the bill repealed entirely.

“We’d like the bill to be repealed for a recognition of the irony and the hypocrisy in the bill itself,” she said. “It just ends up punishing Albertans.”

Things could also change with a federal election on the horizon, Harrison said, as recent polling suggests Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will take over. If that happens, he said, the provincial government could remove the bill because their values align more closely with the federal conservatives.

 “Much of this might actually just disappear very quickly and then they can argue about different issues with the federal government after that.”

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Kelsea Arnett is a fourth year journalism student. She has bylines in The Globe and Mail and CBC Calgary, and has written on a variety of topics from energy transition to provincial politics.