Exemptions made for post-secondary sector under Provincial Priorities Act

The Provincial Priorities Act (PPA) — formerly Bill 18 — requires provincial entities to secure prior approval from the province before implementing changes to existing and new agreements with the federal government.

In April 2024, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told CBC’s Power and Politics that the bill is aimed to ensure that “all people from all political perspectives are able to engage in a robust debate and have a robust research agenda.”

She also said that “if we did truly have balance in universities, then we would see that we would have just as many conservative commentators as we do liberal commentators.”

Since the first reading of the legislation passed in April 2024, concerns have been raised with how the PPA will impact post-secondary research funding.

On March 12, the University of Alberta’s Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) released an update indicating that there are now exemptions for post-secondary federal funding under the PPA.

According to the release, these exemptions include research-focused agreements; agreements that support programming such as student employment, work experience, official languages, non-instructional events, and instructional programming; fee-for-service contracts, short-term facility leases, and rental agreements; agreements with Banff Centre; and federal funding agreements under $100,000 as well as minor amendments and extensions.

In a statement, U of A President and Vice-chancellor Bill Flanagan called these exemptions “a welcome outcome for freedom of expression, academic freedom, and open inquiry.”

Exemptions will benefit graduate students, Arshad says

According to GSA President Haseeb Arshad, the exemptions will provide “significant relief” to graduate students who are seeking to secure grants.

“I am very pleased with the fact that any federal agreement that anyone has which is below $100,000 will be exempted.”

Arshad said that the exemption means “there is no more issue of Tri-Council grants” for graduate students.

GSA advocacy around the PPA began with a statement from Arshad in May 2024, calling the act “a piece of legislation that targets the very essence of academic freedom.”

In November 2024, the GSA met with the Minister of Advanced Education Rajan Sawhney and put forward regulatory asks regarding the PPA and creating clearer definitions and guidelines around mandatory non-instructional fees (MNFs). According to Arshad, Sawhney indicated in the budget briefing she gave to student leaders that new guidelines surrounding MNFs will be “probably coming before the fall.”

Arshad added that the GSA and the University of Calgary Graduate Students’ Association (UCGSA) “are grateful to the minister [for] at least giving us the opportunity to listen to the students.”

Exemptions are not enough because the PPA “should not exist at all,” Ip says

Andrea Dekeseredy and Ping Lam Ip, PhD students in the department of sociology at the U of A, conducted research to show that “liberal projects are not being overfunded,” Ip said.

They collected data on research projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) between 2013–14 and 2022–23 to see which disciplines received the most funding. Their research findings indicate that psychology, education, and fine arts were the top recipients of federal funding.

For Dekeseredy, the exemptions indicate that “the United Conservative Party government could not find any evidence that federal research funding favours liberal research or ideology.”

While Dekeseredy is the glad that “[their] research was of use” to the GSA, she believes that an exemption “isn’t enough in relation to this law.”

“We need to be careful about thanking people for fixing a problem that they caused in the first place,” Dekeseredy said.

For Ip, the exemptions for post-secondary federal funding are not enough because the legislation “should not exist at all.”

“The bill itself was an attempt on political censorship,” Ip said. “It’s not a win at all from my perspective because the government is still going to do this political censorship on many other entities within the province.”