Last week, the good folks of Alberta elected a United Conservative Party government for the next four years.  What does that mean for post-secondary education? 

First, I think it’s a pretty good bet that – on the university side at least – we will continue to see more episodes of culture war nonsense along the lines of what we saw in Lethbridge last year.  Universities are kind of the epitome of the “effete lefty” culture that UCP likes to believe is antithetical to “real Albertans” and they get lots of points from their base with bashing it.  The UCP is by no means alone in this kind of irritating behaviour – amusingly, the (opposition) Progressive Conservative Party in Newfoundland and Labrador has introduced a motion to require Memorial to play “Ode to Newfoundland” at all convocation ceremonies.  (This was, believe it or not, one of the background issues at play in the recent strike out there: former President Vianne Timmons had dropped it on the well-meaning but perhaps not-entirely-politically astute grounds that the song could be seen as exclusionary to Labrador and its Indigenous population, and the province – and not a small proportion of the faculty – objected strenuously).  In a nightmare scenario, Alberta institutions might be required to play Nickelback’s How You Remind Me, but I feel the chances of this are somewhat remote.

As long as this stays at a level of symbolic politics, it’s irritating and perhaps dispiriting, but in the end not really all that consequential.  Where this has the potential to get ugly is the fact that Premier Smith has fairly loudly proclaimed her admiration for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.  She hasn’t, of course, said this with specific reference to DeSantis’ policies on higher education – grabbing ideological control of institutions deemed problematic and ending the provision of EDI services at universities.  But that doesn’t mean she might not do it.  There is some thought that “more moderate” members of caucus would talk her out of such a move, but I am not sure there is a moderate caucus anymore – most of those who could be called that lost their seats last Monday.  Jen Gerson has a good take on this here.  I don’t rate this an especially high probability, but equally I think universities would be very well-advised to plan for this eventuality.

I assign a greater likelihood of the Conservative’s trying to push an on-campus agenda a different way.  In North Carolina, the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, which are appointed by the Republican House and not the Democratic governor, is trying to form a “School of Civic Life and Leadership” which proponents say is about creating “a space for free speech, a culture of civic and open inquiry, in which students would…recognize members of political outgroups as friends to learn from rather than foes to vanquish.” Opponents say it is a solution in search of a problem that amounts to an affirmative action program for Conservative ideas which cannot get onto campus via a peer review process.  Given the UNC Board’s history of denying tenure to Nicole Hannah-Jones and its support for the presence of Confederate symbols on campus, it’s easy to see why people might be inclined to suspect the worst.   It’s not impossible to imagine a Canadian version of this popping up at a university in the province, with the financial support of both government and perhaps big business as well.  We shall see.

The first UCP term cut saw massive cuts to provincial spending on higher education.  Alberta institutions used to have government grants which, on a per-student basis, were about 30% higher than the national average.  Now, the province is pretty close to or even slightly below the national average.  But at the same time, in the UCP’s two final budgets, there was a recognition that the system needed more spaces and the government seemed prepared to provide funding.  If system growth weren’t an issue, I think that the UCP would probably stay on this path for quite a while – targeted money, not integrated into institutional base funds, and entirely focused on specific perceived labour market bottlenecks.

But the thing is, the province really does need to look at system growth.  Take a look at figure 1, which shows projected population growth for the 18–21-year-old cohort.  Alberta’s numbers are frankly terrifying.  A 40% increase in youth numbers in the next 12 years?  When Alberta already had the lowest participation rates in the country?  How the heck is the system going to deal with that?

Figure 1: Projected Indexed Growth of the 18-21 Population, 2021-2035, Alberta vs. Canada (2021 = 100)

Now some people might say “don’t assume that higher youth numbers mean higher enrolments” on the grounds that all these students won’t want to go to post-secondary education.  My answer: bullshit.  There has never been a period of postwar history – even in heat of the Alberta oil boom – where the percentage of high school graduates wanting to go on to post-secondary education decreased.  So, any government which isn’t planning for around 40% growth in ten years’ time is courting enormous parental frustrations in about six or seven years. Absent any significant change, parents will be justifiably wondering whether their kids will be able to enter an increasingly crowded set of post-secondary institutions.  As a result, post-secondary education will become a “kitchen table” political issue in Alberta in a way that it will not in other provinces. 

The thing is, solving this issue is a huge challenge.  System growth of 40% in a single decade isn’t something that has happened anywhere in Canada since the 1970s.  What’s the government supposed to do?  Tell every institution to grow 40%?  Grow the number of institutions by 40%?  Either way poses some daunting problems. 

Will the UCP be up for dealing with it?  Well, it was noticeable in their 2023 platform that they were prepared to dump a lot of money on secondary schools to deal with the coming demographic bulge.  And, in general, while the UCP is socially conservative, they don’t seem to have any difficulty spending like drunken sailors when political survival is at stake.  So, I would probably put money on some big movement on this issue in the second half of their mandate if not the next year or two (God forbid politicians move on an issue before it is absolutely necessary).  But I am pretty sure that there will be some movement in this area before their term is over.

A last point concerns the identity of the next Minister of Higher Education.  The incumbent, Demetrios Nicolaides, managed to last the full four years in the position, which is a minor miracle in modern politics.  I hope he is re-appointed.  He is not the most independent minister in the cabinet by any means (see his actions in the totally pointless fight over relocating staff at Athabasca University, which seemed to me to not involve more than carrying water for some Jason Kenney supporters even after the leadership vote was already over), and I suspect this is why he lasted the full four years last time, but he is among the younger, brighter members of cabinet and he knows the file well.  A new minister would take six months to get up to speed with the files.

Lots of possibilities here.  And surely an interesting four years to come.