Alberta government says universities must provide yearly reports on free speech

The Alberta government said Friday that post-secondary institutions must provide yearly reports on efforts to protect free speech on campus.

This comes after controversial speaker and former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson had a talk cancelled at the University of Lethbridge on Monday.

On Wednesday, Alberta Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides acknowledged professor Frances Widdowson had made controversial comments in the past but opposed the talk’s cancellation in a statement.

After saying he would provide steps to tackle free speech on campuses, Nicolaides says, “It is abundantly clear that more needs to be done to ensure our institutions are adequately protecting free speech.”

“Alberta’s post-secondary institutions should be bastions of free speech and academic freedom that promote critical thinking. I will continue to explore greater steps we can take to strengthen free speech on campus.”

Citing a study from the think-tank MacDonald Laurier Institute, the province says regardless of political leaning, 34 per cent of university professors self-sensor because “they are concerned about negative consequences” if certain topical opinions became public.

The institute describes itself as being “market-oriented” and is considered a libertarian and conservative think-tank.

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Tracy Allard, the parliamentary secretary for civil liberties, says she is “proud of the work our government is doing to uphold Albertans’ civil liberties.”

Professor of Canadian History at Trent University Christopher Dummitt says “grave new threats” are turning universities away from “the search for truth.”

Meanwhile, the University of Calgary (UCalgary) Student Union (SU) says it will “push back strongly against hate on their campus.”

“Universities are bastions of free speech and expression. However, just like all freedoms, there are limits. Just as Section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms puts reasonable limitations on rights and freedoms, there should be limits on our campuses,” said a statement from the SU.

“Administration at the University of Lethbridge deserves credit for listening to students and making the difficult but correct decision to cancel the lecture.”

In addition, University of Alberta students’ union president, Abner Monteiro asks the decision makers to reconsider their “priorities.”

“Respectfully, we disagree that we need more red tape, when our institutions have clear guidelines that were approved by the Minister in 2019. We urge Minister Nicolaides and other decision-makers to refocus their priorities, listen to students, and work on food insecurity, mental health, sexual gender-based violence prevention & response, rising tuition and cost of living,” Monteiro said.  “We’ve expressed these concerns to the Minister and need them to reprioritize their efforts to support affordability measures for students.”

Hundreds of students and community members gathered at the Lethbridge university Wednesday afternoon to protest against Widdowson, preventing her from giving her unofficial presentation. However, another talk went forward, hosted by a professor of indigenous studies from the University of Manitoba, Sean Carleton.

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UCalgary said in a statement it is “committed to protecting freedom of speech,” and supports academic freedom through its own free expression committee, which was made in 2019 in response to a government initiative.

“We have not yet seen what measurements or additional expectations the Alberta Government might have in mind. We anticipate learning more about the government’s proposals in the coming days,” the statement reads.

The province says the plan is to further the same initiative UCalgary is part of, which states that 26 publicly funded post-secondary institutions in Alberta either endorse the Chicago Principles on free expression or create a policy that is “consistent with the principles.”

Those principles came about in 1902 for the University of Chicago’s decennial, when the president, William Rainey Harper, said, “the principle of complete freedom of speech on all subjects has, from the beginning, been regarded as fundamental in the University of Chicago” and that “this principle can neither now nor at any future time be called in question.”

All institutions complied and implemented their policies by Dec. 15, 2019, while making an exception for Burman University and the institution’s religious values.

-With files from Kelsey Patterson and Jilian Code