Group fights cuts to francophone campus
TAKING A GANDER A Canada goose is preoccupied with its reflection in a downtown building in Edmonton on Friday.
The province’s French Canadian association has launched an online campaign to fight budget cuts that have left the University of Alberta’s French-language campus in a “precarious financial situation.”
The Association Canadienne Française De L’alberta (ACFA) on Wednesday called on Albertans to write to Premier Jason Kenney and Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides to show their support for the Saint-jean campus.
ACFA president Sheila Risbud said the campus is considering reducing the number of courses offered in September by 44 per cent, or by roughly 180, because of recent budget cuts.
The campus, established in 1908, is the only location in Alberta where students can receive a post-secondary education in French.
“The recent provincial cuts to post-secondary have put the campus in a really precarious financial situation,” Risbud said. “For the francophone community, we really feel (the cuts will have an) impact on our ability to continue to speak French in Alberta.”
In February, the province revealed a 6.3-per-cent cut to advanced education funding from the previous year. This decreased total operating expenses for Advanced Education to $5.1 billion from $5.5 billion in budget 2020.
Risbud said the campus could use emergency funds as a temporary solution, but the province has blocked it from being able to do that.
Another financial option is the Campus Alberta Grant, which is funded by the province, and makes up about 58 per cent of the U of A’s operating revenue.
The funding goes to the university’s administration and faculties.
Laurie Chandler, press secretary with the Ministry of Advanced Education, said in an email the grant is allocated by the university, not the ministry. She said it’s up to institutions to find savings and efficiencies in areas that don’t impact students.
“For example, Alberta’s spending on administration is $8,372 per full-time student where British Columbia spends $4,233 and Ontario spends $4,910,” Chandler said.
“Surely, university administration can look at its own expenses to find savings.”
Risbud said Saint-jean campus dean and executive officer Pierreyves Mocquais will be finalizing plans in the next couple of weeks with the worst-case scenario being cutting courses.
“The campus plays a really important role in forming our future teachers,” she said. “There’s a shortage of French-language-speaking teachers in Alberta. The ripple effect I guess with a decision like this is that we find ourselves not able to instruct our children at the primary- and secondary-school level.”
The University of Alberta was unable to provide comment before press time.