Mr. Chase: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the government succeeds in creating a functional competitiveness board, the first priority the board should review is the government’s own postsecondary education policy, which is rapidly making Alberta less competitive. 

My questions are to the minister of advanced education. How can the minister trumpet Alberta innovation while cutting funding for research and technology commercialization by $35 million?

The Speaker: The hon. Deputy Premier.

Mr. Horner: Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really do look forward to the discussion around our estimates because the hon. member may have missed a couple of things. When we consolidated a number of entities in Alberta Innovates, we did have some changes to our budget, but I can assure the hon. member that the Premier’s vision of the next generation economy is clearly on track based on what we’ve done with Alberta Innovates and Campus Alberta. And I would correct the hon. member: the international community is looking at Campus Alberta as the system to look at and perhaps follow in the future.

Mr. Chase: They’re going to have to look really hard to find it. By freezing base operating grants, the minister has put faculty layoffs and unpaid furlough days on the table as universities struggle to balance their budgets. Is this what, in quotes, world-class universities look like to this government?

Mr. Horner: Well, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is obviously aware that Campus Alberta is all of the postsecondary institutions across the province, and if he hasn’t figured that out yet, as my critic I would encourage him to go to the website and read what we’ve done over the last two years. I’m sure he would find that very enlightening.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, other jurisdictions in North America that one would consider world class, like Harvard or MIT or Berkeley, have had 20 to 30 per cent cuts to their base operating grants. Indeed, we’ll get into the budget debate, but the base operating grants of every institution in this province were protected.

The Speaker: The hon. member.

Mr. Chase: Thank you. Rather than finding it enlightening, I’m finding that a number of university students are finding their wallets considerably lighter based on your policies.

Given that we already have the lowest postsecondary enrolment in the country, how is Alberta supposed to compete with our provincial counterparts for talent when this minister is considering tuition increases as large as 70 per cent?

Mr. Horner: Well, Mr. Speaker, here we go with the nabobs of negativity and the purveyors of pessimism. Obviously, the hon. member has been reading a lot of newspapers. He’s been reading a lot of blogs. He’s been reading a lot of other things. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been reading the truth.

Alberta Hansard, February 17, 2010

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