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It's like the climate change fact. They want the same floor for climate change deniers as there is for climate change scientists. Sorry, climate change is a fact like gravity and balance just means pushing forward propaganda and lies.
> "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," she told the CBC's Power and Politics.
Well, if it isn’t my old friend, the non-sequitur! I haven’t seen you since you told me that, if we threw enough bicycles in the ocean, sharks would start riding them!
Which liberal commentators? On what liberal media? All corporate media is owned by rich right wing guys. Her husband works for Global and got her the podcast. Anyone else notice during the election it was always Danielle Smith said and for other guys it was always NDP leader, and no mention if the story was about the federal or provincial leader. This was on the tickertape at the bottom on global.
Research studies that come to conclusions that support conservative ideological narratives and that can also stand up to peer review from academics on the global stage are going to be very few and far between.
She doesn't need it to stand at the global stage. She just needs to exploit the name and reputation of trusted institutions to greenlight her policies.
It doesnt matter if the foundation is poor, it just needs to hold for a moment for the UCP to use study "findings", promote the headline and justify pushing ideological policy and legislation.
Getting privately-funded "research" published blue-ribbon panels like Preston Manning's company is too transparent.
This?: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68863594
[NOTE: This expert pediatrician now lives in fear because a bunch of dipshits on the internet think they understand children's medicine better than her. Which side are you all on again? JFC]
That’s crazy, she says that spreading misinformation about gender care is “unforgivable” yet literally was in charge of a misleading study that ignored 90% of factual information and peer reviewed studies on the subject.
You’re right. Her ideological research only needs to stand up well enough to give her and her supporters enough to shout something back at the feds until we separate.
So the answer is have less studies period. That’ll make the percentages even when they fund ones that already decided the conclusion beforehand.
It’s like when Kenney’s solution to lowering Covid stats was not to contain spread but to “stop recording the stats” LOL
Of course there are examples to the opposite. The carbon tax is grounded in the (generally conservative) premise that markets are too complex to regulate, so we should just price in the true cost of an externality (in this case greenhouse gas emissions) and let the free market figure it out.
That has pretty widespread acceptance in academic circles.
Not really. Just go check out what any university has cooking in their business school.
This is the real trick that conservatives play through their constant whining: universities aren't strongholds of left-wing thought. They're actually quite diverse! The business schools, economics and finance departments, and engineering departments are often stuffed silly with truly some of the most brain-dead right wing takes that can be found in this country.
When I took economics as part of an aborted business degree, the “rah rah market forces! Invisible hand is the law!” textbook promulgated pollution pricing (e.g. carbon tax) as the best, most efficient, most business-friendly solution to that problem. Just as a side note.
Absolutely agree on the engineering department take, especially now that a lot of the people I know moved onto their first job. The number of dumbass takes on my LinkedIn has skyrocketed. And of course it's mostly from the ones who moved back to Alberta.
I know a U of S Engineering grad from the 2000s that works in a white collar job in Calgary. They were mostly a fiscal or economic conservative back in the day, but their Facebook these now has Freedom Convoy type crap with sprinkles of veiled LGBT-phobia.
On the topic of LinkedIn, I remember someone on this sub saying that a lot of Alberta companies and employees will lean to the political right. They said if you ever dared to post something progressive, faintly left leaning, or non-conservative, you got piled on for making everything "political". If on the other hand your postings were right-wing such as climate change denialism, everyone agreed with you, saying how "brave" you were.
That's what they're after, for sure.
But the whole premise that universities have some admitted left skewing bias comes from a ridiculous misinterpretation of vocabulary. The term dates back to classical antiquity and is in contrast to a vocational education (that would teach the skills required for a specific occupation or literally a calling). It's the term for an education that teaches the skills needed if you're outside the confines of a single trade... if you're free. And since the language of education was Latin, the term was in Latin but has been translated into English: liberal arts.
If someone thinks those words mean liberal like the political party or art like at a gallery, then you're dealing with some form of ill-informed or uneducated simpleton.
Right? Like if there's actual, legitimate, peer-reviewed research they can do that will start to establish some real foundations to Canada's right-wing ideologies, fucking do it. Odds are it would actually quell a lot of the mainstream insanity that has claimed that side of our political spectrum, and that's good for everyone. I just don't see current right-wingers, including Marlaina, being at all interested in research like that. They want things that will legitimize their conspiracy theories.
Conservatives don’t build. They have the easier task of dismantling public entities, and selling off assets and services to their buddies, who then reward them afterwards.….
>Why can't they start doing something? like build stuff or fix things. They've been in power for 5 years and it's constant histrionics FFS
Because at this point the Conservative party is just an extension of the Carbon Lobby. They have no ideas, no innovations, and really, no skills. They have no idea how to lead or to manage. Their only purpose is to push through legislation and policy that benefits their sponsors.
The only tool they have to gain engagement from voters is stoking the culture wars. Without it, it becomes glaringly obvious that modern conservative parties are not actually conservative:
1. They expand bureaucratic red tape with the express intention of degrading the efficiency of other levels of government
2. They can't balance a budget
3. They degrade freedoms by putting up barriers for people not in ideological alignment
4. They are outright trying to take rights away from people through abuse of the Notwithstanding Clause of the Constitution.
"Meet me half way, why cant the science department teach that flat earth theory is real AND climate change is real."
5 years later "Meet me half way...."
Exactly. This is what bad-faith cons want to see as “balance”: centrist positions cast as “far left,” and far-right positions given equal airtime.
In their worldview, Dief would be considered a pinko.
She’s mad that the federal government is funding the Universities. So she wants to control that funding…
Why doesn’t she take some surplus and invest provincial money into the university? Maybe she could “win” by investing more money?
What a gong show this province is becoming.
She's going to straight up brain drain Alberta.
Why would a highly qualified researcher choose to land in Albert, knowing that a grant awarded by their peers could end up being denied by a random political decision, instead of going to literally any other university where no such problem exists?
As stupid as this sounds, it could legitimately lead to qualified researchers leaving/avoiding Alberta. Thus opening the doors for the UPC's "desired" folk.
Religious extremists already have their own educational facilities. They’re called bible colleges. Will she expect them to start teaching the intricacies of Shariah law or the core tenets of Buddhism?
Weaponizing grant funding to ensure no more studies that embarrass her or PP are produced.
To my mind this is based on the idea of preventing studies like Trevor Tombes analysis of the carbon tax contradicting her and PP's doom and fear mongering.
Perhaps I’m dense, but I feel like the definition of conservative has just become a radical ideology. Heck a conservative from 10-15yrs ago would probably be called liberal with how far down the road they’ve gone
> Heck a conservative from 10-15yrs ago would probably be called liberal with how far down the road they’ve gone
I'd say go back a little further maybe. 30-40 years perhaps.
Progressive Conservatives in many provinces in the 1970's were big supporters of social services, the welfare state, etc. They weren't afraid of deficits or creating/increasing taxes to pay for great services. If they pushed those policies today, they'd be called Liberals or even NDP.
In the 1980's they started embracing neoliberalism, and later in the 1990's they started fetishizing balanced budgets as the be-all and end-all sign of a good government, and so it didn't matter what was gutted so long as the budget was balanced (real ends justify the means kind of stuff).
I think Ontario's PC's are a great example of this change, compare the policies of the "Big Blue Machine" that ran the province from 1943 to 1985 with those of Harris in the 1990's and Ford today.
Exactly. Cons and Libs used to agree on what public good was (essentially a free-market economy with strong social supports to prevent inequality from becoming a major driver of societal decay and dissent, as the Moses of market conservatism Adam Smith brought it down from the mountain on stone tablets) but disagreed on the best method of how to get there (more after-tax money in working people’s pockets vs more redistribution & spending on programs).
Since the 90s that consensus has frayed; Harper hijacked his mandate to drive a radical hard-right economic ideology that quickly morphed into one that suppressed scientific evidence if it ran counter to business interests. (I thought his first term was a necessary corrective to the Liberal hegemony of the previous decade, but after that it became downright scary. I was asked by a journalist for a quote about why Harper’s government needed to go, and I didn’t want to have my name printed with it because I feared Consequences à la actual oppressive regimes. Probably overreaction in hindsight, but it does say something about the flavour of the times.) We’ve now gotten to a point where some conservatives are openly advocating for the suppression of an open democratic society, framing freedom and tolerance as leftist tyranny somehow. It’s like we’re not even on the same planet anymore. I almost miss Mulroney, that fart-catcher of the business elite — he seems like the representative of a sane and humane viewpoint these days.
> Exactly. Cons and Libs used to agree on what public good was (essentially a free-market economy with strong social supports to prevent inequality from becoming a major driver of societal decay and dissent, as the Moses of market conservatism Adam Smith brought it down from the mountain on stone tablets) but disagreed on the best method of how to get there (more after-tax money in working people’s pockets vs more redistribution & spending on programs).
Provincially, it should be said that the Liberals and PC's often swapped places on the "how to get there" and it wasn't uncommon for the PC's to campaign *to the left* of Liberals on issues. That still happens at times in the Maritimes, where PC's are generally a little more "Red Tory" than they are elsewhere in the country.
edit: there were, of course, other historical differences between the Liberals and the Cons/PC's federally. The Cons were more Anglophile, imperialist, and saw Canada's place being at Britain's side, while the Liberals were less-enamoured with the empire, saw Canada as separate from Britain, wanted closer trade and diplomatic ties with the US, etc. Funnily enough, by the 1980's the PC's had come around and embraced the US even harder than the Liberals (Mulroney *loved* Reagan, and Harper was appalled we didn't answer our ally's call to invade Iraq). Historically, the Liberals were more inclusive regarding French and Catholic Canadians, while the Conservatives were more WASPy (and in the 19th century, often anti-Catholic).
> I almost miss Mulroney, that fart-catcher of the business elite — he seems like the representative of a sane and humane viewpoint these days.
I can understand that, but even Mulroney was a substantial departure from his predecessors, Clark and Stanfield. I liked Joe Clark, bad PM and probably just unready when he had his turn, but he's a good guy.
I remember one of the convoy chucklefucks posting on his YouTube channel that in undertaking a program in criminal justice at U of A, he was required to take a first year “liberal arts” class. He took offence, wondering where the corresponding “conservative arts” class was. Someone might have taken a moment to try actually explaining to him what the true meaning of “liberal” is. Doubt it worked. This mentality is a sickness.
Also that “liberal arts” isn’t a term used by institutions, pretty much only by angry conservatives. He was probably required to take the same mandatory first-year English class as everyone else.
> “liberal arts” isn’t a term used by institutions, pretty much only by angry conservatives.
Angry conservatives are frankly the stupidest ones imho. "Liberal arts" is a specific and ancient philosophy in higher education, referring to a broad education across several disciplines including natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, arts, and humanities. The University of Lethbridge has liberal arts-based undergrad requirements: 4 arts, 4 science, and 4 social science courses (out of 40) are required to graduate.
Criminal justice strikes me as a program where students should have extensive training in liberal arts as well as law.
I had to take sociology, which was basically talking about incarceration rates, homelessness, addictions, and their potential causes/solutions. That's probably what his smooth-brain having ass had to take.
For USA-inspired right-wingers, "ideology balance" in education means far-right propaganda & indoctrination, period.
Considering how much of an extremist ideologue marlaina "smith" is, add a generous helping of "christian" nationalism to the mix.
Her and dofo have proven the unthinkable could happen in Canada: blatant corruption, ultra-partisanship and ideological fanaticism on display from day 1 of their respective tenure as elected officials. It's no longer just in the USA that you have public officials who actively work against the public interest and work to harm the general populace.
How could albertans (and ontarians) vote for that and not understand the downright catastrophic consequences of having that kind of people in power is incomprehensible to me. Talk about setting yourself up for unavoidable failure and worse.
P.S.: add scott moe to the list of right-wing fanatics in power.
People are dumb and they are getting dumber...not much else to say. Won't be long before we are teaching the earth is flat and we are dragging those that aren't like us into the streets for beatings...
Shouldn’t she as a journalist know that giving equal flooring to unequal positions is a problem? Like, this is the exact reason why there’s so much distrust in doctors where there probably wouldn’t have been during and after the pandemic
Yup, the good old Calgary School, and she was also part of the Campus Conservatives along with Rob Anders and Ezra Levant who were constantly chasing right wing grievances on campus to the point they were more annoying and played the victim more than the leftist students. Any time the rock wasn’t painted in a way they liked, any time the student union asserted anything, any time people didn’t want to see the dead baby antiabortion posters, they were always the victim.
They were out to ruin everything fun about campus for the cause of conservatism because fun is Marxist or something.
So fitting that Danielle went on to get fired off the Calgary School Board for her cat fight with the Chair. I have read some of the minutes of those days. What a hag.
To some degree science can’t properly exist without doubt, and constantly asking questions is what we do. What we should do. Unfortunately her questions come from a place of ignorance and are very expensive. But it’s always good to ask questions. Even if they are stupid questions. I’m really trying here
The problem is the questions were asked, answered, peer reviewed, tested and approached from a new angle, peer reviewed again for the same answer. And because they don't lie the answer they will keep asking the same question until the money runs out so they can claim it is "unanswered and therefore their personal feelings on it are as valid as the decades of peer reviewed research to the contrary".
Research contradicts the notion that conservative students or faculty are routinely under siege on college campuses. While the right faces unique challenges in higher education, there is little evidence to support widespread ideological persecution. It’s a complex issue, and finding a balance between diverse perspectives remains a critical task for educational institutions. Danielle's ambition is not about religion. It is about remaining in charge and following the firewall letter everywhere she can think of while challenging the federal government constantly. The goal seems to be to overhaul the research produced by universities and colleges in the province. While the specifics remain unclear, Smith’s FOCUS INCLUDES ALIGNING RESEARCH FUNDING WITH PROVINCIAL PRIORITIES is and addressing ideological balance. There is apprehension among academics and students, who worry about potential implications for academic freedom and the perception of research as propaganda.
Is this not overstepping?
The fact that more educated a person is, the less likely they are to support people like Smith, Trump, and others of their ilk, is proof to them that the education system is biased.
Presumably, she wants our universities to become carbon copies of the Fraser Institute and just churn out fringe science & economics that supports conservative ideology.
This aspect, in particular, is what really stands out to me. The concept of right wing research is about as absurd as the concept of Cartoon physics research. She doesn't understand that the whole point of science is that you get the same results consistently and repeatably no matter what your beliefs are. Just as the physics of where a ball will land if you throw it with a certain force in the velocity won't change regardless of your ideological viewpoint of where that ball should land. No amount of cartoon physics research Will change the trajectory of that ball. If scientific research supports what she perceives as "woke" ideology, No amount of " Conservative research" Will change the fact that empirical evidence Supports what she finds to be "woke".
What I find very alarming is that it seems like we are regressing what I could best describe as a medieval relationship to knowledge acquisition. There is a regression where people seem to start believing that the truth is based on What things seem like and Is what the opinion of the majority is. Just like how people in the medieval era Thought that it was obviously true that the earth was flat because it looks that way and because the church Says so, The same thing is happening with things like climate change denial and the anti vaccine movement. People are regressing to an idea of the truth that is based on The way things seem like to your social group.
There seems to be less awareness of the concept that the best way to find the factual truth is to Prove it with an experimental methodology which proves a hypothesis Because it provides reputable and consistent results no matter What people want or believe those results to be. I find it very sad that all the progress humanity has made as a result of discovering the scientific method seems to be falling off to the back burner and society is regressing back to a medieval way of finding what they think is the truth.
It's amazing how her base will feel vindicated by this as it reinforces their lousy idea that college is liberal. They can't bear the idea that conservative ideas are dogshit.
imho, she's trying to combat the notion that universities are liberal indoctrination camps without saying so outright.
If that's the case, it's less about ideology and more about idiocracy.
Why, teaching the evolution "controversy" of course. What else.would she mean?
This is exactly how a 2000 year old mythological tale gets presented as fact.
She can try to get more conservative profs and curriculum in universities... and maybe she'll succeed. But when these conservative profs, and the students subjected to a conservative curriculum, fail to publish, Alberta will be in for a rude awakening when the unis plummet in national and international rankings.
This is for all the parents crying because the kids departed the farm god loving conservatives, and returned atheist liberals.
They know the education gap is killing them and only the uneducated or selfish love the UCP. I know lots of conservatives is the city of Calgary who are now shifting to support NDP.
So happy to have a government working hard to make sure our best interests are being looked after. This is definitely something that affects me every day and justifies the attention of my elected officials. The biggest problem I face is making sure the provincial government can put their ideological stamp of approval on all federal money and programs. I don't know how we survived before.
In addition to the government wanting oversight on federal funding agreements, which include academia. Better get your friends to vote if you want change. This is crazy town.
Conservative ideas don't stand up to academic scrutiny.
In my undergrad disproving anything that came out of the Calgary School (particularly "judicial activism" and the "Court party") was an easy B.
Or how much money the rich have thrown at convincing the rubes of this opinion. Or any of the nutwing theories of the fxck trudeau trend. All funded by Preston and his buddies
It’s the same reason they did what they did to the curriculum, why they are underfunding schools and under supporting students.
They know younger generations lean left and they want to ensure that they can still indoctrinate voters.
Is it just me or do all of the recent policy announcements from the provincial government seem to be completely reactionary in nature? (i.e. responding to things others are doing) There is no apparent unified strategy for meeting the needs of the Province.
>Ya I graduated with a University of Alberta degree in Abortionomics......what? It is a Alberta government approved course !!! Science? Is that the magic thing people talk about?
Okay silly jokes aside, it is not good to have government intervention on "post secondary education". Literally just reading the playbook of "how communist government work". Imagine withholding funding because the government doesn't agree with your universities "research" or "teaching materials".
How do you balance LGBT and Trans erasure? No one who holds any of her positions is serious enough to hang around for more than a 4 year bachelors. Like find some doctors who think underfunding healthcare to push a predatory private system is a good idea.
"Ideological balance" is nonsensical.
Ideology is arrived at by your ability to think and process evidence you have about the world around you.
Ability to excel in academics is based on your ability to think and reason.
Because of this, there's literally no reason to think that ideologies should be "evenly represented" in academics, or indeed any sphere.
---
Further there is simply no place in an institute of higher learning for ideologies of ignorance, like climate denial, anti-vax, creationism, anti-intellectualism, or race realism or conspiratorial garbage based on the vibes people have.
All of these ideologies (unsurprisingly) share a "find the evidence to support the conclusion we want" view. Which simply isn't how any rational or reasonable person thinks, nor should think.
---
Finally, this "all opinions are right" crap is ostensibly what conservatives say they are against.
Even if we just assumed that "liberals" and "conservatives" are equally intelligent at equal rates ([which we actually have evidence isn't the case](https://gwern.net/doc/iq/2024-edwards.pdf) - but let's play the game anyways), there should be \*no reason\* for the state to try and "enforce" this balance.
It would already be there.
And we're assured that it should be, because conservatives are telling us all the time how there's no need for things like affirmative action, because there's no biases already.
If they have evidence that conservatives are held back because of their beliefs, and not because their beliefs are in contradiction to intellectual pursuits, they would've provided it.
But such evidence simply doesn't exist.
Which is why they resort to the "but why are there so few conservatives in academia" comment (and if you don't see why that's a bad argument, you're kinda proving my point)
So she wants what to introduce a equivalent of a political department in universities? I.e something that people would see in the former soviet union or China or other communist countries. What type of mental gymnastics is this lmao
>Premier muses about new provincial research programs to produce more conservative thought
“Conservative though” is an oxymoron.
Hitler did this with fascist thought too, but there’s a reason nobody talks about those books: they were garbage.
The communists also produced a lot of “communist writing”, but only certain strains were pure propaganda. So a lot communist writing is still around because it *wasn’t* pure trash.
There is a reason most universities and studies produced bey them lean away from Conservative policies and therefore an "ideology balanced" is not possible without strong arming studies and fudging results.
If you want ideological balance, open up as many publicly funded union organizing programs as you do business and management programs.
Shit, show me one single program in post secondary that teaches people to organize.
Ideological balance my ass.
Regressive stupids are in charge of far too much in this timeline. It always and inevitably makes things worse when the village idiot is put in charge....
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It's like the climate change fact. They want the same floor for climate change deniers as there is for climate change scientists. Sorry, climate change is a fact like gravity and balance just means pushing forward propaganda and lies.
Round-earth theory is just another theory. Why can’t we have some balance that also teaches the opposite? Obvious left-wing propaganda. (/s)
Flat-earthers unite /s Lol
They have members all around the globe….
Why would universities teach unprovable stuff like “climate change doesn’t exist” since there is no proof it doesn’t exist? Riddle me this, Marlaina!!
> "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," she told the CBC's Power and Politics. Well, if it isn’t my old friend, the non-sequitur! I haven’t seen you since you told me that, if we threw enough bicycles in the ocean, sharks would start riding them!
Which liberal commentators? On what liberal media? All corporate media is owned by rich right wing guys. Her husband works for Global and got her the podcast. Anyone else notice during the election it was always Danielle Smith said and for other guys it was always NDP leader, and no mention if the story was about the federal or provincial leader. This was on the tickertape at the bottom on global.
I think it was the economists coming out in favor of the carbon tax.
If the vast majority of research finds that your viewpoints are wrong, something needs to change and it’s not the research
Research studies that come to conclusions that support conservative ideological narratives and that can also stand up to peer review from academics on the global stage are going to be very few and far between.
She doesn't need it to stand at the global stage. She just needs to exploit the name and reputation of trusted institutions to greenlight her policies. It doesnt matter if the foundation is poor, it just needs to hold for a moment for the UCP to use study "findings", promote the headline and justify pushing ideological policy and legislation. Getting privately-funded "research" published blue-ribbon panels like Preston Manning's company is too transparent.
She just needs to exploit the name and reputation of trusted institutions to GASLIGHT her policies. There fixed it for you.
This. Exactly, precisely *this* . It just has to last long enough to make a news cycle.
i.e., Casey review or whatever that abomination is called.
Please don't say you mean the [Cass Review](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/26/cass-review-gender-identity-services-report).
Is that the one? Then yes lol
This?: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68863594 [NOTE: This expert pediatrician now lives in fear because a bunch of dipshits on the internet think they understand children's medicine better than her. Which side are you all on again? JFC]
That’s crazy, she says that spreading misinformation about gender care is “unforgivable” yet literally was in charge of a misleading study that ignored 90% of factual information and peer reviewed studies on the subject.
You’re right. Her ideological research only needs to stand up well enough to give her and her supporters enough to shout something back at the feds until we separate.
So the answer is have less studies period. That’ll make the percentages even when they fund ones that already decided the conclusion beforehand. It’s like when Kenney’s solution to lowering Covid stats was not to contain spread but to “stop recording the stats” LOL
That’s the whole point. Fuck your facts, conservatives want to base academic standards on their feelings.
I wonder who would sign up for a conservative arts degree ..
Jordan Peterson has just been announced new Dean of U of A /s
Of course there are examples to the opposite. The carbon tax is grounded in the (generally conservative) premise that markets are too complex to regulate, so we should just price in the true cost of an externality (in this case greenhouse gas emissions) and let the free market figure it out. That has pretty widespread acceptance in academic circles.
Until libs implanted it, then market driven carbon pricing became the communist spawn of Satan
Not really. Just go check out what any university has cooking in their business school. This is the real trick that conservatives play through their constant whining: universities aren't strongholds of left-wing thought. They're actually quite diverse! The business schools, economics and finance departments, and engineering departments are often stuffed silly with truly some of the most brain-dead right wing takes that can be found in this country.
economics and business schools have essentially become seminaries in terms of dogma and tunnel vision
When I took economics as part of an aborted business degree, the “rah rah market forces! Invisible hand is the law!” textbook promulgated pollution pricing (e.g. carbon tax) as the best, most efficient, most business-friendly solution to that problem. Just as a side note.
Absolutely agree on the engineering department take, especially now that a lot of the people I know moved onto their first job. The number of dumbass takes on my LinkedIn has skyrocketed. And of course it's mostly from the ones who moved back to Alberta.
I know a U of S Engineering grad from the 2000s that works in a white collar job in Calgary. They were mostly a fiscal or economic conservative back in the day, but their Facebook these now has Freedom Convoy type crap with sprinkles of veiled LGBT-phobia. On the topic of LinkedIn, I remember someone on this sub saying that a lot of Alberta companies and employees will lean to the political right. They said if you ever dared to post something progressive, faintly left leaning, or non-conservative, you got piled on for making everything "political". If on the other hand your postings were right-wing such as climate change denialism, everyone agreed with you, saying how "brave" you were.
That's what they're after, for sure. But the whole premise that universities have some admitted left skewing bias comes from a ridiculous misinterpretation of vocabulary. The term dates back to classical antiquity and is in contrast to a vocational education (that would teach the skills required for a specific occupation or literally a calling). It's the term for an education that teaches the skills needed if you're outside the confines of a single trade... if you're free. And since the language of education was Latin, the term was in Latin but has been translated into English: liberal arts. If someone thinks those words mean liberal like the political party or art like at a gallery, then you're dealing with some form of ill-informed or uneducated simpleton.
Universities follow data. If the data points in a direction that goes against your beliefs, change your beliefs Danielle.
Where’s the money in that?
Marlaina: No. Shut your wh*re mouth when I’m talking to you.
Correctly identified step 2: butcher the process
Right? Like if there's actual, legitimate, peer-reviewed research they can do that will start to establish some real foundations to Canada's right-wing ideologies, fucking do it. Odds are it would actually quell a lot of the mainstream insanity that has claimed that side of our political spectrum, and that's good for everyone. I just don't see current right-wingers, including Marlaina, being at all interested in research like that. They want things that will legitimize their conspiracy theories.
This isn't conservative ideological narratives. Let's call a spade a spade, this is fascism.
Why can't they start doing something? like build stuff or fix things. They've been in power for 5 years and it's constant histrionics FFS
They're conservative politicians, constant histrionics is literally all they have to offer
Conservatives don’t build. They have the easier task of dismantling public entities, and selling off assets and services to their buddies, who then reward them afterwards.….
Destroying shit is way easier (and more fun) than building things, especially when you can blame others.
Also costs less (short term) to destroy than to build (more voter points for spending less money - "fiscally responsible")
Doing stuff is hard. Complaining about things is easy.
>Why can't they start doing something? like build stuff or fix things. They've been in power for 5 years and it's constant histrionics FFS Because at this point the Conservative party is just an extension of the Carbon Lobby. They have no ideas, no innovations, and really, no skills. They have no idea how to lead or to manage. Their only purpose is to push through legislation and policy that benefits their sponsors. The only tool they have to gain engagement from voters is stoking the culture wars. Without it, it becomes glaringly obvious that modern conservative parties are not actually conservative: 1. They expand bureaucratic red tape with the express intention of degrading the efficiency of other levels of government 2. They can't balance a budget 3. They degrade freedoms by putting up barriers for people not in ideological alignment 4. They are outright trying to take rights away from people through abuse of the Notwithstanding Clause of the Constitution.
In other words, the UCPs are fascists.
I mean, smith does have a tattoo of a well known fascist affiliated (The leader is a self proclaimed fascist) separatist group.
Frankly given their track record I’d rather they literally do nothing than what they’ve been doing.
They don't want to govern. They want to *rule*.
Fear and hate is what drives them.
Excuse me… but fuck Trudeau is an amazing thing she has done. /s
I hate Trudeau but he could do much better
I disagree with a lot of the specific choices Trudeau has made, but there’s never been any question that he’s actively trying to accomplish things
I was making a sex joke but I agree haha
I think my comment works either way 😉
I disagree. I have yet to see any evidence that she or any of her party has successfully had sex with our prime minister.
"Meet me half way, why cant the science department teach that flat earth theory is real AND climate change is real." 5 years later "Meet me half way...."
“Meet me in the middle,” says the unjust man. You take a step forward, he takes a step back. “Meet me in the middle,” says the unjust man.
In today’s world, the unjust man would get in a lifted Ford F-150, drive 20 km back, and then cry about woke liberal elites.
You forgot the FUCK TRUDEAU flag.
hey, $50 bucks is $50 bucks, and you get a cool new flag and bumper sticker too!
I *knew* I was missing something.
Also the truck nuts.
People are welcome to take theology courses, but of course the study of theology includes the religions that conservatives find strange and scary.
Exactly. This is what bad-faith cons want to see as “balance”: centrist positions cast as “far left,” and far-right positions given equal airtime. In their worldview, Dief would be considered a pinko.
She’s mad that the federal government is funding the Universities. So she wants to control that funding… Why doesn’t she take some surplus and invest provincial money into the university? Maybe she could “win” by investing more money? What a gong show this province is becoming.
She's going to straight up brain drain Alberta. Why would a highly qualified researcher choose to land in Albert, knowing that a grant awarded by their peers could end up being denied by a random political decision, instead of going to literally any other university where no such problem exists? As stupid as this sounds, it could legitimately lead to qualified researchers leaving/avoiding Alberta. Thus opening the doors for the UPC's "desired" folk.
Absolutely already happening.
Religious extremists already have their own educational facilities. They’re called bible colleges. Will she expect them to start teaching the intricacies of Shariah law or the core tenets of Buddhism?
Weaponizing grant funding to ensure no more studies that embarrass her or PP are produced. To my mind this is based on the idea of preventing studies like Trevor Tombes analysis of the carbon tax contradicting her and PP's doom and fear mongering.
It's almost like PP was part of a government that muzzled scientists in the past unless they found something he liked. Oh wait....
Perhaps I’m dense, but I feel like the definition of conservative has just become a radical ideology. Heck a conservative from 10-15yrs ago would probably be called liberal with how far down the road they’ve gone
> Heck a conservative from 10-15yrs ago would probably be called liberal with how far down the road they’ve gone I'd say go back a little further maybe. 30-40 years perhaps. Progressive Conservatives in many provinces in the 1970's were big supporters of social services, the welfare state, etc. They weren't afraid of deficits or creating/increasing taxes to pay for great services. If they pushed those policies today, they'd be called Liberals or even NDP. In the 1980's they started embracing neoliberalism, and later in the 1990's they started fetishizing balanced budgets as the be-all and end-all sign of a good government, and so it didn't matter what was gutted so long as the budget was balanced (real ends justify the means kind of stuff). I think Ontario's PC's are a great example of this change, compare the policies of the "Big Blue Machine" that ran the province from 1943 to 1985 with those of Harris in the 1990's and Ford today.
Exactly. Cons and Libs used to agree on what public good was (essentially a free-market economy with strong social supports to prevent inequality from becoming a major driver of societal decay and dissent, as the Moses of market conservatism Adam Smith brought it down from the mountain on stone tablets) but disagreed on the best method of how to get there (more after-tax money in working people’s pockets vs more redistribution & spending on programs). Since the 90s that consensus has frayed; Harper hijacked his mandate to drive a radical hard-right economic ideology that quickly morphed into one that suppressed scientific evidence if it ran counter to business interests. (I thought his first term was a necessary corrective to the Liberal hegemony of the previous decade, but after that it became downright scary. I was asked by a journalist for a quote about why Harper’s government needed to go, and I didn’t want to have my name printed with it because I feared Consequences à la actual oppressive regimes. Probably overreaction in hindsight, but it does say something about the flavour of the times.) We’ve now gotten to a point where some conservatives are openly advocating for the suppression of an open democratic society, framing freedom and tolerance as leftist tyranny somehow. It’s like we’re not even on the same planet anymore. I almost miss Mulroney, that fart-catcher of the business elite — he seems like the representative of a sane and humane viewpoint these days.
> Exactly. Cons and Libs used to agree on what public good was (essentially a free-market economy with strong social supports to prevent inequality from becoming a major driver of societal decay and dissent, as the Moses of market conservatism Adam Smith brought it down from the mountain on stone tablets) but disagreed on the best method of how to get there (more after-tax money in working people’s pockets vs more redistribution & spending on programs). Provincially, it should be said that the Liberals and PC's often swapped places on the "how to get there" and it wasn't uncommon for the PC's to campaign *to the left* of Liberals on issues. That still happens at times in the Maritimes, where PC's are generally a little more "Red Tory" than they are elsewhere in the country. edit: there were, of course, other historical differences between the Liberals and the Cons/PC's federally. The Cons were more Anglophile, imperialist, and saw Canada's place being at Britain's side, while the Liberals were less-enamoured with the empire, saw Canada as separate from Britain, wanted closer trade and diplomatic ties with the US, etc. Funnily enough, by the 1980's the PC's had come around and embraced the US even harder than the Liberals (Mulroney *loved* Reagan, and Harper was appalled we didn't answer our ally's call to invade Iraq). Historically, the Liberals were more inclusive regarding French and Catholic Canadians, while the Conservatives were more WASPy (and in the 19th century, often anti-Catholic). > I almost miss Mulroney, that fart-catcher of the business elite — he seems like the representative of a sane and humane viewpoint these days. I can understand that, but even Mulroney was a substantial departure from his predecessors, Clark and Stanfield. I liked Joe Clark, bad PM and probably just unready when he had his turn, but he's a good guy.
I remember one of the convoy chucklefucks posting on his YouTube channel that in undertaking a program in criminal justice at U of A, he was required to take a first year “liberal arts” class. He took offence, wondering where the corresponding “conservative arts” class was. Someone might have taken a moment to try actually explaining to him what the true meaning of “liberal” is. Doubt it worked. This mentality is a sickness.
Also that “liberal arts” isn’t a term used by institutions, pretty much only by angry conservatives. He was probably required to take the same mandatory first-year English class as everyone else.
> “liberal arts” isn’t a term used by institutions, pretty much only by angry conservatives. Angry conservatives are frankly the stupidest ones imho. "Liberal arts" is a specific and ancient philosophy in higher education, referring to a broad education across several disciplines including natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences, arts, and humanities. The University of Lethbridge has liberal arts-based undergrad requirements: 4 arts, 4 science, and 4 social science courses (out of 40) are required to graduate. Criminal justice strikes me as a program where students should have extensive training in liberal arts as well as law.
I had to take sociology, which was basically talking about incarceration rates, homelessness, addictions, and their potential causes/solutions. That's probably what his smooth-brain having ass had to take.
All of which are, y’know, things that are kind of important to understand when working in the legal system.
There's a reason why most university educated people are liberal and it has nothing to do with "woke indoctrination".
For USA-inspired right-wingers, "ideology balance" in education means far-right propaganda & indoctrination, period. Considering how much of an extremist ideologue marlaina "smith" is, add a generous helping of "christian" nationalism to the mix. Her and dofo have proven the unthinkable could happen in Canada: blatant corruption, ultra-partisanship and ideological fanaticism on display from day 1 of their respective tenure as elected officials. It's no longer just in the USA that you have public officials who actively work against the public interest and work to harm the general populace. How could albertans (and ontarians) vote for that and not understand the downright catastrophic consequences of having that kind of people in power is incomprehensible to me. Talk about setting yourself up for unavoidable failure and worse. P.S.: add scott moe to the list of right-wing fanatics in power.
Wow she sure LOVES having her government get involved in everything for such a "freedom" based government
I agree. There are nowhere near enough socialists in the Business Department
People are dumb and they are getting dumber...not much else to say. Won't be long before we are teaching the earth is flat and we are dragging those that aren't like us into the streets for beatings...
Shouldn’t she as a journalist know that giving equal flooring to unequal positions is a problem? Like, this is the exact reason why there’s so much distrust in doctors where there probably wouldn’t have been during and after the pandemic
She's not a journalist she is a lobbyist with a podcast
She has never been a journalist
Sorry, columnist*
She hates being called a columnist, she is apparently an opinion speaker.
Or, just hear me out, focus on actual policy and not “woke ideology” God these people are so fucking stupid it’s genuinely painful.
And yet she is a graduate of the PoliSci dept at the U of C. Hardly a balanced educational experience.
The poli sci department at the U of C is already relatively right wing too.
Has been for decades. Most policy based on Alberta exceptionalism can be traced back to Flanagan, Morton et al.
Yup, the good old Calgary School, and she was also part of the Campus Conservatives along with Rob Anders and Ezra Levant who were constantly chasing right wing grievances on campus to the point they were more annoying and played the victim more than the leftist students. Any time the rock wasn’t painted in a way they liked, any time the student union asserted anything, any time people didn’t want to see the dead baby antiabortion posters, they were always the victim. They were out to ruin everything fun about campus for the cause of conservatism because fun is Marxist or something.
So fitting that Danielle went on to get fired off the Calgary School Board for her cat fight with the Chair. I have read some of the minutes of those days. What a hag.
That department's populist right-wing philosophy has caused so much damage to politics in Canada.
To some degree science can’t properly exist without doubt, and constantly asking questions is what we do. What we should do. Unfortunately her questions come from a place of ignorance and are very expensive. But it’s always good to ask questions. Even if they are stupid questions. I’m really trying here
The problem is the questions were asked, answered, peer reviewed, tested and approached from a new angle, peer reviewed again for the same answer. And because they don't lie the answer they will keep asking the same question until the money runs out so they can claim it is "unanswered and therefore their personal feelings on it are as valid as the decades of peer reviewed research to the contrary".
Ah yes, now we introduce "wrong think".
Big Sister Is Watching.
I object to 3 of the 4 words in that sentence. *shudder*
Always focused on the important issues that matter to Albertans…../s
Facts don't have ideology
Research contradicts the notion that conservative students or faculty are routinely under siege on college campuses. While the right faces unique challenges in higher education, there is little evidence to support widespread ideological persecution. It’s a complex issue, and finding a balance between diverse perspectives remains a critical task for educational institutions. Danielle's ambition is not about religion. It is about remaining in charge and following the firewall letter everywhere she can think of while challenging the federal government constantly. The goal seems to be to overhaul the research produced by universities and colleges in the province. While the specifics remain unclear, Smith’s FOCUS INCLUDES ALIGNING RESEARCH FUNDING WITH PROVINCIAL PRIORITIES is and addressing ideological balance. There is apprehension among academics and students, who worry about potential implications for academic freedom and the perception of research as propaganda. Is this not overstepping?
Of course it is
For an alleged party of "small government" they sure love to have their fingers in EVERYTHING
Brought to you by the party of “Small government and freedom.”
The Ron DeSantis of Canada Yuck.....
"Just a little bit more fascism please"
The fact that more educated a person is, the less likely they are to support people like Smith, Trump, and others of their ilk, is proof to them that the education system is biased.
She wants them to be as dumb as her.
Presumably, she wants our universities to become carbon copies of the Fraser Institute and just churn out fringe science & economics that supports conservative ideology.
The definition of what a conservative is has shifted so far to the right that an 80s conservative would be seen as a liberal. Crazy times
JFC. A fundamental misunderstanding of what science actually is. We’re bloody doomed.
This aspect, in particular, is what really stands out to me. The concept of right wing research is about as absurd as the concept of Cartoon physics research. She doesn't understand that the whole point of science is that you get the same results consistently and repeatably no matter what your beliefs are. Just as the physics of where a ball will land if you throw it with a certain force in the velocity won't change regardless of your ideological viewpoint of where that ball should land. No amount of cartoon physics research Will change the trajectory of that ball. If scientific research supports what she perceives as "woke" ideology, No amount of " Conservative research" Will change the fact that empirical evidence Supports what she finds to be "woke". What I find very alarming is that it seems like we are regressing what I could best describe as a medieval relationship to knowledge acquisition. There is a regression where people seem to start believing that the truth is based on What things seem like and Is what the opinion of the majority is. Just like how people in the medieval era Thought that it was obviously true that the earth was flat because it looks that way and because the church Says so, The same thing is happening with things like climate change denial and the anti vaccine movement. People are regressing to an idea of the truth that is based on The way things seem like to your social group. There seems to be less awareness of the concept that the best way to find the factual truth is to Prove it with an experimental methodology which proves a hypothesis Because it provides reputable and consistent results no matter What people want or believe those results to be. I find it very sad that all the progress humanity has made as a result of discovering the scientific method seems to be falling off to the back burner and society is regressing back to a medieval way of finding what they think is the truth.
Who needs science when you have white Jebus and capitalism?
They really do believe that, given enough power, they can control what is real. She’s Queen Canute shouting at the tide to stop coming.
UCP don’t want too much book learnin’ it makes for uppity Albertans who wont work for a minimum wage
Ah yea, the party that is scared an allergic to science and facts are at it again.
This woman would have us teaching flat earth and call it balance
It's amazing how her base will feel vindicated by this as it reinforces their lousy idea that college is liberal. They can't bear the idea that conservative ideas are dogshit.
Yeah! Why aren’t chemists made to also study alchemy?! Things need to be balanced!
Why aren't doctors healing people with crystals and essential oils?!
Bring back phrenology!
Equivalent exchange.
imho, she's trying to combat the notion that universities are liberal indoctrination camps without saying so outright. If that's the case, it's less about ideology and more about idiocracy.
Why, teaching the evolution "controversy" of course. What else.would she mean? This is exactly how a 2000 year old mythological tale gets presented as fact.
And "both sides" of climate change.
I’m waiting for “both sides of gravity.”
Sounds like a nice cheap way to push propaganda and ideology
She can try to get more conservative profs and curriculum in universities... and maybe she'll succeed. But when these conservative profs, and the students subjected to a conservative curriculum, fail to publish, Alberta will be in for a rude awakening when the unis plummet in national and international rankings.
This is for all the parents crying because the kids departed the farm god loving conservatives, and returned atheist liberals. They know the education gap is killing them and only the uneducated or selfish love the UCP. I know lots of conservatives is the city of Calgary who are now shifting to support NDP.
So happy to have a government working hard to make sure our best interests are being looked after. This is definitely something that affects me every day and justifies the attention of my elected officials. The biggest problem I face is making sure the provincial government can put their ideological stamp of approval on all federal money and programs. I don't know how we survived before.
The thought police.
The last thing Canada needs is more conservatives.
Absolute loon
Am I so out of touch? No. It's the children who are wrong.
No the kids just want to choose their own sex and need her guidance.
Time to re-read 1984 as George Orwell might have some further measures and ideologies the UCP hasn’t yet considered.
In addition to the government wanting oversight on federal funding agreements, which include academia. Better get your friends to vote if you want change. This is crazy town.
"Balance" ie her views upheld, exalted and pushed.
Take Back Alberta curriculum... obviously.
I want an ideology balance at the war room
Sorry, Danielle. Reality has a "left-wing" bias. Facts don't care about your feelings.
Conservative ideas don't stand up to academic scrutiny. In my undergrad disproving anything that came out of the Calgary School (particularly "judicial activism" and the "Court party") was an easy B.
As they say, reality has a leftist balance. There’s no ideology there.
The fact we are talking about higher education being “leftist” or left-leaning is a depressing reminder how far we’ve sunk as a society.
Yep. Having evidence and proof makes you a leftist according to these people.
Or how much money the rich have thrown at convincing the rubes of this opinion. Or any of the nutwing theories of the fxck trudeau trend. All funded by Preston and his buddies
She wants to force people to do what she says is all.
So she wants "Conspiracist and anti-science goof", added as her version of balance?
Those damn universities produce lefties! Why aren’t more educated people right wing! We gotta do something about why educated folks don’t like us!
She's just another conservative dolt, that should be no where near the levers of government.
Her idea of “balance” is probably the argument of whether or not she is better than Jesus or a just close second to Jesus. Let the debate begin!
"TeAcH tHe CoNtRoVeRsY"
So she wants affirmative action or “DEI” but for her preferred ideology. Hmmm...
I’m so tired boss
It’s the same reason they did what they did to the curriculum, why they are underfunding schools and under supporting students. They know younger generations lean left and they want to ensure that they can still indoctrinate voters.
"We have no idea what she could be talking about, anyways, I would like to begin today's whiteness studies course with a land acknowledgement..."
This feels like Barry Cooper has a hand in this
Is it just me or do all of the recent policy announcements from the provincial government seem to be completely reactionary in nature? (i.e. responding to things others are doing) There is no apparent unified strategy for meeting the needs of the Province.
As long as Marlena gets consensus from Theo Fleury and Tucker Carlson then your research will be approved.
>Ya I graduated with a University of Alberta degree in Abortionomics......what? It is a Alberta government approved course !!! Science? Is that the magic thing people talk about? Okay silly jokes aside, it is not good to have government intervention on "post secondary education". Literally just reading the playbook of "how communist government work". Imagine withholding funding because the government doesn't agree with your universities "research" or "teaching materials".
Boy, she really does want Alberta to be like florida, huh
Simple answer: Educated Canadians scare the shit out of CONservatives.
How do you balance LGBT and Trans erasure? No one who holds any of her positions is serious enough to hang around for more than a 4 year bachelors. Like find some doctors who think underfunding healthcare to push a predatory private system is a good idea.
She’s like that evil scientist who developed the gas for the Nazis in Wonder Woman
"Ideological balance" is nonsensical. Ideology is arrived at by your ability to think and process evidence you have about the world around you. Ability to excel in academics is based on your ability to think and reason. Because of this, there's literally no reason to think that ideologies should be "evenly represented" in academics, or indeed any sphere. --- Further there is simply no place in an institute of higher learning for ideologies of ignorance, like climate denial, anti-vax, creationism, anti-intellectualism, or race realism or conspiratorial garbage based on the vibes people have. All of these ideologies (unsurprisingly) share a "find the evidence to support the conclusion we want" view. Which simply isn't how any rational or reasonable person thinks, nor should think. --- Finally, this "all opinions are right" crap is ostensibly what conservatives say they are against. Even if we just assumed that "liberals" and "conservatives" are equally intelligent at equal rates ([which we actually have evidence isn't the case](https://gwern.net/doc/iq/2024-edwards.pdf) - but let's play the game anyways), there should be \*no reason\* for the state to try and "enforce" this balance. It would already be there. And we're assured that it should be, because conservatives are telling us all the time how there's no need for things like affirmative action, because there's no biases already. If they have evidence that conservatives are held back because of their beliefs, and not because their beliefs are in contradiction to intellectual pursuits, they would've provided it. But such evidence simply doesn't exist. Which is why they resort to the "but why are there so few conservatives in academia" comment (and if you don't see why that's a bad argument, you're kinda proving my point)
UCP constitution, UCP healthcare, UCP pensions, UCP law, UCP police and now UCP post-secondary institutions. Good-bye truth, hello ideology.
So she wants what to introduce a equivalent of a political department in universities? I.e something that people would see in the former soviet union or China or other communist countries. What type of mental gymnastics is this lmao
No her base is hoping for more of a talaban sharia style law based on Christianity .
>Premier muses about new provincial research programs to produce more conservative thought “Conservative though” is an oxymoron. Hitler did this with fascist thought too, but there’s a reason nobody talks about those books: they were garbage. The communists also produced a lot of “communist writing”, but only certain strains were pure propaganda. So a lot communist writing is still around because it *wasn’t* pure trash.
Political Ideology in post secondary isn't important and this sort of pandering is stupid.
Hi, I'm Danielle Smith! You may remember me from such educational programs as, Smoke Away That Cancer and Housing Is For Closers.
There is a reason most universities and studies produced bey them lean away from Conservative policies and therefore an "ideology balanced" is not possible without strong arming studies and fudging results.
If you want ideological balance, open up as many publicly funded union organizing programs as you do business and management programs. Shit, show me one single program in post secondary that teaches people to organize. Ideological balance my ass.
This is what policy looks like when your worldview is not based in reality.
Nice try Dani...all I gotta say is Reality has a well known liberal bias...
Equal time for truth and MAGA bs (think Tucker Carlson et al), perhaps?
The kings college has that corner of the market cornered already.
Or Burman university by Lacombe
Wait, so she wants poor educated people also in universities? Cant she tell education makes one realize how idiotic most concervative views are?
3 Body Problems
The Plastic Straw Princess needs to stay in her lane.
•I think that’s obvious…
She knows balance, she crosses the floor of the legislature when it suits her.
Reality isn’t right wing enough for her
Regressive stupids are in charge of far too much in this timeline. It always and inevitably makes things worse when the village idiot is put in charge....
Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl Boss. Slay Marlania Slay