Lawyers decry province's defunding of Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre
CBC
The Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre is scrambling to find new funders after the justice minister intervened to cancel a grant that was their main source of funding.
“It’s potentially devastating,” said Michael Greene, an immigration lawyer in Calgary, and chair of the ACLRC, which is a registered charity.
The centre has operated for 43 years, conducting research on issues of legal rights, and delivering public education sessions to students, teachers, employers and community groups. Greene said he was blindsided by the decision.
He said 95 per cent of the centre's funding comes from the Alberta Law Foundation, an entity legally required to manage investment income earned from lawyers’ trust accounts.
Provincial law directs the foundation to invest the money into legal research, assistance for people who can’t afford lawyers, public information and education and law libraries.
The province has seized increasing control over the Alberta Law Foundation, requiring that it direct more of its funding to pay for a provincial legal aid program and empowering the minister to approve any grant over $250,000 and write or change foundation bylaws. The minister said last year the change would improve transparency and oversight.
All foundation employees resigned last month. Consultant Optimus SBR is managing the foundation, according to its website.
Greene says the foundation informed the civil liberties centre last fall it had been approved for a $780,000 grant for 2026. By the holiday season, the minister had overruled the decision and cancelled the funding, he said.
Justice Minister Mickey Amery’s press secretary, Heather Jenkins, said in a statement on Wednesday that the government is ensuring the foundation has long-term financial stability and that grants are in line with the foundation’s mission outlined in law, “including front-line legal services. In their grant application, the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre failed to demonstrate how funds would deliver front-line legal services.”
Greene said he is baffled by that response. He said the grant criteria did not necessitate offering front-line services, and that priority had not been made public.
In a statement, foundation chair Shamsher Kothari said the foundation’s newly appointed board has ensured all approved grants and programs continue without interruption. He referred questions about the minister’s veto to the provincial government.
Greene said the ACLRC is the only organization this year that he knows of that the minister defunded.
However, an application for judicial review filed in Calgary’s Court of King’s Bench last September claims that last year, the minister also cut grants the foundation had already awarded to 16 organizations, including many that provide front-line legal services.
The Alberta Law Foundation itself, along with the Central Alberta Community Legal Clinic, is asking a judge to review the changes.
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