Trump demands universities to change policies or face. Will Poiliewvre do the same?

US President Donald Trump was threatening to cancel the financing of some universities unless they advise his demand to change the ideological policy, similar to the pledge made by Pierre Poilviri to Canadian schools after high school.

But so far, the conservative leader has been separated from the details of any kind of measures he might take.

Trump’s demands, which sparked a condemnation of intervention in academic freedom, occupied the headlines of this week after the White House said it was freezing more than $ 2.2 billion in grants and $ 60 million in Harvard University contracts.

This came after the President of Harvard University Alan Jerber Refuse With the demands of the White House, saying in a message that the university “will not give up its independence or give up its constitutional rights.”

Meanwhile, Poilievre also threatened to renew universities about what it considers its ideological inclination. In a Christmas eve on the X, previously known as Twitter, Poilievre said he would “do wkism and fight anti -Semitism.”

“Set an end to awake the ideology”

That tweet was linked to Telephone interview Winnipegehreview.com, who quoted him, has given him as saying that he will not tolerate and will lead to “everyone who has a Semitic anti -Semitic agenda”, including universities that receive federal funding and all museums funded by the federal government.

A similar pledge was repeated on March 26 when the party issued the Quebec platform, saying that the governorate government “will end up to impose an ideology that wakes up in federal civil service and in allocating federal funds for university research.”

The pledge to the Canadian Association of Universities Teachers (CAUT) prompted the issuance of a “expression of warning” statement on Poilievre’s promise to intervene in allocating federal research financing.

“It is worrying that the leader of a political party in Canada is trying to dictate how to grant research funds,” said David Robinson, CEO of Care. “We have seen the impact of this political intervention in the south of the border, where the Trump administration launched a large -scale attack on universities and the scientific community. This type of war in American style has no place in Canada.”

Starting with the University of Colombia, the Trump administration reprimanded post -secondary institutions throughout the United States because of their dealings with the pro -Palestinians in the student protest movement that universities in the wake of the Hamas 2023 attack inside Israel and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Trump described the anti -United States protests and anti -Semitism, accused universities of collecting Marxism and “radical leftist” ideology, and promised to end the scholarships and federal contracts for universities that do not agree to the demands of his administration.

On April 3, the White House issued a list of demands at Harvard University, which included a ban on face masks, Restrictions on campus protests And review the biases of academic departments. After about a week, these demands were expanded to include leadership reforms and changes in admission policy and ending university recognition of some student organizations.

The head of the school said that Harvard University has already made extensive reforms to address anti -Semitism, but many government demands are not related to anti -Semitism, and instead is an attempt to organize “intellectual conditions” at Harvard University.

“Wake up” roots

Patrick McCurde, assistant communications professor at Ottawa University, said that although Poilievre has not released any details of his proposed plans, he still seems to take lessons from the United States with Defund threats.

“I would like to consider it seriously in the same way that he doubled and serious about his threats to the threat of CBC,” said Makardi. “It is something that people should pay attention to.”

McCurdy was also part of a research study that studied the development of anti -employee discourse in discussions within the House of Commons from 2019 to 2023.

Their examination of Hansard Records revealed that in 2019, there was only two males of the word “wake up”. By 2023, conservatives of the word increased to 63 times, with Poilievre’s responsibility for 33 cases of that year.

As McCordi indicated in a recent article, he participated in writing politics options, the term “wake up” is rooted in the American -African experience of racist violence, and this originally means that they are familiar with racist injustice. He said that the progressors were then adopted to include the broader societal injustice related to feminism, LGBTQ+ and crossfitting fears.

However, the word has been chosen since then as a humiliating term used against some of those who enhance social justice, and they are accused of being installed or authoritarian in issues that include identity policies, fairness, diversity and integration (EDI).

Makurdi article, entitled Many of the dangers of the Pierre Beyviri war on “wake up”He argues that “his political pledges such as freezing universities on ideology are just” part of the exploitative strategy aimed at fueling fears and resentment, established divisions and legalizing the maximum positions in the prevailing policy. “

“A threat to academic freedom”

“I will be interested in reading how this can suggest this … (and) how this is against the freedom of researchers, academics and universities to conduct their research,” McCurde told CBC News in a telephone interview. “It is definitely a threat to academic freedom.”

In the past, conservatives have spoken of universities stripping their policies on the campus. During his 2017 leadership campaign, Andrew Sher said that he would withdraw federal funding from universities that failed to support freedom of expression, “closed the discussion and cannot stand on different views.”

This came in response to the cases in which the anti -abortion events were removed from Israel from the university campus after the outbreak of the protests.

Poilievre will later follow up with a similar pledge during his 2022 leadership campaign, in which he said if universities want to maintain scholarships of federal research, they will need to protect academic freedom and ensure freedom of expression on campus. He also said that he would appoint a “guardian of freedom of expression” to ensure universities follow these principles.

As for its current pledges, the Conservative Party has not answered questions from CBC News asking for more details. However, in an interview published on April 8 by the media in English Jewish News Syndicate, Conservative Party candidate Neil Oberman, who runs in a Quebec ride in Mount Royal, He said he supports Funding for universities That does not do enough to combat anti -Semitism in their sanctity.

“(Universities) will not receive a single penny from the federal government until they clean their action,” he said.

Stephen Servin, assistant professor of law at the University of Ottawa, who is believed to be an ideology that is a problem in universities, said the liberal government is very aggressive in imposing ideological requirements on research that includes EDI initiatives.

But he said he was not sure what Poilievre thinks.

“I assume that at least they will look to remove the type of EDI requirements that have been added to this search money. Beyond that, I can only predict.”

Servin asked whether the conservative government would add requirements that are compatible with its ideological preferences, or whether it will simply be charged with universities.

“Does he want to empty everything, or does he just want to target certain programs?” Sérafin asked about the intentions of Poilievre.

“He never made an explicit plan for how to do this,” he said. “It is a kind of issues in which Satan is really in the details.”