By Brett McKay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Investigative Journalism Foundation
Alberta’s premier and education minister held a private meeting in February to discuss school funding and education policy.
Documents released through an access to information request show that attendees included a number of right-wing think tanks and groups involved in a campaign to “conservatize” Alberta school boards, as well as private and religious school associations.
A visitors log from the McDougall Centre in Calgary, a provincial government office and meeting space, shows that Premier Danielle Smith and Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides met with representatives of 17 organizations on Feb. 18, including Parents for Choice in Education (PCE), the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom (JCCF), the political consulting firm Western Impact and several private and religious schools and home education associations.
The names of individuals at the meeting were redacted under section 20 of Alberta’s Access to Information Act, which says that disclosure could be harmful to personal privacy. However, the names of the organizations they represented were disclosed. Of the 32 guests, 11 were associated with PCE, an advocacy group that took credit for providing Nicolaides with a list of “inappropriate” library materials that helped inform the province’s controversial book ban policy in K-12 schools.
Other groups present at the meeting included the think tanks the Aristotle Institute, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, and Cardus, which have advocated for an expansion of private and religious schools. Representatives from the Alberta Home Education Association, Koinonia Christian Education Society, OneSchool Global, Alberta Advance Academy, the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association and the Foothills School Division also attended.
Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said that while it’s not surprising or alarming to see that Catholic school trustees or school divisions met with the premier and minister, the inclusion of “far-right organizations” like PCE and the JCCF raises questions about their level of influence within Alberta’s government.
“It’s concerning when you look at some of the people that have been meeting with government, because you’ve seen government make choices such as the book ban, for example, that are targeting vulnerable children within the system,” Schilling said, adding that the first books singled out under the province’s policy to remove sexually explicit materials from school libraries were graphic novels with 2SLGBTQ+ themes and characters.
“When you get a lot of private schools, a lot of very conservative organizations that are not looking to make schools places that respect the diversity that we see within our buildings, it’s highly problematic. It makes you wonder just what kind of hold [they have] over government decisions,” he said.
PCE, an Alberta-based parental rights group, has campaigned against sexual orientation and gender identity education in schools, gay-straight alliance (GSA) laws and other 2SLGBTQ-related policies. In the lead up to the 2025 municipal elections, the group was part of a drive to “conservatize” school boards by training what it claimed to be hundreds of candidates to run in local school board elections.
As reported by The Sprawl, five nominally independent trustee candidates in the Calgary Board of Education races shared nearly identical websites, signage and parental rights talking points. The five candidates also received endorsements from PCE for their stances on requiring parental consent for sex education, opposition to diversity and inclusion staff, and removal of “explicit” books from libraries.
Promotional videos of the candidates were filmed at the same location and shared to YouTube by Western Impact. Along with working on these campaigns, Western Impact consultant Mitch Furlong presented at a local election training event in Edmonton in December 2024 alongside PCE board member and former UCP MLA Mark Smith.
In 2018, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of parental rights groups and faith-based schools challenging a law brought in by the former NDP government that banned schools from telling parents if their children joined a GSA, which the group called “ideological sexual clubs.” Among the members of the coalition involved in the legal challenge were PCE, Koinonia Christian School – Red Deer Society and other local branches of the Koinonia Christian Education Society.
An Alberta judge found there was no serious constitutional issue with the law and dismissed the lawsuit. However, the law preventing schools from informing parents their children had joined a GSA was eliminated by former premier Jason Kenney’s UCP government in 2019.
Last year, Smith’s government invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to pass legislation mandating schools to inform parents if a student asks to use a name or pronouns consistent with their gender identity, and requiring parental consent for teachers to use a child’s preferred name or pronouns if they are younger than 16. Opponents of the bill say the rules will force teachers to out transgender and nonbinary students to their peers and parents.
Smith’s press secretary Sam Blackett told the IJF that the premier and minister “regularly meet with a wide variety of stakeholders in their respective roles.”
“Our government believes that parents have the right to decide what kind of education is best for their kids. So, we are always happy to discuss how we can continue to strengthen quality education options within the province,” Blackett said.
Blackett did not respond to questions about what was discussed at the meeting.
John Hilton-O’Brien, executive director of PCE, wrote in a blog post that Smith invited his group “to a meeting on the future of school choice in Alberta,” and that themes included long-term protection of independent school funding, “equitable access to special education supports,” and the role faith-based schools play in Alberta education.
Private school students in Alberta get 70 per cent of the funding public school students receive. The amount budgeted for accredited private education and early childhood operators is expected to climb to $544 million by 2027, a 30 per cent increase compared to 2024.
In March, Nicolaides announced that the government was allocating $90 million over three years to fund construction and expansion of private K-12 schools, which the government says will add about 6,000 new spaces for students.
PCE did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
A spokesperson for One School Global said that members of the school’s board “attended to listen and learn from the broad discussion which focused on how independent schools can continue to provide high‑quality education for Alberta families.”
The other organizations that attended the Feb. 18 meeting did not respond to questions sent by the IJF.
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