No, USAID Isn’t Giving Billions to Canadian Universities

Did the embattled U.S. Agency for International Development, better known as USAID, provide eight Canadian public research universities with over $4.4 billion in funding?

That’s what a post racking up 3,800 retweets and nearly 800,000 views on the social media site X last week claimed.

User @MikesUsername77, whose social media account tag line is a Jordan Peterson quote, accompanied the claim with a table populated with 10 universities — eight Canadian, one Australian and one British — with corresponding monetary amounts in the billions of dollars.

“USAID has been pouring hundreds of millions into Canadian universities which is funding the woke indoctrination of our youth,” @MikesUsername77 claimed. “This has to end, @elonmusk.”

@elonmusk, of course, is the username of Elon Musk, X owner and the world’s richest person.

As of Friday, the X post had been appended with a context disclaimer that the funding amounts actually came from 2022-23 Internal Revenue Service Form 990 filings, where the universities disclosed all of the funding they had received that year from all sources — not USAID, as first claimed.

Musk, in addition to owning X, formerly known as Twitter, and serving as CEO of several technology companies that benefit from billions in U.S. government contracts, heads up the newly created federal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

President Donald Trump created the task force on Jan. 20, with the goal of cutting government spending.

That includes the effective dismantling of USAID, which generally provides about $40 billion in annual aid to about 130 countries.

According to Forbes, that funding generally focuses on disease prevention and public health, disaster relief, poverty and the promotion of democracy.

As part of this work, according to Forbes, USAID funds research projects at universities that aim to fulfil its goals abroad, such as the creation of climate-resilient crops and the development of inclusive and equitable early grade education.

According to U.S. media reports, after DOGE is done with USAID, the agency’s more than 13,000 staff positions are expected to be whittled down to fewer than 300.

The Tyee reached out to the Canadian universities on the list with interview requests: the University of British Columbia, Toronto Metropolitan University, Queen’s University, the University of Manitoba, the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Waterloo, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto.

While none of the public research universities granted an interview, several responded with emailed statements, confirming the funding amounts came from publicly available Internal Revenue Service 990 filings, and saying that it was inaccurate to attribute those funding amounts to USAID.

The University of British Columbia, which was alleged to have received over $1.09 billion, told The Tyee via email that the funding level refers to its IRS 990 disclosure from 2022.

“As required by IRS rules, tax-exempt organizations must report all government funding received from any country — not just the U.S.,” reads the statement from Thandi Fletcher, manager, reputation and leadership strategy, with the UBC media relations office.

“The majority of grant funding that UBC receives comes from Canadian government sources, including the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia. Our records indicate that only 1.65 per cent of the government grants reported in UBC’s 2022 IRS Form 990 filing came from U.S. government sources or granting agencies.”

The Tyee asked if UBC had received funding from USAID or the U.S. government since 2022-23 and, if so, what that funding was used for, but has not yet received a response.

A spokesperson for Toronto Metropolitan University said the university had never received funding from USAID.

The University of Toronto pointed to the context disclaimer added to the post on X as its response.

The University of Manitoba said it had previously received $22 million in funding from USAID for HIV-AIDS prevention and care projects in India, but that funding finished in 2011. It does not currently receive any direct research funding from USAID.*

Stephen Ledgley at Western University told The Tyee via email that the $506.6-million amount listed in the table in the X post came from the university’s 2022-23 IRS Form 990 filing.

“The overwhelming majority of those funds were received from Canadian federal and provincial governments to support teaching and research,” Ledgley wrote.

He added that the university has received research funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health but not from USAID.

The University of Saskatchewan responded that they have “no record of receiving any money from USAID.” The Tyee followed up with a question about whether they recognized the origin of the funding amount included in the X post, but has yet to receive a response.

Rebecca Elming, director of media relations and issues management at the University of Waterloo, also responded that the university has not received direct funding from USAID.

“The table referenced contains information from publicly available tax filings which require tax-exempt entities to declare the total amount of contributions in the form of grants or similar payments from local, state, or federal government sources, as well as foreign governments,” Elming wrote.

“The amount reported therefore includes all Canadian government grants made to the University from any level of government.”

Spokespeople for Queen’s University did not respond.

The Tyee also reached out to USAID media relations with questions about the funding claims but did not receive a response by publication time.

This is not the only USAID misinformation that has been perpetuated on X in the last week. On Feb. 2, Musk posted, “USAID is a criminal organization.”

According to Forbes, U.S. celebrities like Chelsea Clinton, Ben Stiller and Angelina Jolie were also inaccurately accused of receiving funds from the development agency.

* Story updated on Feb. 11 at 4:29 p.m. to clarify the year and provide more detail about funding received by the University of Manitoba.