Private School Finances | The trees that hide the Letendre forest

Should a private school subsidized by the state be able to buy a vast forest in Mont-Tremblant? Is it legitimate that she has owned chalets there for a decade near a lake which she makes available to her executives?

These two questions have been running through my head since I learned of the finances of Collège Letendre at the beginning of September and the management spoke to me about its major projects.¹.

This private secondary school in Laval, through its astute management, manages to generate a profit margin of 14%, more than any other school, according to statements from the Canada Revenue Agency. And to pay its director $325,000, a peak in the education sector in Quebec.

With its surplus, Letendre’s management has impressive projects in Mont-Tremblant, but these projects, how can I put it, leave me perplexed…

Let’s look at the facts first. Collège Letendre acquired, in 2009, a large estate in Mont-Tremblant, very close to Lake Ouimet, indicates the land register.

Two other transactions have taken place since then, including a recent one, which makes Letendre the owner of an immense forest adjoining the famous Diable River, located in Mont-Tremblant National Park.

In total, the College now owns 9.7 million square feet of forests in the area. That’s the equivalent of 150 football fields. Or 16 times the land that houses Collège Letendre, in Laval, which is very close to the Montmorency metro station and the CEGEP of the same name.

Amount of transactions: nearly 16 million.

The forest was notably acquired from the hands of Patrice Brisebois, famous ex-defender of the Montreal Canadiens.

In November 2022, according to the register, the ex-hockey player sold for 13.2 million the portion of forests that he was unable to develop in his Domaine Mont-Bellevue project^⁠2.

Letendre’s project? For about fifteen years, the College has been planning to establish a 100% private school in this area, which would be filled with students from wealthy families from around the world.

Estimated rate, according to the Letendre promotional site: $62,000 per year per student, housed, fed and educated. The 180 teenagers expected there would be no more than 20 per class, compared to around thirty in our public secondary schools. Teaching would be provided in French and English.

According to what management explains to me, there is a significant clientele for this type of product, near the famous Tremblant ski mountain and the Mont-Tremblant international airport. It is inspired by concepts such as the Le Rosey school, in the Swiss Alps, which kings, dukes and great industrialists of the world attended.

Students would also be offered a sports concentration, fueled by neighboring facilities (alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, rowing, golf, tennis, etc.). The school would open in 2028.

In the meantime, it was the executives of Collège Letendre who took advantage of the two chalets on the site and, a little further down, the private land on the edge of Lake Ouimet, which raises questions (see other text).

In short, the project is very well located, it can be exciting… but it leaves me perplexed.

I agree, a private organization is free to do what it wants with its funds. If the government doesn’t interfere too much with private schools that are struggling, why would it do so for a successful organization?

Why not let the projects of a dynamic company flourish, freed from the shackles of the public, especially since it is a non-profit organization which contributes to the education of 3,800 students, with its affiliated schools³ ?

Except that the finances of Collège Letendre are primarily based on state subsidies. Without government money, which funds 60% of the school’s educational services, the College would not be as successful as it is.^⁠4.

In response to my questions, management argues that the millions invested for the land do not come from state funds, but from tuition fees and its related activities. This is in principle correct.

It remains that Quebec’s money is not strictly separated from the rest of the funds and that the College’s practices to generate surpluses – for example by increasing the ratio of students per class – are with subsidies from Quebec, between others.

And there is something else more fundamental, in my opinion. Letendre College also owes its success to the fact that it has siphoned off, over time, the last clients of Laval’s public secondary schools who were not already accessing the private sector, i.e. students of average strength usually refused in elitist schools. or international, but whose parents have the means to pay^⁠5.

The presence of Letendre in the heart of Laval for a quarter of a century has therefore accentuated the increase in public classes, with its effects on the disaffection of teachers and on public finances.⁶.

In short, a management success, yes, but also a market context success.

Paid seven times the land value

To pay for its Laurentian forest, Collège Letendre pays 1.4 million of its income each year to Patrice Brisebois, according to the deed of sale. To this must be added property taxes, maintenance costs and insurance for the entire estate, including acquisitions in 2009 and 2015.

These sums from parents and the State are not devoted to the activities of Letendre or its affiliates nor to its buildings, but to projects that are altogether risky.

Speaking of risk, the Brisebois land acquired for 13.2 million has a land value of… 1.8 million. This municipal value is not theoretical, it is based on the market value that the land had in July 2021, i.e. 16 months before the transaction.

Management assures me that an evaluation by the firm ABMS gave the land a market value of 14.6 million in 2021. However, it does not want to tell me if ABMS – specializing in commercial buildings in Montreal – had been mandated by the College or by the seller.

The value of the land therefore depends a lot on the realization of the project. However, it is not certain that Collège Letendre will obtain the required authorizations.

The director of the College, Yves Legault, wrote to me “to be in close collaboration with the City of Mont-Tremblant and the Ministry of Education to make it happen”.

Upon verification, the Ministry tells me that it has not discussed the project for six years, i.e. before the election of the Coalition Avenir Québec. At the time, the project was presented to the former liberal Minister of Education Sébastien Proulx, among others.

“The College made a presentation in 2018,” the Ministry wrote to me. Since then, the Department of Private Education of the Ministry has not communicated with the establishment on this subject. No request has been submitted to the Ministry. »

The Ministry also wrote to me that Letendre would have to obtain a modification of his permit to open a new facility. “Remember that the Ministry of Education has not issued any new approval for around ten years,” the Ministry tells me^⁠7.

Mont-Tremblant, for its part, appears open to the project. However, she explains to me that access to the site, planned via Chemin Albatros, near the Diable golf course, represents a serious environmental issue, given the presence of a watercourse and wetlands.

The City says it is analyzing the College’s request to modify its regulations. It would then reduce the minimum distances prescribed between the access road and the water points. The City is aware that this is a crucial issue for the project and is looking for “alternative solutions”.

“Actions will be taken soon to help with the decision,” the City wrote to me, confirming that the zoning of the main lots acquired in 2009 allows for a school.

In short, the project is not without risk.

To absorb possible costs, the management of Letendre explains to me that it intends to annex another private school to its luxury international school, this one subsidized.

We want to move Laurentian College there, located in Val-Morin, of which Patrice Brisebois is one of the administrators.

The two schools could thus share premises, such as gymnasiums, and therefore certain real estate and administration costs, an essential condition for profitability, management estimates.

The students of the world’s multimillionaires in the first section would rub shoulders with middle-class students from Quebec in the subsidized section.

As Val-Morin is 40 km away, Laurentian College will essentially change its clientele, and we can fear that public schools near Mont-Tremblant will experience the same siphon effect as in Laval.

I am not against private schools. International tests show that our public-private system produces convincing results.

However, I worry about the future of public secondary schools, with their less advantaged students and bitter teachers. I also worry about social diversity, which makes Quebec a land where relationships are less hierarchical than elsewhere.

I’m perplexed.

1. Read the column “Directors paid twice as much as the public”

1. Read the column “What to think of the 33 million profits? »

2- The transaction of 11.5 million is taxable (GST and QST) and the overall invoice is therefore 13.2 million. The College also paid some $278,000 in transfer taxes (“Welcome Tax”).

3- Letendre College (1,890 students) manages certain common services for three other schools: Citizen College (889 students), Boisbriand College (647 students) and Laurentien College (358 students). The number of students comes from a file from the Ministry of Education.

4- In total, subsidies from Quebec represent approximately 41% of the College’s revenues, or probably nearly 45% if we add the state’s contribution to the employee retirement plan.

5- Letendre’s students come from all backgrounds – strong, average and weak – but more particularly from groups of adolescents excluded from elite colleges, as indicated by the Fraser Institute rankings.

6- Management replies that Letendre College helped absorb the sharp increase in the number of students in Laval in recent years, at a time when public schools were overflowing, and public school projects were delayed.

7- Without yet having the MEQ permit, the College writes on the project website that the future international college will be an establishment “offering both the Ministry of Education (MEQ) program and the internationally recognized Cambridge program “.