(Ottawa) Quebec is depriving itself of a “window on the world” by imposing higher tuition fees on Canadians who attend Quebec universities, believes federal Minister Pablo Rodriguez.
The Quebec lieutenant of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made no secret of it: he lukewarmly welcomes the measure announced by the government of François Legault.
“Quebec makes its own decisions; I don’t necessarily think it’s the best decision,” he said in a press scrum before the cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.
“For me, universities are like a window on the world, and there, I have the impression that we are closing our windows a little,” he added in response to a journalist who had invited people to comment on the issue.
His colleague François-Philippe Champagne seemed hardly more enthusiastic about the project.
“I think English-speaking universities are part of the ecosystem. It is important to attract talent to us,” expressed the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
According to him, there are therefore “things to rethink”, he argued.
Because universities “Concordia, Bishop, McGill are the envy of the world, so we must ensure that we have the mechanisms in place to continue to attract talent,” he added.
Starting in the fall of 2024, students from other provinces will pay annual tuition fees of approximately $17,000, almost double the current rate.
Foreign students will have to pay a minimum of $20,000.
The issue worries the English-speaking community, and it has caused a lot of noise in the English-speaking media since the announcement made last week by the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry.
On Tuesday, columnist John Ivison, National Postheadlined that by making this gesture, François Legault was “farting in the direction of Canada” – the title has since been changed.
“Of course, the real reason behind the decision is not financial, it is cultural: the hobgoblin imagination of the decline of French in Quebec”, he analyzes in particular.
And ultimately, “Legault’s efforts to build a hermit kingdom – a French-speaking Ruritania – will harm his province and its population in the long term,” believes the columnist.
With Ariane Krol