During question period on Wednesday, March 29, Paul Sainte-Pierre-Plamondon asked Premier François Legault if, given that McGill had overall, in 2021, $16,740 per full-time equivalent student (EETP), Concordia of $11,435/EETP while French-language universities had, on average, only $7,200/EETP (i.e. 57% less than McGill), the latter admitted that funding per student at McGill was higher than at UQAM.
Faced with this question, Mr. Legault chose to answer on the side and on another subject. He first asserted that: “If we exclude the Royal Vic, French universities collect 99% of capital investments”. How to say? If I give $100 to John and $1 to John and exclude John from the calculation, it is correct to say that John collects 100% of the money. But with this answer, Mr. Legault takes us for idiots.
McGill and Concordia will collect 60% of the investments of the 2023-2033 Quebec Infrastructure Plan. This is equivalent to seven times the demographic weight of Anglophones in Quebec.
The Royal Vic
Mr. Legault then asserts that: “No French university wanted the Royal Vic”. The government would therefore have been virtually “forced” to give the Royal Vic to McGill. It’s wrong. Let us first recall that the Royal Vic was a public asset, owned by all Quebecers and not by McGill. Shortly before leaving power in 2018, Philippe Couillard decided to simply give the Royal Vic to McGill (in addition to $35 million to make the architectural plans). The book value of this donation is not known, but since it is the most prestigious (and huge!) site in Montreal, the land value must approach or exceed one billion dollars.
Then, it appears that no call for tenders or call for projects in good and due form was made. Unless proven otherwise, the Government of Quebec has never requested project submissions from other universities, specifying that hundreds of millions of dollars of public money would be available to develop the site. When the Prime Minister says that the “other universities didn’t want it”, he tries to drown the fish.
Government darlings
McGill, the richest university in Quebec (and by far), has 1,700 million in its foundation (according to the latest news) and could have both bought the site and renovated it, using its own funds. The 620 million dollars that Quebec gives to McGill could have been invested in UQAM, which badly needs it.
This story is emblematic of the general posture of the Government of Quebec towards English institutions which are pampered and financed beyond all measure and all reason. We must see in this, I believe, the expression of a tenacious inferiority complex which resurfaced from the old French-Canadian background; serious things, excellence, can only happen in English.
Because we must see in the budgetary intentions, I believe, an x-ray of the intimacy of the government’s convictions. And these convictions go in a very specific direction, that of making English universities (McGill and Concordia) the elite universities, of reference, in Quebec. I see it as a betrayal of the ideals of the Quiet Revolution, ideals that wanted francophones to be able to achieve excellence, even by studying in French. But when we see the shameless favoritism enjoyed by English universities, both from the point of view of funding per student and that of infrastructure investments, we must conclude that, clearly, for the Government of Quebec, this is no longer TRUE.
Photo provided by Frédéric Lacroix
Frederic Lacroix, Independent Researcher, French Quebec Movement