The Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, is considering banning initiations in CEGEPs and universities.
She reacted, Tuesday, to Radio-Canada’s revelations on the degrading initiations which took place in the Biology Department of the University of Sherbrooke last fall.
The minister confided in a press scrum at the National Assembly that she had difficulty finishing reading the article, which “chilled her blood”, because the behavior described therein was “unacceptable”, a total “slippage”.
The initiations are however marked out; “now, visibly, these executives are not respected,” lamented Mme Déry, who says he wants to discuss it soon with the various educational establishments.
“I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she said.
Could it be time to ban initiations? “The question arises, but honestly, I haven’t gotten there yet. The question arises, there are advantages and disadvantages to all this, but the question arises, indeed,” she replied.
For the moment, Ms. Déry says she is satisfied with the measures taken by the University of Sherbrooke, which promptly launched an investigation. She said she hoped that the organizers of the initiations would eventually face sanctions.
Radio-Canada reported Tuesday that students in the Department of Biology at the University of Sherbrooke were sprayed with animal urine during initiations that took place at the end of August.
Other students were encouraged to strip in public or forced to eat vomit during these activities.