A movement has been underway for a year among CEGEP teachers concerned with preserving the French language: no less than 28 union meetings of CEGEP teachers from all over Quebec have come out in favor of extending Bill 101 to college. However, many other meetings will be held in the coming weeks. The movement, which brings together a majority of the 48 CEGEPs, will therefore certainly continue to grow.
After years of resignation in the face of the decline of French, a grassroots democratic movement is taking courage. As in the beautiful days of Maple Spring, we find confidence in solidarity. The professors now hope to be heard by their central trade unions. Remember that Bill 101 would not have been possible originally without the mobilization of the CSN, the CEQ and the FTQ. The unions are once again called upon to play a decisive role in the future of French, by fighting against a neoliberal vision that devalues the common language.
As in the 1970s, the employers’ camp promotes a neoliberal logic of fear: job losses in English-speaking colleges, lack of space in French-speaking colleges to accommodate… French-speaking and allophone students! As if the protection of the common language was not also a protection of the right to work in French. As if a massive return of Francophones and Allophones to our CEGEPs wasn’t good news!
Let’s remember this crucial fact: the anglicization of the Montreal job market threatens Francophone jobs by the thousands, for which Réjean Parent, former director of the CSQ, recently called for the extension of Bill 101 to CEGEPs. . Guy Rocher has repeatedly expressed his regret for not having included CEGEPs, and even undergraduates, in Bill 101.
The teachers’ movement for French has formidable opponents. We will not be surprised that Bernard Tremblay, CEO of this employer lobby financed by public funds that is the Fédération des cégeps, is opposed tooth and nail to the extension of Bill 101 to colleges. You should know that English is the number 1 marketing argument that has allowed the unbridled growth of English-speaking colleges in recent years.
Result: a two-speed system, where young allophones and francophones are sold the idea that becoming anglicized allows them to integrate into the economic elite of the Michael Rousseaus of this world. Not content with recruiting Francophones and Allophones with the best R scores and from more affluent backgrounds, Anglophone CEGEPs now dominate the pre-university sector in Montreal and are progressing well beyond the demographic weight of Anglophones in the technical sector. The elitist dynamic towards English not only divides the college network, it threatens to fracture Quebec society. It is therefore a national issue that goes beyond the local CEGEP union assemblies.
The grassroots movement for Bill 101 is impressive. It now needs the institutional strength of the big centrals to achieve its goal. Gérald Larose, former president of the CSN, recently expressed his change of mind in favor of Bill 101 at the college level and predicted that the central labor organizations should follow their members in this unprecedented momentum. Much remains to be done to counter the Federation des cégeps’ discourse of fear, but the teachers’ movement for French is enough to revitalize the union world more than ever.
Also signed this text: Caroline Hébert from Cégep de Sainte-Foy, Sébastien Mussi from Collège de Maisonneuve, Aïcha Van Dun from Cégep Régional de Lanaudière, Gabriel Coulombe from Cégep Garneau, Nicolas Bourdon from Collège de Bois-de-Boulogne, Yannick Lacroix from the Collège de Maisonneuve, Richard Vaillancourt from the Collège de Bois-de-Boulogne.