Concern persists and is growing, almost a week after the announcement of a substantial increase in tuition fees charged to university students from elsewhere in Canada and abroad. This measure will have little impact on the protection of French while its repercussions on English-speaking universities and their students could be major, several organizations fear.
“We are particularly outraged by the CAQ’s announcement. The message it sends us is that the government itself is disengaging from the university network: it is not going to finance it itself, it is going to rely on students to fill inequalities in the network,” launched Thursday afternoon at Duty the president of the National Federation of Teachers of Quebec (FNEEQ-CSN), Caroline Quesnel.
The latter thus estimates, in a press release that The duty was able to consult ahead of its publication on Friday, that the Legault government takes students “for ATMs” by thus increasing the tuition fees of foreign students in order to improve the financing of the French-speaking university network.
“It is unacceptable that better funding for universities involves the commodification of students and the reduction of accessibility to studies,” deplores the union, which represents 80% of lecturers at Quebec universities.
Last Friday, the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, caused a commotion by announcing that from fall 2024, Canadian students will have to pay the equivalent of what their training costs the government, i.e. 17,000 $ per year, rather than the current $8,992. Tuition fees will also have to reach a minimum of $20,000 for international students who have not started their study program before fall 2024.
“This will have an irreparable impact on the Concordia research community and on the quality of teaching, research and intellectual contributions of Quebec’s English-speaking universities, including those of our members,” reacted in a statement Thursday. Association of Concordia Research Employees, which describes this decision by the Legault government as “discriminatory”.
CARE’s statement on Quebec’s decision to double tuition fees for out of province students // AERC statement on Quebec’s decision to double tuition fees for out of province students pic.twitter.com/fFcRRpypZQ
— CARE-AERC (@CARE_PSAC) October 19, 2023
A “contradictory” measure, says the PLQ
The Liberal Party of Quebec, for its part, held two press briefings Thursday at the National Assembly during which its interim leader, Marc Tanguay, and the party’s French language spokesperson, Madwa-Nika Cadet, highlighted questions the relevance of this measure in terms of protecting the French language.
“I asked the minister [Pascale Déry] on what facts it was based to justify that this measure would truly stem the decline of French. She was not able to answer my question,” lamented M.me Cadet.
In a press release released last Friday, the Legault government argued that “most” of Canadian students who opt for our English-speaking universities “leave Quebec after their graduation”. Mme Cadet thus considers it “contradictory” that these students are seen as a threat to the French language.
“French students will not be affected. Do they stay any longer? If they stay more in Quebec, well, show us these figures,” she continued.
“It’s worrying to implement a policy like that without consultation,” laments the general director of the Quebec Community Groups Network, Sylvia Martin-Laforge. “It is not after having made such an announcement that we present conclusive data” to support it, she added, while emphasizing that we currently do not know what the impacts of this measure will be “on the economy of Quebec “.
Launch suspended at McGill
Faced with the impossibility of knowing the consequences that these new tuition fees will have on its traffic – and therefore its income -, McGill University has decided to suspend the launch of a program to teach French to its students and its staff. staff in which it planned to invest $50 million over five years.
“McGill University has had great difficulty raising the capital to finance its investment in the promotion of French,” explains by email the establishment, which was warned a few days before last Friday’s announcement “that changes likely to weaken its financial situation were to be expected, without any details filtering out.”
“The University is currently assessing the possible financial impact of these changes on its operations. »
With Anne-Marie Provost