(Quebec) The leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Dominique Anglade, accuses the Legault government of imposing Bill 101 on the college network through the back door by freezing in time the proportion of student numbers in English-speaking CEGEPs.
Posted at 11:15 a.m.
Updated at 11:39 a.m.
Visiting Dawson College, an English-speaking CEGEP in downtown Montreal, Thursday, Mr.me Anglade has given a clear indication that his party will not support Bill 96 from the minister responsible for the French language, Simon Jolin-Barrette.
On Wednesday, Quebec closed the door once and for all to the application of Bill 101 to CEGEPs, which would have had the effect of preventing French-speaking and allophone students from attending an English-speaking public CEGEP. However, the government adopted an amendment to the bill to require all students in English-language CEGEPs to pass three courses given in French in order to obtain their diploma.
Minister Jolin-Barrette also proposes to cap the proportion of students enrolled in English-speaking CEGEPs at a maximum of 17.5% of the total places in the college network. The initial bill provided for a calculation that would allow English CEGEPs growth of up to 8.7% of the total annual growth of all French and English CEGEPs.
The government is now proposing a new amendment to its bill to “completely freeze student enrollment in English-speaking CEGEPs by withdrawing [ce] growth factor “.
“The proposed amendment seeks to enshrine this freeze clearly in law. The proposed measure will make it possible to quickly reverse the historical trend of the decline of the French-speaking network and to promote the French language as the normal language of higher education in Quebec”, justifies the minister’s office.
For Dominique Anglade, this way of doing things is “hypocritical on the part of the Coalition avenir Québec”.
The parliamentary leader of the Parti Québécois, Joël Arseneau, for his part affirmed Thursday that the amendments presented by Simon Jolin-Barrette “will not make it possible to prevent the decline of the French language”.
“We are certain that the measures which had been announced as strong are in fact half measures and then, unfortunately, will not give the expected results,” he said.
The head of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, has still not decided whether he would support the government’s proposal, saying that at the very least we must find “a better balance” between the French and English college network.