TELUQ University paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the private company of two of its education professors, in the form of a royalty for each student enrolled in courses on effective teaching.
In total, TELUQ has paid more than $280,000 since 2011 to Groupe Proxima, a company owned by education professors Mario Richard and Steve Bissonnette. Mr. Richard is the professor responsible for the courses on effective teaching. His company received $100 to $135 per student enrolled in his courses.
This system, “was like a transition when they arrived at TELUQ,” explained in an interview the university’s director of teaching and research, Marc-André Carle. After years of consulting in the private sector, Mr. Richard and Mr. Bissonnette arrived at TELUQ in 2009 and 2012, respectively. Their company signed a contract to receive royalties from TELUQ in 2011.
The “transition” will therefore have been spread over almost the entire career of the two professors at this university, since the royalties ended in January 2024, due in particular to “the announced retirement of the professors concerned in 2024”, wrote the Duty TELUQ communications director, Élisabeth Farinacci.
Asked for this article, Professors Bissonnette and Richard chose to redirect the questions of the Duty to the communications department of their establishment.
From $100 to $135 per student
The duty revealed in early June that Professors Richard and Bissonnette are also business partners in the Proxima Group. This “educational consulting expert” service sells training to school service centers in Quebec.
The duty has since obtained contracts by which TELUQ agrees to pay royalties to the Proxima Group.
In a contract dated June 2011, the company of Messrs. Richard and Bissonnette asserts its intellectual property rights over a training program that TELUQ wants to distribute and adapt in Canada. The five-year contract provides that TELUQ will pay a maximum of $330,000 to Groupe Proxima, through royalties of $100 per student enrolled in a course on effective teaching. In addition, there will be a payment of $10,000 upon signing the contract.
This is also a common practice in academia.
Another “license agreement” obtained by The duty provides for a royalty of $135 for each student enrolled in this same course on effective teaching, for a maximum of $165,000 over five years. In exchange, the Proxima Group grants “exclusively” for five years to TELUQ “a distribution and adaptation license” for all of Switzerland of one of its teaching programs.
$280,000 in royalties
According to figures provided by communications and marketing advisor Catherine Lévesque, TELUQ has paid $280,433.14 in royalties to Groupe Proxima since 2011. The university paid $220,674.29 for “the use of intellectual property in training programs providing university credits.”
She also paid $59,758.85 “for the use of intellectual property or course design in continuing education programs.” These “provide no university credit, are self-funded and receive no public funding,” Ms.me Levesque.
According to TELUQ, these royalties are comparable to those paid by a publisher to an author. “This is a common practice in the university environment,” argued Élisabeth Farinacci. However, the way things were done was exceptional at TELUQ. “It happened with these professors and it is not a practice that we want to extend,” said Marc-André Carle in an interview. He emphasized that Groupe Proxima did not receive any royalties related to TELUQ’s new rapid access routes to the teaching profession, namely the qualifying master’s degree and the specialized graduate diplomas in education.
Students guaranteed by TELUQ
To ensure attendance levels for its courses on effective teaching, TELUQ has signed agreements with educational organizations so that they can enroll their employees. In two cases noted by The dutyschool representatives say they were not informed of the royalty system linked to these courses, nor even of the existence of the Proxima Group.
In early 2013, for example, TELUQ entered into an agreement with the Kanatamat school in Schefferville so that it would cover the registration fees of its teachers who wanted to take a course on effective teaching. The contract was signed by the school’s director at the time, Donat Jean-Pierre, and the former director of teaching and research at TELUQ, Martin Noël. The agreement does not include any mention of the Proxima Group or a royalty system. “Never heard of this story, you [me l’]”learn,” wrote Mr. Jean-Pierre when The duty requested him for this article.
In January 2012, three TELUQ directors—Raymond Duchesne, Martin Noël and Michel Umbriaco—signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Marc St-Pierre, then assistant director general of the Commission scolaire de la Rivière-du-Nord (CSRDN), located in Saint-Jérôme. The CSRDN—now a school service centre—was to guarantee TELUQ the enrolment in a course on effective teaching of “a minimum number of students necessary to cover the sum of $120,000 in tuition and registration fees over a three-year period.”
Sending students was done at almost no cost to the school board. TELUQ charged a registration fee of $378.88, but then reimbursed $378 to the CSRDN so that it could free up educational advisors.
In an appendix that presents the course, it is written that “the Proxima Group will transfer to TELUQ [des] rights of use” and that “this transfer of rights will be governed by a formal contractual agreement.” In response to the question asking whether the school boards were aware of the royalty system, Mr.me Farinacci relied on these mentions, arguing that it is “clearly mentioned [que] This training is developed within the framework of an agreement with the Proxima Group”.
In an interview, Mr. St-Pierre said he learned of the existence of the Proxima Group in an article published by The duty June 5th. “There was no mention of Proxima for a second in Rivière-du-Nord,” said the former assistant general director. Although he was not informed of the interests of the Proxima Group, Mr. St-Pierre said he had “nothing but big thanks to give to Steve,” given the quality of the work he did in his schools.
Same scenario in Switzerland
In September 2012, Messrs. Bissonnette and Richard signed a TELUQ Declaration of Interest in which they agreed to “refrain from negotiating with third parties on any matter concerning [le Groupe Proxima] for the duration of the contract binding Proxima Inc. to Télé-université so as to avoid conflicting with the interests of the latter.”
Three months after making this commitment, Mr. Richard became the person “designated” “for the purposes of implementing” the agreement between TELUQ and Kanatamat School. He is also the person designated “for the purposes of implementing” an agreement entered into in July 2012 between TELUQ and the Department of Public Education of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. In return for reduced tuition fees, the Swiss representatives were to ensure the registration of 29 students in a course on effective teaching in 2012-2013, for which Proxima received royalties.
According to Élisabeth Farinacci, Mr. Richard was “absolutely not” in a conflict of interest as a representative of TELUQ. “Professor Richard’s role and position are very clear: he was the point of contact for all pedagogical aspects related to training, while the director of teaching and research at the time was responsible for the administrative aspect,” she wrote. These roles are not detailed in the contracts consulted by The duty. In the contract with the Kanatamat school as in the one with Switzerland, Mr. Richard is the sole representative designated for TELUQ.