(Quebec) Prime Minister François Legault must demonstrate, with supporting studies, that the presence of Canadians from outside Quebec in Quebec universities endangers the survival of French – or retract.
This was launched on Wednesday by liberal MP Madwa-Nika Cadet, whose motion in the House was promptly rejected by the CAQ government.
Remember that Quebec plans to double the annual bill for new Canadian students next year. It will impose a floor price of $20,000 for international students.
Mr. Legault justified this decision on Tuesday by saying he wanted to protect French. “The number of English-speaking students in Quebec threatens the survival of French,” he declared during a press briefing.
In interview, Mme Cadet denounces the inconsistency of the government, which accuses English-speaking students of weakening French, while complaining that these students do not stay in Quebec once their diploma is obtained.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Liberal MP Madwa-Nika Cadet
“If they leave Quebec, how are they anglicizing Quebec from a distance? There is something completely incoherent about this. We cannot be given both arguments at the same time in the same sentence and think that it is logical,” she stressed.
The Liberal spokesperson for the French language adds that McGill University was preparing to present a $50 million francization program, before the government stopped its momentum.
This type of “structuring” measure would have allowed young people from other provinces to learn French and better understand Quebec, in addition to creating “ambassadors” of French outside Quebec, according to her.
“These people, when we welcome them and give them a Quebec experience, well when they leave, it allows them to promote French in their own way afterwards,” argued Mme Cadet.
In the meantime, she demands that the CAQ government produce impact studies proving that Canadian students threaten the survival of French, failing which the Prime Minister will have to “withdraw his remarks” and replace them with “true statements.” “.
Asked in a press scrum whether she had documented the impact of Canadian students on the decline of French, the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, limited herself to saying that “everyone knows that French […] is very fragile.
Mme Déry instead insisted on the fact that the increase in tuition fees corrected the financial “inequity” between English-speaking and French-speaking universities.