CAQ backtracks on Dawson enlargement
Two years ago, the Quebec government talked about spending millions to enlarge a number of CEGEPs including Dawson College, but now it has yoinked back the offer to Dawson and is keeping the cash to create more spaces in French-language CEGEPs instead.
Given Bill 96, the CAQ government’s tightening of the Charter of the French Language, which is expected to include limits on access to English-language colleges, it’s only logical to cut off any new support for Dawson. It won’t need the room, will it?
Spi 20:52 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
These types of projects usually take the better part of a decade to plan, and to my knowledge it’s not like there’s an other at a francophone cegep that can use the funding. The new building was meant to house most of the health care programs, and I presume increase the numbers of nurses/technicians that can be trained, I guess having more of those isn’t that big of a priority if they’ll be providing services to the English population/sector.
Health care and education such a priority that the CAQ still doesn’t mind playing political games.
Uatu 11:48 on 2022-02-01 Permalink
This and the backtracking on the COVID stuff just shows that there’s an election coming up and Legault will do anything to suck up to his base. I’d like them to demand he eat shit live on camera and watch him follow through to get them votes….
Joey 12:46 on 2022-02-02 Permalink
This reminds me of the Ajustement McGill, which occurred around 2000 following an update to the province’s formula for funding universities. The TLDR is that universities receive both fixed and variable per-student amounts of funding, such that every enrolled student generates a basic level of funding and an additional level of funding that reflects the fact that teaching science is more expensive than teaching arts (the ministry studies enrolment reports to determine how to allocate funding, examining enrolment data at the credit-level, so the allocations are extremely precise and reflect classes students enrol in, not their programs or majors).
Periodically the government, working with the universities, reviews the formula to ensure it aligns with actual relative cost discrepancies. They use this formula to divide up the university funding pie, so any change will create winners and losers if the pie isn’t increased to compensate those who’ve lost out.
When they did this in 2000, the new funding formula was going to provide a relative benefit to McGill, given its focus on relatively expensive subjects. What could the government do? Abandon the new formula or admit that it had identified McGill, numebr one symbol of Anglo oppression, as deserving of a larger share of government funding? Simple: they created the “Ajustement McGill,” which clawed back $10M annually from McGill to allocate to the province’s other universities.
In addition, the other universities used to get (might still do, I’m not sure) millions each year in additional funding for “missions particulières,” basically for being special in ways that McGill isn’t. Actually, sometimes they got extra money for being special in ways that McGill most definitely is. UdeM, for instnace, was allocated $4.5M in 2010 “pour accélérer son développement et lui permettre de conserver sa position parmi les grandes universités en Amérique du Nord.” That same year Laval got $4.1M for being (a) a large university in a city (same as McGill) and (b) for running faculties of dentistry and music (same as McGill).
The Minister of Education at the time: Francois Legault. This time around, he’s arguing that Dawson, which everyone agreed up until last week needed these funds to expand capacity to meet its *current* student population, will swipe these funds to enrol *more* students, even though the Legault government has *already* capped its enrolment.