Anglo universities respond to hike
Concordia is worried about the tuition hike and McGill has cancelled an extensive French program it had been planning. Meantime, Quebec is being very stingy with English eligibility certificates.
Toula Drimonis writes about the CAQ’s motivations.
Taylor C. Noakes thinks the cruelty is the point.
Ian 08:43 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
I find it alarming that the PQ, QS, and CAQ all seem to agree that it is fitting to punish universities for what programs they decide to offer or not.
Is our government seriously saying that higher education should not be the final arbiters of academic decisions? Are universities no longer independent, but to be regulated by political whim?
Others have already pointed out the hypocrisy given how many MNAs graduated from English universities, but this is a whole new level of hostility toward education that I find far more telling than the standard ethnonationalism we can typically expect from all three leading parties.
Meezly 09:28 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
“All it does is make Quebec appear insular and sectarian, uninterested in outsiders. Perhaps that was the goal after all.”
That IS the goal – Drimonis didn’t need to pull any punches. The CAQ has clearly never cared about how they appear on the world stage, esp. when nationalism and far-right conservatism has been on the rise in other parts of the world.
@Ian, the hostility toward education definitely seems to be a motivating factor. We all know the pattern of governments who want to keep the masses mis-/un-educated…
steph 09:28 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
Do they have a neoliberal agenda to privatize the universities? ((as private entities, without a government penny, would they have the autonomy to do what ever they choose?))
Joey 10:17 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
The CAQ concept of academic freedom seems to mean “anyone anywhere can say the N-word as much as they want”; everything else is up for debate.
Ian 16:11 on 2023-10-20 Permalink
Vous utilisez le mot “n” ? Pourquoi détestez-vous la langue de Molière ? Quelle tristesse de voir notre peuple se salir en parlant anglais.
Meezly 11:10 on 2023-10-21 Permalink
Thanks for sharing the Noakes dead-on article, but cruelty is not the point, though it’s more of a side bonus of yet another strategic move to minimize future anglo/immigrant voters. Noakes actually states, “This is about cesspool politics. This is about the CAQ losing a by-election to the Parti Québécois.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the CAQ has a list of power moves, I mean, bills, they could pass for various contingencies. Yikes, we lost a by-election in our home city? Let’s pull out strategy no.5 – not only will it appeal to our supporters AND distract from the real work we have to do (like public education and healthcare), it’ll be another nail on the coffin for those Anglos!
Ian 12:40 on 2023-10-21 Permalink
..and now Plante is on record saying she doesn’t think tuitions should be raised for Anglo universities, but that instead tuition should be lowered fro Francophones. So still supporting isolating and punishing the English, just in a different way.
These are our so-called “progressives”.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/tuition-fees-quebec-should-lower-them-for-francophone-students-montreal-mayor-says
Uatu 14:27 on 2023-10-21 Permalink
Shouldn’t they improve the francophone high school graduation rate first?