Montreal City Weblog

Kate 22:50 on 2024-03-13 Permalink Reply  

• JaneyB 10:00 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  The premier has an office opposite McGill? I didn’t know this. Now the protest location makes more sense.

  Those protests are going nowhere without the support of the UdeM and UQAM. Legault is very canny to divide and conquer like this. He has nothing to lose by going ahead with his plan.

• Kate 10:16 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  I was just thinking that, JaneyB. There’s no coverage of this story in franco media because it isn’t an issue there at all. The issue doesn’t touch the UdeM or UQAM and yes, the universities have been divided and conquered.

• CE 11:09 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  Are the numbers of Francophone students from the ROC studying at Quebec universities so marginal that it isn’t an issue for them? I would think there are quite a few Acadians and Franco Ontarians at Laval, U de M, and the Université de Québec schools, but maybe not enough for anyone to care? These tuition hikes affect them just as much as an English speaking student from Alberta who wants to study at McGill. It seems to me that this government would have a stake in trying to attract these Francophone students to study, live, and work here.

• Kate 11:20 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  CE, the hike only applies to English-language universities, although Bishop’s has been spared. This item explains. So it’s basically a way to administer a burn specifically to McGill and Concordia.

  Also, while students from France and Belgium get to come here cheap, students from francophone Africa do not. I haven’t got chapter and verse on that, though.

• CE 11:29 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  Ah ok, I thought it applied to all universities.

• GC 12:39 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  I thought that, too, CE. Either way, in practice it targets English ones more because they (I assume) have the lion’s share of the out-of-province students. I just thought the French schools were on board because it’s a net benefit to them. I.e., the transfer payments from the English schools would offset any drop from out-of-province francophones. And it also wouldn’t be the first time that the Quebec government acted somewhat indifferent to non-Quebecois Canadian francophones.

  Somewhere along the way, I also missed (or forgot) the news that Bishops was exempt. That just makes it even more blatant that it’s an attack on Montreal’s English schools. SIGH.

  Kate, does the article you linked actually spell out that it’s specific to English schools? It mentions Bishops being exempt, but its actually a bit vague about whether or not it would apply to French schools.

• Kate 12:42 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  Here’s a CP piece: “The Quebec government is hiking tuition to $12,000 a year and imposing a French-language requirement for out-of-province students at English universities.”

  I don’t have time just now to dig up the legal wording but I’ll see what I can do.

• GC 13:09 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  Thanks. I’m not doubting that you are correct and I was mistaken. I’m sure you’ve read many more articles about it than I have. I just thought that Global piece was vague about it. It was a criticism of Global and not you, Kate.

• Kate 14:03 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  GC, no worries. I wanted to find out too whether I’d misunderstood the law but no, the hike only applies to English universities.

  At least one challenge being brought is that it’s prejudicial, since it only attacks the universities operating in a specific language, and a lot may turn on how exactly the law is worded. But I can’t find it, as I don’t know what the bill number was.

• Kevin 14:37 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  There is no law imposing this prejudicial tuition hike– it’s just a ministerial decree

  And the French universities don’t support it because they know it’s just hurting Montreal and they won’t see any significant financial benefit
  it https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/editoriaux/2024-02-22/financement-universitaire/ajouter-de-l-eau-au-lieu-de-faire-des-vagues.php

• GC 16:14 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  This Gazette piece (from about two weeks after the initial announcement) is also pretty vague: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/analysis-how-quebec-tuition-overhaul-targets-bishops-concordia-and-mcgill. So, I think some of the confusion comes from the way the media reported it. AND that Déry was ambiguous, herself, as quoted in that article.

  There are at least three provisions, though, right?
  1) An increase in tuition to out-of-province students. (Which I thought applied to all schools, but effectively only applies to McGill and Concordia since Bishop’s is exempt.)
  2) Changes to how the tuition is redistributed to the francophone universities. My understanding is that this transfer is not new, but they are just increasing the percentage that flows from the English schools to the French schools?
  3) That the students that come in study in English will be required to prove some level of French mastery by the end of their studies. This seems the least contentious one to me, on the surface, but I think it’s still ambiguous how it will work in execution. I.e., if the student fails to prove this…then what? Their degree is not granted? They need to keep paying tuition until they can prove it?

• CE 17:48 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  I really can’t see the government getting away with this if it only applies to two universities. What argument can you make against the hikes not being discriminatory? If it applied to out-of-province students across the board (at all Quebec universities) there could be no argument for discrimination. I can only imagine the CAQ’s reaction (and the lawsuits) if tuition was hiked at Université de Moncton but kept the same price at UNB, St. Thomas, and Mount Allison.

• Ian 20:05 on 2024-03-14 Permalink

  It doesn’t matter, Québecois nationalists threw Francophones from the ROC under the bus a long time ago in favour of consolidating their power. Despite big talk from festivals like Francophonie there is no political brotherhood between Quebec and the rest of the Nouvelle France diaspora.