Universities blindsided as Quebec set to double non-French fees

Quebec’s perpetual language battle is now creating a major threat for McGill University and other English-language institutions, with the government showing no willingness to even debate a plan to nearly double tuition fees for many non-French speakers.

The government of Quebec premier François Legault, after a surprise loss in a local election, responded with a series of ideas to ramp up its pro-French agenda, including major fee increases for Canadian students from outside Quebec who study in English.

It would mean tuition fees for such students jumping from nearly C$9,000 (£5,400) to about C$17,000, with a five-year protection for current students. International students, who already pay about C$20,000, would also face increases, government officials said.

“These measures, if implemented, would have serious consequences,” McGill’s vice-chancellor, Deep Saini, said in a response to the government announcement.

The province’s other major English-speaking institution, Concordia University, said it was especially alarmed that the Legault administration acted without even consulting its higher education leaders – even as Concordia had been in the middle of talks with government officials about ways to help more non-Quebec students learn French.

“These issues were never discussed with us, are not based on data, and clearly do not understand the national and global market of universities,” Concordia officials told Times Higher Education.

The tuition hike was initially described by the province’s minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, as a way to save more than C$100 million per year that she regards as needlessly spent on such students.

“Quebeckers will no longer pay for the training of English-speaking Canadian students, most of whom return to their province after graduation,” Ms Déry said.

But Mr Legault later acknowledged at a news briefing that the central motivation for Canada’s French-speaking province was the fear of losing ground to English speakers. “This is to protect French,” he said. The province’s minister of the French language, Jean-François Roberge, spoke of the need for “rebalancing university networks” to help limit the loss of French.

Universities were joined in their appeals by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, which warned the city would suffer reputational damage and worsening labour shortages if Mr Legault enacts his plan.

McGill gets about 20 per cent of its nearly 40,000 students from Canadian provinces outside Quebec, and another 30 per cent of its students from abroad. Concordia gets nearly 10 per cent of its Canadian students from outside the province, while Quebec’s other English-language campus, Bishop’s University, draws about 30 per cent of its classes from non-Quebec Canadians. With only about 2,600 students, Bishop’s officials suggested that the tuition hike could threaten the institution’s survival.

Quebec has long barred the children of immigrants and French-speaking families from attending English-language primary and secondary schools, making its English-language universities especially dependent on students from outside the province.

Professor Saini told the McGill community that university officials would keep trying to explain to the Legault administration the damage its plan would cause, calling it a matter of both finances and diversity.

“We are concerned that, in the government’s announcement, prospective students from outside Quebec may hear the message that they are not welcome,” Professor Saini said.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com