It has nearly been one year since the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) announced their plan to increase tuition fees for out-of-province and international students. The Legault government has since continued to roll out discriminatory and xenophobic policies in the name of “protecting” the French language. On April 29, just one day before the end of McGill’s winter 2024 semester, Quebec French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge announced that the government plans to spend $603 million on French language initiatives over the next five years. Roberge insisted that “we are no longer defending the French language […] “We’re going on the offensive.” This announcement marked a pronounced shift in the CAQ’s approach. As we start the new school year with a fresh pair of eyes, we are able to see the results of the CAQ’s prejudicial policies clearer than ever before.
Concordia president Graham Carr recently made headlines after revealing, in an interview with The Canadian Press, that registration for the Fall 2024 semester had dropped by roughly 40 per cent. This figure accounts for a 28 and 11 per cent decrease in out-of-province student and international student enrollment, respectively. These numbers are shocking yet fully reflective of the CAQ’s exclusionary policies. The proposed tuition hikes and French-language proficiency tests have driven away a large portion of potential non-Quebecois students.
The damage done to Quebec’s two largest English-speaking universities is staggering. The drop in registration this fall semester has caused Concordia to lose around $15 million, on top of their already steep $30.9 million deficit. While McGill has not yet publicized how the tuition hikes have concretely affected the university, President Saini previously warned that these policies would result in serious financial consequences. As a result, McGill implemented a hiring freeze last year, amidst warnings that up to 700 jobs could be cut.
The ripple effect of the proposed tuition hikes has also extended to institutions not directly implicated in the original announcement. Bishop’s University, unlike McGill and Concordia, was granted an exemption from the tuition hikes. Nonetheless, the university has also seen an unprecedented drop in enrollment for the fall semester. Bishop’s incoming student body has 10 per cent fewer out-of-province students, despite the fact that their tuition rates have remained relatively unchanged. The principal and vice-chancellor of Bishop’s University, Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, recently told CBC: “It seems fairly obvious that the announcements by the Quebec government have created a lot of uncertainty and fear in our students. It’s had a chilling effect.”
Perhaps the most troubling change to Bishop’s student demographics is the sharp decrease in international students. In his interview with CBC, Lebel-Grenier revealed that there are approximately 40 per cent fewer international students who applied to Bishop’s for this fall semester. He attributed this sharp drop to the numerous provincial, as well as federal, policies that have targeted international students over the past year. Incoming international students now have to pay more than double the amount in minimum tuition fees that has existed for twenty years. If you want to study in Canada as an international student in 2024, you now have to prove to the federal government that you have the funds to pay a whopping $20,000 in tuition fees. Additionally, the federal government has reduced the number of international study permits approved by 35 per cent in comparison to 2023. While this move was supposedly targeting “bad actors” taking advantage of vulnerable international students, organizations such as the Migrant Workers Alliance believe that this will punish international students for the government’s failures.
What message does this send about the kind of students Quebec wants at their universities? Academic spaces exist to cultivate and develop different forms of knowledge; yet, the CAQ seems to want to limit these spaces to either Quebec students or wealthy, international, French-speaking students from Europe. These policies will likely only exacerbate the existing class divisions in Canadian academia, and contribute to rising xenophobia in Quebec and Canada as a whole. International students are often the target of harmful stereotypes and made into scapegoats for politicians looking to distract their constituents from their government’s shortcomings. We must challenge these narratives wherever they appear, and identify the true culprits driving this inequality.
Post-secondary education should be accessible to all, and not limited by financial or geographical circumstances. It’s clear that the CAQ’s policies, which intend to limit university education in the province to students of certain classes and backgrounds, are deterring many potential students from seeing a future for themselves here. Cultural and linguistic diversity is a strength, and Quebec’s English-language universities are surely going to suffer from this loss.
Last year, many students at McGill and Concordia mobilized against the tuition hikes, calling out the discriminatory nature of these policies. Contribute to future mobilization against the CAQ’s discriminatory policies and call out xenophobic narratives that blame migrants, including international students, for our governments’ failures. Support organizations such as the Migrant Workers Alliance, the Migrant Rights Network, and Solidarity Across Borders that advocate for migrant worker and student rights.