Former Quebec premier Jean Charest condemns the tuition fee increase that the Quebec government wants to impose on students from outside Quebec.
The lawyer, who was also MP for Sherbrooke from 1998 to 2012, believes Quebec’s policies would have a devastating impact on Bishop’s University.
Starting fall 2024, tuition fees for Canadians outside Quebec and international students at all Quebec universities will double. The measure has already been denounced by Bishop’s University, where 30% of Canadian students come from other Canadian provinces.
The government’s policies are rather shocking and regressive. We cannot remain silent in the face of this.
According to Jean Charest, such a measure would have damaging consequences for this English-speaking university, but also for the Estrie region. Bishop’s University is one of the most important institutions in our region. “It defines us, it is part of what we present abroad if we want to attract investment,” he says.
This policy, which he describes as improvised and ill-conceived, should, in his opinion, be reviewed for other English-speaking universities in Quebec.
Jean Charest also refutes the government’s argument that this measure is a strategy to slow the decline of French teaching in Quebec.
“I don’t think I know a single person in the Estrie region who thinks that Bishop’s University threatens the future of the French language in our region,” says Jean Charest.
Jean Charest believes that the region’s MPs should put pressure on the government to make it give in. He also calls on the population to oppose this measure. The region must mobilize to defend a critically important institution for our future, he argues.
A different increase than 2012
Jean Charest’s political career reached a turning point when he himself pushed through a tuition increase in 2012. At the end of a social crisis, Jean Charest lost his seat as deputy and prime minister in the autumn 2012 elections.
I proposed a policy at the time that applied to all students who were in Quebec at the time. I was not trying to discriminate against students from outside Quebec. It’s not the same register at all. I remind you that in my policy, for families earning $100,000 and less, tuition was lower than what they were already paying in 2012, he points out.
According to him, the increase proposed this time by the government of François Legault could cause great damage to Quebec’s economy as well as to Quebec’s English-language universities.
With information from John Sébastien Naïs