(Quebec) English-language universities will get the lion’s share of infrastructure funding from Quebec, according to the Parti Québécois (PQ).
McGill and Concordia universities alone will get a total of 622 million out of the 1.04 billion that will eventually be granted by the Quebec government to all universities in the list of projects in progress, can we read in the Quebec Plan infrastructure 2023-2033 tabled with the budget on Tuesday.
“Can the Prime Minister admit that his budget for higher education directly funds the anglicization of Quebec? PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon asked Premier François Legault during question period on Thursday.
The separatist leader calculated that, for example, if we report investments in infrastructure in Quebec according to the number of students enrolled, this amounts to $28,500 per student at McGill and $357 per student at UQAM.
All French-language universities share “a measly 40%”, he denounced, noting that the constituents of the University of Quebec “get 5% of the pie”.
The chief caquiste evaded the question. However, he argued that his government had capped spots in English-language CEGEPs at 17% of the college population. He also accused the PQ of wanting to close half of the English-speaking CEGEPs.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon even took the opportunity to joke about the government’s current advertising campaign in favor of the use of French, where we see in a mock animal documentary an endangered species, the falcon, with a voice-over narration full of anglicisms.
“While the CAQ is putting all its efforts on the peregrine falcon to convince a population already convinced of the urgency of acting in French, we are missing out on essential questions such as the disproportionate funding granted to English-speaking universities. »
The PQ leader also criticized the government for spending $200 million a year to fund the university education of Canadian and international students enrolled in English-speaking institutions.
He asked the head of the CAQ to take up the PQ’s proposal, that is to say to impose a maximum quota of 20% of English-speaking foreign students out of the total number of students received.
Mr. Legault countered by blaming the PQ for betraying the legacy of René Lévesque’s Bill 101, which provided that Anglophones from the rest of Canada enrolled in English-language universities here would pay the same tuition fees as Quebecers.
