'Attack on the whole region': Charest speaks out against Quebec tuition hikes

Former premier Jean Charest is speaking out against tuition hikes for out-of-province students at Quebec universities to defend his hometown school of Bishop’s University.

Charest, whose plans to raise tuition fees at universities in 2012 led to massive student protests and ultimately to his downfall as leader of the province, spoke out to CJAD’s Andrew Carter against the move by the Quebec government to nearly double tuition fees for students from other provinces.

“It’s a completely different situation,” he said. “Totally different… in this case, obviously, the government has not done its homework.”

Charest is defending in particular Bishop’s University, a small English-language liberal arts university in the Eastern Townships city of Sherbrooke. Charest is from Sherbrooke and represented the riding for close to 30 years.

“People, I think, are pretty much shocked at the idea that Bishop’s University students are threatening the French language on the streets of Sherbrooke. I mean, you know, if that's the best they can do, I think they'll have to really revisit their policy,” he said of the CAQ plan.

Carter asked if the tuition hike could post an existential threat to Bishop’s, Concordia and McGill.

“I can confirm that in the case of Bishop’s University, certainly. I mean, 30 per cent of their student body is… Canadian students from outside of the province of Quebec. In the case of Concordia, it's probably around 10 per cent, McGill about 20 per cent,” he said, adding that it isn’t just about tuition fees, but also about the economy more broadly. “The students who come here, live here, they spend money, they get to know Quebec then get to learn French. Some of them stay, some of them don't.”

LISTEN ON CJAD 800 RADIO: Jean Charest: the tuition hike could end Bishop's University

Charest said Quebec post-secondary education has long been a point of pride that would tout when he travelled abroad.

“When I was premier of Quebec, I’d travel elsewhere in the world and brag about Quebec and Montreal and what would I say, at the top of any presentation, that we have four universities in the City of Montreal,” he said. “The institutions in Quebec and that we have are among the best universities in the world and tuition fees are accessible, and we attract talent. And yet, all of this is just, you know, thrown away by a policy that is just badly thought out and presented for the bad, very bad reasons.”

Carter asked Charest what he thinks is the CAQ’s endgame on the new tuition policy.

“Since this by-election in the riding of Jean-Talon in the Quebec City area, they just seem to be completely off,” he said.

Charest noted that there are funding issues in universities and pointed to his own Liberal policies to try to raise tuition a decade ago.

“I had my own policies that were not implemented, but I believed in them and they were right – I think they were right. I stood by them and I died on that hill. But I didn't try to discriminate between anglophone universities and francophone universities for the reasons the government is giving.”

Charest said he’s hoping the business community in Montreal will push back on the issue.

“I can confirm to you that in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, this is a frontal attack on the whole region,” he said. “The local MNAs better stand up and side with the people who elected them and choose between -- you know, if they have to choose between the people who elected them and their party, they better make the right choice, because in the Eastern Townships Bishop’s is a regional institution that everyone cares about and that they're going to defend. So it'll come at a very high political cost to that CAQ if they insist in on the end if they pursue this policy.”