'We're staying the course': After speaking to universities, Quebec will maintain tuition hike for McGill, Concordia students

The Quebec government is rejecting a proposal from McGill and Concordia universities that would keep tuition fees for out-of-province students the same starting next fall.

The proposal would have made French-language courses mandatory for undergraduate students in exchange for the government backtracking on its plan to double tuition for non-Quebec students.

But just hours after Premier François Legault and his minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, met with all three English universities Monday, the government said their offer isn't good enough.

On Monday afternoon, Déry's office released a statement saying the offer was "a step in the right direction," but didn't say whether or not Quebec would accept it. It did say, however, that the government would make an exception for Bishop's University.

"We're staying the course on our measures, but we're going to find a specific solution for Bishop's. We see the francization efforts in a positive light; for us, they're complimentary," read a statement from her office.

When asked by CTV News later in the evening if the minister is closing the door on maintaining the current tuition fees for McGill and Concordia universities, her press attache said, "yes," adding that the plan to offer more French courses was not enough to reverse course.

McGill and Concordia could not be immediately reached for comment Monday evening. 

The meeting was held in Montreal under the shadow of a new policy the province announced on Oct. 13 that would raise university tuition for non-Quebec Canadian students from $8,992 to $17,000 and increase tuition for international students to $20,000 — a move that the universities say would hurt their bottom line and turn students away to other provinces like Ontario.

The three universities had asked for tuition fees to remain the same for Canadian students outside Quebec and for the government to discuss "alternative solutions" to the proposed tuition hikes for international students.

McGill and Concordia said they would make students take French-language courses "with a view to effectively supporting the professional integration of students within the city," according to a joint statement.

Quebec's English-language universities say they will ensure almost half of their non-French-speaking students graduate with intermediate French if the provincial government scraps a plan to double tuition for students from other provinces. Quebec Premier François Legault is flanked by Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry, left, and HEC chair Helene Desmarais while touring the new building for the HEC business school, in Montreal, Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

All three schools also said they would commit to "substantially increasing the offering of French-as-a-second-language courses for Canadian students from outside Quebec and international students who do not speak French, and to creating new incentives for learning French," such as scholarships.

'AN UNPRECEDENTED PROPOSITION'

Earlier Monday afternoon, the principals of McGill and Bishop's had said they were hopeful they could reach a deal with the province.

"We have put an unprecedented proposition in front of the government and it’s a proposition of partnership with the government between the government and the three anglophone universities," said McGill principal Deep Saini.

"I'm very optimistic that we’ve put an outstanding proposal in front of the government and that we’ve made it very clear that we believe we are natural allies with the government in the desire to protect and promote French," Graham Carr, the president and vice-chancellor of Concordia.

When Déry announced the new measure last month, she said the money from the tuition hikes would be reinvested into the French university system.

Quebec's three English universities are poised to be disproportionately affected by the new measure as they receive a higher number of non-local students.

Since the announcement, there has been pushback from some MNAs in the national assembly, federal ministers in Ottawa, and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante. On Oct. 30, more than 1,000 students held a protest in Montreal to denounce the province's tuition hike.

IN PHOTOS: Students protest Quebec tuition hike

A petition on the national assembly website calling for the tuition hikes to be cancelled has collected more than 13,000 signatures as of Monday evening.  

In an internal memo sent last week, Concordia said the planned tuition hike could have devastating effects, potentially gutting 90 per cent of the institute's out-of-province undergraduate registration.

Annual revenue loss could reach $32 million in four years, the memo said, describing the impact as "far-reaching and complex."

Among other losses, McGill University argues Quebec's plan to double tuition for out-of-province students could result in up to 700 job cuts.

For its part, Bishop's University in the Eastern Townships warns that its very survival is at risk as 30 per cent of the school is made up of out-of-province students, contributing to one-quarter of the school's revenues.

French-language universities in the province have also come to the defence of the English schools.

"Any measure that would put the very existence of a university at risk or weaken it to the point of impairing it, must be excluded from the discussion," the heads of Université de Montréal, Université Laval, Université de Sherbrooke, Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal wrote in an open letter published in La Presse.

Though the CAQ insists the hikes are not an attack on English speakers, it did say it wants to protect the French language, particularly in Montreal, by making it more expensive for students who, according to the government, come to Quebec to study in English only to leave after graduation.

Some students will be exempt from paying higher fees, such as those covered by international agreements, including France and Belgium. The measure does not apply to medical or PhD students, but it does apply to all undergraduate and graduate programs, including Master's programs.