Since the Legault administration adopted the 1977 Charter of the French Language, only students possessing a Certificate of English Eligibility can attend anglophone elementary and high schools. Not possessing the certificate has further limited access to anglophone education at the Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEP) level since the passage of Bill 96 in 2022. With Legault’s resignation this January, the next Premier now has an opportunity to preserve linguistic heritage without fostering a narrative of division. Strategies framing English as an adversary to French are unsuitable in a province where bilingualism is vibrant, and linguistic plurality should, as a result, be particularly celebrated.
The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government uses education to advance a francophone protectionist agenda. Requiring an English eligibility certificate limits students’ right to choose their language of instruction in a bilingual province. This restriction is part of a wider trend of reforms that suppress linguistic plurality in a misguided attempt to preserve francophone culture.
Students can only obtain an English eligibility certificate if they have attended an anglophone school in Canada for the majority of their education, or if a parent, sibling, or close relative has received their education in English in Canada.
Students holding the certificate have priority admission to anglophone CEGEPs and, if admitted, complete their education by passing the English Exit Exam. Non-certificate holders, //even if attending anglophone CEGEPs//, are instead required to pass the French Exit Exam—and take additional classes to prepare for it. This adds an unfair workload and undue stress for non-certificate holders, making it harder for them to succeed academically.
The certificate requirement impedes students from choosing which language they will use to pass their exams, and which language to strengthen through mandatory language-learning classes. It also hinders students from accessing specific CEGEP programs simply because they might only be offered in English.
With a certificate requirement, education goes from being a choice to a product of cultural inheritance. First-generation Anglophone Canadians are thrust into an education system in a language they may not be proficient in on account of their families not meeting the historical criteria for English education. In a system where the right to study in English is inheritance-based, immigrants whose families received their education in English outside of Canada do not meet the requirements for certificate eligibility. This lowers their chances of accessing English CEGEPs, and the pressure to be fluent in French complicates their adjustment to a new environment.
Pushing Francophone students to receive their education in French also disadvantages them if they aim to improve their English by attending an anglophone CEGEP. Regardless of how fundamental the French language is to Quebec’s culture, the government cannot disregard the province’s prevalent bilingualism nor undermine the importance of English as a skill in academia, work, and international communication.
The certificate policy also affects teachers in English CEGEPs who lack French proficiency—at risk of losing their jobs if they cannot switch to teaching in French. Additionally, if Anglophone students do not get their certificate in time, they lose the right to pass eligibility on to their children, further entrenching the difficulties of accessing education in English.
Policies that promote French learning are necessary in an unequivocally bilingual province. However, the CAQ government has repeatedly opted to actively disadvantage the anglophone community in their mission to defend French as the sole official language. Bill 96 imposed enrollment caps on English CEGEPs, cut their funding to support French CEGEPs, and raised international tuition at English-speaking universities like McGill to deter non-Francophones from applying. The certificate is yet another policy that weakens Anglophone institutions in favour of Francophone ones—deluded in its idea that protecting French requires suppressing English.
A government confident in its linguistic heritage would invest in French fluency without foreclosing students’ access to English—recognizing that in a bilingual province, the two languages can coexist and even strengthen one another. After all, attending an English CEGEP does not isolate students into a purely English-speaking community—and forcing Anglophone students to study in French will not erase their original linguistic identity.
