On Feb. 25 and 26, the provincial government will hold a summit for  members of civil society and the higher education community to discuss the future of  the post-secondary education system in Quebec.

Before the summit commences, the Tribune set out to give students a look at some of the primary stakeholders, their views on prominent issues up for discussion, and their plans for the two days. 

Parti Québécois (PQ)

The PQ planned the summit in the wake of intense debate and frequent student protests regarding the former Liberal government’s proposed tuition annual increase of $325 for five years, which the PQ rescinded following their election last September. 

In January, Higher Education Minister Pierre Duchesne said free tuition is not an option for the Quebec government, and that the government is instead looking at indexing tuition fees to the cost of living.

“The good thing about this possibility is that there are different indexation models, some of which resemble a freeze, others which are indexed based on certain indicators,” Duchesne said in January.

However, the government has promised that discussion at the summit is not limited to tuition—quality of higher education, access to higher education, governance and university funding, and contribution of research to the province’s development will be the four main themes covered during the two-day event. Four preliminary workshops with the parties involved have taken place since the summit was officially announced last November. Premier Pauline Marois and Duchesne will discuss these issues with student organizations and post-secondary establishments.

“This is vital for Quebec society,” Marois said at a press conference last November. “Our prosperity rests on knowledge and education .… I hope this is a fruitful debate for all.”

Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ) 

CREPUQ is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1963. It is composed of university administrators who work to improve the efficiency of Quebec’s higher education system. Representing all 19 Quebec universities, its main concerns are research, funding, and the university activities affected by government bills. It also serves as a coordinator between universities and a research centre for administration.

In anticipation of the summit, CREPUQ proposed last November to create an independent public council in charge of studying and counselling academic affairs.

“[The council] would report to the National Assembly and the people of Quebec on the situation of the university system in general and, more specifically, on … the quality of university programs and how well they are meeting society’s needs; Quebec’s competitive position with regard to research in all fields of knowledge; and how universities are contributing to social, cultural, scientific, technological, and economic development,” a CREPUQ statement from November reads.

According to its website, CREPUQ’s stance is that every Quebecker who desires to and is qualified to enter university should be able to, and that universities have the job of ensuring accessibility while maintaining a high quality of education.

The organization claims that, in comparison with their trans-Canadian counterparts, Quebec universities are underfunded by $850 million. For that reason, CREPUQ advocates stable funding as necessary to support research and development.

As a member of CREPUQ, McGill’s administration agrees that Quebec universities are underfunded. The administration recently posted on McGill’s website that, if given more funding, it would use these funds to invest in talent and infrastructure, as well as to work on reducing the university’s deficit.

The McGill website defines improving talent as lending “more support—financial and otherwise—for our students, including a commitment to spend 30 per cent of all new net tuition revenue on improving student aid and accessibility, competitive compensation, and improved academic support for professors.”

Fédération étudiante universitaire de Québec (FEUQ)

FEUQ was created in 1989 immediately following the government’s decision to end Quebec’s tuition freeze. Its 14 member associations represent more than 125,000 Quebec university students, making it the largest student group in the province.

According to its official website, FEUQ’s mission is to represent student associations across Quebec and to put their positions at the forefront of discourse on higher education. They also aim to promote unity in the recent student movement.

The FEUQ has historically opposed tuition increases, calling them problematic. Accessibility and student debt have remained central issues for the Federation. In 2011, it supported the PQ’s position to freeze tuition.

“We’re looking to actually make sure that people understand what it means to preserve accessibility in university and to propose two things: better financing and a better governance of universities, ” FEUQ President Martine Desjardins told the Tribune in November.

To increase accountability and promote universities’ efficiency, the FEUQ advocates for a commission to evaluate the universities in Quebec, promotes collaboration and accountability of universities, and aims to pursue this proposal in the upcoming summit.

“We do have this kind of commission for the CEGEP system—that’s how we want to actually propose this commission [at] the summit, ” Desjardins said. “We’re very hopeful that we’ll have a big consensus about this proposition. ”

While some student groups, like ASSÉ, have distanced themselves from the summit, the FEUQ will continue to put pressure on the PQ to opt for a tuition freeze.

FEUQ participated in four preliminary meetings leading up to the summit, posted a document explaining their positions on each theme online, and presented them to the government before each meeting.

Table de concertation étudiante du Québec (TaCEQ)

Founded in 2009 and representing 60,000 students, TaCEQ is one of the youngest and smallest student associations in Quebec. The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) is one of the four member unions that constitute TaCEQ, alongside student societies from Université Laval and Université de Sherbrooke.

SSMU Vice-President External Robin Reid-Fraser will be one of TaCEQ’s representatives at the summit. She said TaCEQ wants to bring several ideas to the table.

“[We want there to be] a process in place that would have companies contribute to somebody’s education—not [as] in specific, targeted things that they get to choose, but for them to be funding … education that can go to everybody,” she said. “Another [idea] is that there be a charter for student researchers … because right now, student researchers fall through the cracks in terms of representation and their rights.”

SSMU will also promote policies at the Summit that TaCEQ doesn’t necessarily share. According to Reid-Fraser, the Society wants a better process to facilitate discussion about the education system across the province. Reid-Fraser noted that she has only just received the summit’s agenda—barely a week and a half before the event will take place.

“The concern I have now is that it is not very inclusive,” she said. “If we are talking about reshaping our universities, we need to be bringing people who are not in universities right now, and have them talk about their connection and how they view these institutions.”

Reid-Fraser also recognized the summit’s benefit, since the meetings leading up to the event allow her to hear the views of the main actors in the discussion .

“This summit could be the opportunity to realize that there are so many things that need to be worked on and that give a direction for a more thorough process to address some of those issues,” she said. “That being said, it is very unclear what the government wants.”

Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ)

Founded in 2001, ASSÉ is a student organization with approximately 70,000 members from universities and colleges across Quebec. On Feb. 13, ASSÉ officially announced that it would not participate in the summit on higher education. The organization has unofficially expressed concerns about the summit since the PQ announced it in September. ASSÉ’s main goal is free education, which the PQ has said will not be seriously considered at the summit.

Jérémie Bédard-Wien, ASSÉ’s finance secretary, said the group is organizing a demonstration for the second day of the summit on Feb. 26, and that they are expecting thousands of people to attend.

“It is clear that free education is off the table—the decision has already been taken by the government,” Bédard-Wein said. “We should not give [the summit] credibility. We should make ourselves heard outside rather than inside.”

Before last week, none of McGill’s many student associations were members of ASSÉ. On Tuesday Feb. 12, the Art History and Communication Studies Graduates Student Association voted to join ASSÉ, making them the first student association at McGill to be  a part of the organization.

Last spring, a temporary coalition of ASSÉ known as CLASSE (Coalition large de l’ASSÉ) organized many of the protests against tuition hikes that occurred in downtown Montreal. While many McGill students were involved in the student movement last spring, only a few faculties and departments voted to go on strike. Bédard-Wien expressed hope that McGill students will mobilize more for the summit than they did in the spring.

More than 200 people gathered in the square opposite Quebec Premier Pauline Marois’ office on Sunday afternoon to protest the Parti Québécois’ (PQ) proposed changes to language laws with Bill 14. The rally featured several guest speakers who denounced the bill’s potential impacts on Quebec society, and was organized by two minority rights groups—the Unity Group and PutBackTheFlag.com.

Introduced by the provincial government on Dec. 5, Bill 14 focuses on amending Bill 101—Quebec’s Charter of the French Language. The bill seeks to further protect and promote the French language in Quebec in the realms of business, education, and municipalities.

Bill 14 would restrict the use of English in the workplace by mandating that businesses with 26 or more employees must make French their “normal and everyday language of work,” whereas currently this applies to businesses with 50 or more employees. The new legislation would also amend the bilingual status of certain municipalities. If the law were to pass, a community would only be considered bilingual if English were the mother tongue of at least 50 per cent of its population.

According to Jimmy Kalafatidis, chairman of the Unity Group, Sunday’s protest was an opportunity for both Anglophones and Francophones to demonstrate their discontent with Bill 14.

“Basically what we’re doing here is … trying to send a message to [the Coalition Avenir Québec] and the Liberals to vote down Bill 14,” he said. “[The bill] is detrimental to our economy … to education … to business in general .… It hurts everybody.”

Colin Standish, a law student at Université Laval, was one of four guest speakers who spoke at the rally. Standish expressed concern with the impact Bill 14 would have on the bilingual status of municipalities with both Francophone and Anglophone citizens.

“With [Bill 14], we would see 45 of 90 bilingual status municipalities lose [the] ability to communicate with citizens in the language of their choice,” he said. “In the Eastern Townships … we have 18 bilingual-status towns right now, and 15 of them would be taken away.”

Many of those present at the protest shared Standish’s opinion. Chris Durrant, a third-year law student at McGill said he was shocked by Bill 14’s new bilingual status requirements.

“Requiring 50 per cent Anglophones is ridiculous,” he said. “Certainly, no minorities in the rest of Canada, [like] Franco-Ontarians, would be subjected to such a high standard. I firmly support the right to protect the French language in Quebec, but this goes beyond that. This is persecution of the English-speaking community.”

In his speech, Standish further denounced Bill 14 for its proposed changes to the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

“[In the bill], we see the term “ethnic minorities” changed to “cultural communities,” he said. “In international human rights tribunals, ethnic minorities do have rights, [but] cultural communities don’t. So if we see our rights infringed upon here in Quebec, and want to take it to the Supreme Court … we would actually have no rights here in this province.”

Attendees expressed concern with Bill 14’s impact on students’ ability to finish school, and to enroll in English CEGEPs.

“To graduate CEGEP and secondary school, even from an English system, you would have to pass a French exam,” Standish said. “It’s totally disconnected from any pedagogical goal, [and] also explicitly disconnected from merit-based acquisition of academic credentials.”

Kalafatidis also pointed to the difficulties Bill 14 would create for students to secure employment in the province after graduation.

“When I graduated [from Concordia] in 1994, everybody left [the province] because of the language laws,” Kalafatidis said. “We don’t want the best and the brightest [students] to leave. We want them to stay here, and help grow the economy, and help grow Quebec into a very strong multilingual society.”

Daniel Roy, who said he was not speaking on behalf of any group or organization, attended the rally to express his support for Bill 14.

“The French language is beginning to disappear in America, and it is beginning to disappear in Quebec, as well,” Roy said in French. “I support Bill 14 because it reinforces certain [aspects] of Bill 101 that have been diluted several times by the Supreme Court … and I don’t think [the bill] goes far enough. It’s important to preserve .…  French in Quebec.”

Throughout the duration of the event, several police vans lined the street, blocking traffic from accessing McGill College between Sherbrooke and President Kennedy. No arrests were made, and the protestors began to disperse after an hour.

According to The Montreal Gazette, a parliamentary committee will hold public hearings regarding Bill 14 in March.

The Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS) of McGill University has publically taken the stance that Quebec universities are under-funded. Last Wednesday, PGSS Council passed a motion calling for the Society to take this position in preparation for the upcoming Quebec Education Summit scheduled for Feb. 25 and 26.

According to the motion, PGSS  also supports the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ)’s call for further investigation into how university money is spent. It passed after a heated debate amongst Council members and representatives of the FEUQ who attended the meeting.

Participants who spoke on behalf of FEUQ said they do not believe there is enough evidence to prove that Quebec universities are underfunded, and that university administrations are responsible for mismanaging the money they receive from the provincial government. FEUQ speakers were concerned that the PGSS motion means the Society is complying with university administrations and their association, known as Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ).

“I want to point out … that the underfunding that the CREPUQ talks about is a comparison between Quebec and the rest of Canada,” Marc-André Legault, president of the graduate student council at the FEUQ, said. “It doesn’t specify what are the needs of the university .… What we advocate at the FEUQ is that we have to know what are the needs of universities. We are not going to give blank checks to the rectors.”

The PGSS decided to hold its own investigation into university financing after receiving many requests from within and outside McGill to take the stance that universities in Quebec are underfunded, according to PGSS Secretary-General Jonathan Mooney. He named both the McGill administration—which is a member of CREPUQ—and FEUQ as groups that wanted PGSS to take an informed stance on the issue.

“Obviously, FEUQ lobbied us to stick with their position that the studies demonstrating underfunding are flawed and not to take the position that underfunding is a reality,” he said.

PGSS asked Conor Farrell, a researcher for the Society with a background in statistics, to look at the different reports from CREPUQ, FEUQ, and other post-secondary education organizations to determine whether or not Quebec universities are underfunded. Farrell produced a 24-page document that concluded that universities in Quebec need more money to function properly. After having received the report, the executive drafted the motion for Council.

“The first part of this motion is to say that, ‘yes, there is evidence that Quebec universities are underfunded,’” Mooney said. “But, that doesn’t mean you just give the money to the rectors or the principals to let them do whatever they want with it. There needs to be an accountability mechanism system in place, so we are supporting the FEUQ’s motion to create a [Commission for the Evaluation of Universities in Quebec] CEUQ.”

CEUQ would be an independent body that would hold rectors accountable for the spending of public money.

Mooney expressed concern when his colleagues showed scepticism over the report’s findings.

“It’s not just CREPUQ who is saying [that universities are underfunded],” Mooney said. “[When] the Council of Ontario Universities … [was] trying to make a case that Ontario universities are underfunded, they did [a] comparative analysis. Quebec came in dead last among operating grants given from the government.”

“This idea that we don’t need money is absurd,” he continued. “It’s all being done for political reasons.”

Leah Freeman, a graduate student in McGill’s School of Social Work and FEUQ vice-president of graduate student affairs, spoke out against the PGSS’s motion on behalf of FEUQ at Wednesday’s meeting.

“We will always advocate for more money to universities,” she said. “We are not asking you to give us permission to not ask for more. We are asking you to give us permission to get universities’ funding where it needs to go. Right now … we don’t know where the money is going.”

Freeman—along with the other FEUQ representatives, had no voting rights—as she is not a member of Council. Ultimately, the motion passed with an overwhelming majority in favour.