By Colin Standish, Co-Leader
MONTREAL, QUEBEC – The community that produced Pascale Déry, Québec’s current Minister of Higher Education, is starting to wonder who she thinks she is, and if she has any inkling as to what her job is, after she has stubbornly persisted to dig in her heels on her and her government’s plan to raise tuition for out-of-province students who want to study at English-language universities. And those very schools are worried that they may be trampled under foot.
Despite the reprieve for Bishop’s University, Concordia and McGill are fighting an apparently losing battle, as Déry’s Goliath takes a renewed swing at the David that is the English-speaking community, saying the plan’s effect on enrollment, and on both schools’ economic viability, could spell their downfall. The planned hike, which unfairly targets English-language institutions, will mean tens of millions of dollars in losses for the both schools. But Déry has stated clearly that she doesn’t care. “I will not comment on the numbers,” she told the press gathered in Québec City last week. “But what I’m going to say is that the measures are going forward.”
The 33% tuition hike is aimed at out-of-province students who choose to study at McGill and Concordia universities instead of, say, UQAM, Université de Montréal, or other French universities. The goal, according to Déry ’s office, is to ensure that non-Québec students are more proficient in French at graduation (and to account for apparent financial imbalances between French and English-speaking universities). The new plan also requires students to reach a certain level of French or the schools could face financial penalties.
According to the Québec government’s own website, the mandate of the Higher Education Minister – Déry’s actual responsibilities – is “to support the student community and educational institutions and promote higher education in order to make a lasting contribution to the economic, social, and cultural development of Québec.” The ministry’s vision – again, according to their own website – is “Access, success, and excellence for all higher education, the driving force behind everything we do.”
Not only has Déry gone against her own mandate – with the full approval of her boss and colleagues – but in doing so she is threatening the education of even francophone students who attend English institutes of higher learning.
It is our contention that Mme. Déry is suffering an identity crisis that has her turning her back on her own community - not the one she represents, but the one she calls home with Déry being born and raised in TMR, had lived for a time in Côte-0-Saint-Luc, and now lives in Hampstead.
All Quebecers should, particularly those from minority language and religious groups, have been able to expect better from the first Jewish woman appointed to Québec cabinet, a woman who had once been on the board of CIJA – the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs – one of the many organizations that came out against her own government's Bill 21, the so-called secularism law. Could that be the reason she left that organization? Or was it her own opportunism? Déry wanted to be a federal Conservative when she made her first foray into politics. She sought the nomination in the Mount Royal riding, a traditionally Liberal riding (the same riding for which her father, William, had at one time sought the Liberal nomination). But she lost her nomination to Robert Libman. She eventually made her way into the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), handily winning her seat in Repentigny, in a part of town that couldn't be further from home.
Now, all Quebecers might have wanted to claim her as their own are feeling betrayed. What does that matter?
As long as Mme. Déry is doing what’s best for her party. And for herself. Even to the detriment of two of Canada’s finest institutes of higher learning.
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