McGill shelves $50M French program after Quebec out-of-province tuition hike

McGill University was set to invest $50 million to teach students, faculty and staff French to "integrate more fully into Quebec society," but says it is pausing the program's announcement, after the provincial government said it would double tuition for out-of-province students.

Late last week, Quebec's minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, said new, out-of-province Canadian students will see tuition fees double next year — for most, that would mean their tuition would rise from about $9,000 to more than $17,000.

International student tuition will also rise to a minimum of $20,000 per year. Déry framed the increase, the proceeds of which will go into government coffers, as a way to balance the funding of English and French universities in the province.

But Quebec's three English universities, McGill, Bishop's and Concordia have said the plan would have devastating financial consequences for them.

Nearly a third of the students who attend Bishop's are from outside the province, the university's principal and vice-chancellor, Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, said earlier this week.

"Most of them will be priced out [by the new tuition fees]. It's going to have a direct impact on our capacity to enroll those students," he said. "That's really significant and that's really what our identity is about."

In an email response to CBC News Wednesday, McGill's media relations office confirmed it had postponed announcing a $50 million investment over five years "to enable more people from its community to learn or improve their French."

The university was alerted a few days ahead of Déry's tuition hike announcement that changes were coming that could affect the school's financial situation but was not informed what those changes would be, according to the email, which was unsigned.

"Finding the initial funding for McGill's investment in the promotion of the French language was extremely difficult," it wrote. "The larger goal of the program was to help students, faculty and staff integrate more fully into Quebec society, broadening the already extensive impact of our talent and expertise across Quebec."

Wednesday, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante joined the chorus of voices criticizing Quebec's decision, saying it will dissuade students from coming to Montreal, hurt the city's economy and push them instead toward universities in Toronto.

"We need talent, we need workers, we need students because we want our economy to grow," Plante said.

"I want them [the Quebec government] to maybe have a bigger reflection and not to limit it to a fight between francophone against non-francophone. I think we're missing the point here and it's hitting hard and strong the representation of the city of Montreal as the metropolis of Quebec."