QUEBEC — New legislation designed to cap international student admissions threatens years of often arduous recruitment efforts and will result in “lasting negative consequences” on Quebec’s education system, four of Quebec’s top universities told a Legislature committee Tuesday.
In a joint brief presented to the committee studying Bill 74, Université Laval, McGill University, Université de Montréal and the Université de Sherbrooke said the proposed legislation threatens to erase years of progress in the highly competitive business of luring top minds from around the world to study in Quebec.
They ask to be exempted from the proposed legislation.
The groups note that 12 different international student policy changes have been announced by the Quebec and federal governments since 2023, each adding further “confusion and uncertainty” to the system and making a poor impression on potential student candidates.
The four universities says they have already noticed a drop in enrolment as a result of the uncertainty and now the Coalition Avenir Québec government has set in motion yet more tinkering with its legislation.
“In opening the door to a significant reduction, by decree, of the number of international students, this bill could result in lasting negative consequences for Quebec,” the group says in a brief presented Tuesday, the opening day of hearings into the legislation.
Tabled in October by Immigration, Francization and Integration Minister Jean-François Roberge, Bill 74 proposes capping international student admissions as part of a CAQ government plan to reduce the number of temporary immigrants in Quebec and address housing shortages and protect French.
The legislation, once adopted, would give Quebec the power to manage international student applications in the university, CEGEP and private colleges of Quebec under the Quebec Immigration Act.
The government would have the power to determine the number of international students by establishment and region of Quebec and even oblige them to take certain courses tailored to Quebec’s needs and in a designated establishment.
The government argues the number of international students has soared from 50,000 10 years ago to 120,000, which Roberge has said is “too much.”
He has not been more specific on the kind of reduction he wants to see, insisting he wants to hear from groups affected first.
“It will be an adequate reduction,” Roberge said in presenting the bill to the National Assembly. “Yes, 120,000 is too many.”
Broken down, there are 57,440 international students in Quebec’s universities and 9,000 more in the CEGEP system.
University rectors and CEGEPs almost immediately expressed their concerns about the legislation and now are lined up to tell Roberge what they think to his face. The government has set aside two days of hearings at the Legislature for hearings into the bill.
On his way into the committee room Tuesday, Roberge defended the proposed legislation despite the overwhelming criticism the bill has already attracted.
He ruled out from the start that the university and CEGEP networks be exempted from the law. And he said the government needs the power it is proposing to assume.
“To think we do all this without the involvement of the university and CEGEP network is not reasonable,” Roberge told reporters. “It’s not normal that the migratory patterns of Quebec be left in the hands of 20, 40 or 70 institutions — all independent,” he said. “We need a conductor.”
In the brief, the groups say that at the same as the province’s population is growing, Quebec welcomes fewer students than its demographic weight in Canada (22 per cent) would indicate. International students also represent only 12 per cent of the temporary immigrants in Quebec, which total about 600,000.
The universities argue that percentage is “reasonable” given all they contribute to Quebec in terms of ready labour.
“This contribution is indispensable at a time when Quebec is working to reinforce its position in the knowledge economy and to profit from research advances,” the brief says. “But in its current form, Bill 74 puts in peril the capacity of our universities to attract students of great talent, which in turn reduces our capacity to attract high-calibre professors and researchers.”
The group argues the bill also is a direct intrusion on the autonomy of universities to govern themselves and a form of interference in what is in reality a “sophisticated chain” of supply.
The group calls for universities to be exempted from the bill.
But the committee Tuesday heard a different view from Quebec’s French language commissioner, Benoît Dubreuil, who argued the number of foreign students in Quebec’s universities and CEGEPs has grown too high and could pose a threat to French.
In his brief, Dubreuil quotes Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada data that indicates that as of Dec. 31, 2023, 24 per cent of international students in university only speak English. In the CEGEP system, the percentage is 43 per cent.
He recommends the minister add, explicitly, in the clause devoted to the government’s admission powers a line stating that among the decision-making factors is the French language and its role as the common language of the Quebec nation.
Concordia University and Bishop’s University are to present their own briefs to the committee later Tuesday.
Last week, the Parti Québécois presented its own vision on the immigration issue. Should it take power, a PQ government would reduce the number of foreign students who don’t speak French.
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