Serious questions are being raised about the future of the farm at Macdonald Campus of McGill University in Ste. Anne de Bellevue in the wake of the provincial government’s plan to dramatically hike tuition for students from outside Quebec looking to attend English-language universities.
In an open letter Nov. 2, Deep Saini, the principal and vice-chancellor of McGill, singled out a short list of faculties and programs that could face the biggest impacts if the tuition increases are imposed for 2024, levelling a serious financial blow to the university. The letter has sent waves of concern about the long-term prospects of the operations at the university’s campus in Ste. Anne.
“The Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the Faculty of Education and the B.A. & Sc. Interfaculty programs will also be severely affected,” wrote Saini, outlining the hit McGill would suffer from the provincial government’s decision.
The Agricultural and Environmental Sciences faculty has about 2,000 students, according to Valerie Orsat, assistant dean of student affairs for the department. That includes roughly 1,300 undergraduates and 700 graduate students. In the last five years, about 20 per cent of them come from other provinces.
Another 20 to 25 per cent are foreign students. With Quebec also proposing changes in the funding model for international students, this could further reduce the revenue McGill retains from the tuition paid by these students.
“We can’t offer programs if we don’t have students,” Orsat said.
The immediate question looming over the faculty, Orsat said, was the university’s current student recruitment campaign, which is in full swing in November.
“It’s recruiting season right now,” she said. “Do we completely forget the rest of Canada?”
With tuition for students from outside Quebec set to jump from $8,992 to approximately $17,000, Orsat seriously questions how many students from the rest of Canada would opt for McGill.
Orsat says the faculty always attracts students from the western provinces, explaining they see McGill as an exciting option that offers them a “different experience before settling on the family farm.”
Adding to the uncertainty is the blow that the campus’ Farm Management and Technology program has already suffered this year with the changes it was forced to impose due to Bill 96, the province’s update to its Charter of the French Language.
The FMT program is a CEGEP-level offering that has seen its numbers drop in the past year because it must now abide by new regulations requiring all students to have certificates of eligibility to attend an English-language institution. Post-secondary students from other provinces do not qualify for an eligibility certificate.
“My numbers are already down,” said Pascal Theriault, head of the FMT program.
“I’m not sure what to think yet,” Theriault said recently in an interview. “There is still a big fog around it,” he added, referring to the uncertainty of what the future holds.
With the number of FMT students dropping and the number of students in the Faculty of Agriculture poised to take a dip due to the tuition hikes, the cost of maintaining the farm becomes more difficult, he said.
The capacity to continue to offer quality programs if the faculty loses a number of students in the undergrad level could be affected, he said, adding the FMT program would not be able to afford to keep the farm operating on its own. “We might lose a critical mass of students.”
Theriault said offering proper training for students in the field of agriculture is expensive, but in the era of growing climate change challenges it is even more crucial.
“If you want to train farmers in new technologies, you need that infrastructure,” he said.
Training agrologists and agricultural engineers is crucial now more than ever, Theriault said. “When I look at climate change, the financial stress, the need to have professionals working with (farmers) to feed Canadians – that is where my concern is,” he added.