By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
About 100 students and teachers took part in a protest in front of the Centre régional intégré de formation (CRIF) adult education centre in Granby on Oct. 25, calling on the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government to fund more subsidized French classes for adult learners, known as francisation.
Several school boards and service centres which offer the free classes, including the Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB), the Centre des services scolaire (CSS) de Val-des-Cerfs and the CSS de la Région-de-Sherbrooke, have announced drastic cuts to francisation programs in recent weeks due to a funding shortfall.
The classes are funded by the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) through the Ministry of Education and Higher Learning (MEES). As officials from the two service centres previously told the BCN (see article in Oct. 22 edition), funding for the 2024-25 school year was allocated based on student numbers from the pandemic years of 2020-21 and 2021-22, when enrolment was much lower. Boards and service centres opened classes this fall based on current demand, believing either that there was a mistake in budget projections or that the government would provide additional funding to make up the difference. The government has shown no indication that it will provide additional funding, and the ETSB and CSSVDC have announced plans to close their entire francisation programs in November; the Sherbrooke CSS intends to close 23 of its 28 classes.
The Granby protest was organized by the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE), the teachers’ union of which the Syndicat de l’enseignement de la Haute-Yamaska (SEHY), which represents CSSVDC teachers, is a member. Across the FAE’s 12 member unions, 85 teachers will lose their jobs if new funding doesn’t arrive, according to Annie-Christine Tardif, vice president of professional life at the FAE. Teachers on short-term contracts will pick up work as substitutes, and those with permanent contracts will be shifted to fill other positions.
“There was a lot of confusion from the beginning – service centres usually have room to maneuver, but this time they were told they could not reallocate money set aside for other purposes [to francisation], and they were told they could only teach a set number of people,” Tardif said.
Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration Jean-François Roberge has argued that funding for French-language training has not been cut. However, Tardif argued that while that is technically true, current funding doesn’t take into account increases in teacher salaries and enrolment over the past several years.
SEHY president Sophie Veilleux attended the protest. “What kept coming up was [students’] desire to learn French and integrate in society,” she said. “If we ask [newcomers] to learn French, we need to give them the opportunity.”
On Oct. 18, Esteban Payares, a recently arrived immigrant who started learning French in Sherbrooke about a year ago, launched a petition to stop francisation class closures. It had received over 1,000 signatures as of this writing.
Liberals call for investigation
Over the weekend, Liberal immigration critic André A. Morin and French language affairs critic Madwa-Nika Cadet called on Quebec’s newly appointed Commissioner of the French Language, Benoit Pelletier, to launch a formal investigation into the CAQ’s “mismanagement” of francisation, “so that the right to learn French, included in the Charter of the French Language, is respected.”
“Instead of promoting, enhancing and protecting French, which is what the Minister of the French Language should do by virtue of his mission, the CAQ is completely preventing people from integrating into Quebec society and strengthening the use of our language,” Cadet said in a statement.
The BCN reached out to the MEES and MIFI for comment. MIFI spokesperson Emmanuelle Allaire said the immigration ministry “does not intervene in the determination of [MEES] budgetary rules, or the allocation of resources.” The MEES had not responded to a list of questions by press time.