It is something hard-line separatists have talked about for years: limiting or even banning francophone and allophone students from English CEGEPs. Now that controversial idea is rearing its head again among the current Parti Québécois (PQ) leadership candidates.
In the last leadership debate in Quebec City Monday, English post-secondary education got a lot of attention. Debate moderators pointed out that more francophone students are choosing to study at English CEGEPs and universities.
“We have to look at that,” said PQ candidate, Martine Ouellet on debate night.
“I just hope that Quebecers try to get their training in French and get a job in French,” said candidate Alexandre Cloutier.
READ MORE: PQ candidates debate English education in Quebec
But Jean-Francois Lisée went one step further.
“Because of the way the inscriptions are made, anglo kids are not able to further their education,” Lisée said Wednesday.
Anglophone students are more likely to be bilingual and more likely to graduate high school, but still Lisée says he wants to protect them from being denied a seat in an English CEGEP. He said these institutions should cater primarily to English students.
“We know for a fact there are English high school graduates who cannot get into English CEGEPs because they have blind applications and they will take the better students,” Lisée said.
However, Quebec’s biggest CEGEP says that isn’t a fact.
“On what is he basing this information? Does he have an inside track? Does he understand who is coming out of anglophone and francophone high schools?” Donna Varrica, with Dawson College in Montreal, said.
Varrica said admitting anglophones first would limit the freedom of all students: “The number one reason they stay at an English language college is to perfect their language skills so that when they graduate, they can compete on the world’s stage which is where the world is going now,” she said.
READ MORE: Parti Quebecois candidates debate the English language
The opposition CAQ agrees students should be able to study wherever they want.
“It’s good for everybody if they choose to go to CEGEP or university in English to be more bilingual,” CAQ leader, Francois Legault, said.
The press secretary for Quebec’s higher education minister told Global News there is no evidence that anglo students are being squeezed out of English CEGEPs because of the admission process.