Chris Selley on the Quebec government’s vindictive decision to massively hike tuition rates for out-of-province students of the province’s three English-language universities:
“McGill University Montreal 3” by Laslovarga is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 
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McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s universities have begun to budget for the nightmare Quebec Premier François Legault’s government has imposed on the English-language schools by doubling out-of-province tuition fees — a way to keep socially corrosive anglophones out of Montreal, the premier has said in so many words.
In an open letter Thursday, McGill principal and vice-chancellor Deep Saini suggested the policy might lead to a $94-million annual shortfall in revenue, necessitating the layoff of 700 staff and closure of certain programs (notably the Schulich School of Music) and fewer athletics teams. It depends how many international students they can recruit to replace out-of-province Canadians unwilling to splash out $17,000 a year. (Yes, those international students would also speak English. No, Legault’s plan doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.)
Concordia president Graham Carr said much the same in an internal university memo on Tuesday, estimating the Coalition Avenir Québec’s latest attack on English could cost it 10 per cent of its total budget. As for Bishop’s, a small 180-year-old liberal-arts college near Sherbrooke: “I don’t believe that Bishop’s can survive under this policy,” former university principal Michael Goldbloom said bluntly this week.
Premier François Legault says he’s willing to meet with officials from all three universities. So they’ve got that going for them, which is nice. The provincial Liberals, what’s left of them, have spoken out against the tuition grab, as has Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
But opposition to this in Ottawa remains utterly pathetic. “Quebec makes its own decisions, but I don’t necessarily think this is the best one,” is still the best Pablo Rodriguez, the prime minister’s Quebec lieutenant, has managed to muster. Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia, who represents a riding on Montreal’s West Island, is the only MP to have mentioned it in the House of Commons, calling it “an improvised and populist policy that is not justified.”
