English CEGEPs’ struggle to apply Bill 96 shows law was necessary, Roberge says

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QUEBEC — The struggles of the anglophone CEGEP system to apply Bill 96 to their operations reveal the changes to Quebec’s language laws were necessary and matter, Quebec’s Minister Responsible for French said Thursday.

If anything, it reveals that some English school boards need to work harder to improve the quality of French of their elementary and high school graduates, Jean-François Roberge said.

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Two weeks after saying the Coalition Avenir Québec government went further than any other government in protecting French in CEGEPs without officially applying the rules of the French Language Charter, Roberge said the struggles are worth it.

“It’s hard but it’s important,” Roberge told reporters arriving for question period at the legislature. “Some people said you should apply Bill 101 to CEGEPs. In fact we did, in a different way, but we did.

“I understand that for some CEGEPs, like Dawson, it’s difficult. If it’s difficult it’s because it’s important, it’s because they have to change. It’s not normal to go to a CEGEP here in Quebec and not to be able to learn French and succeed in a French test.

He specified “some” English boards have not been doing enough to teach French, feeding students upwards in the education system who were not well enough equipped.

“I won’t say all English school boards don’t do the job,” he said. “It’s not true. But some students are going to anglophone CEGEPs and it seems, and we shall see with time, that they are not able to succeed in learning French.”

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Roberge was reacting to a Journal de Montréal report detailing the difficulties of Dawson College to apply the new Bill 96 requirements. The article says students have a higher risk of failure, some teachers have had to beef up their French and there are legal problems applying the new law to Indigenous community students.

Roberge opened his remarks blasting federal Liberal MP Francis Drouin, who Wednesday challenged two witnesses advocating for the protection of French in Quebec during an appearance before a House of Commons committee.

Drouin said the witnesses were “full of s–t,” for suggesting that attending an anglophone university or CEGEP in Quebec significantly increased the probability of living one’s life in English.

“He should apologize,” Roberge said. “He went too far. It’s insulting that a member of the federal government insults experts who revealed some facts.”

Roberge then added Bill 96 reforms were necessary to deal with the very facts the experts mentioned in Ottawa.

“Bill 101 is being applied to CEGEPs at this moment,” Roberge said. “Look what’s happening at Dawson. Dawson College is saying applying Bill 96 is very demanding, that it forces them to increase training of teachers, it forces them to adjust their courses.

“I think they are obliged to take steps to ensure people learn French. And if, in anglophone CEGEPs, they fear failures, it shows all the work that has to be done by the anglophone school boards and moving upstream to the anglophone CEGEPs.”

pauthier@postmedia.com

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