Limiting admission to English CEGEPS through regulation while purportedly allowing full legal access is no different than voter suppression in America where minorities, particularly blacks are subject to regulations that hinder them from participation.
In the simplest of terms, it is like begrudgingly allowing Blacks to attend historically all-white schools, but limiting enrolment size and giving priority to white students.
Premier Legault proposes the exact same thing, which is allowing francophones to legally attend English CEGEP but limiting enrolment and giving priority to English students. It's called (or should be) 'Educational choice suppression'
That gentle reader is the very definition of a "Jim Crow" law.
Most francophones reluctantly agree that their children entering primary school should be streamed into the French side. While not all agree, educating primary and secondary students in French in the formative years is largely accepted as a way to protect the French language and culture on the majority.
But that support collapses when the children grow up and are ready for CEGEP (Quebec's version of grade 12 and 13 or junior college, so to speak,)
Here parents and voters harshly disagree and view it as a freedom of choice issue that discriminates against young francophone adults, rendering them second-class citizens because Anglos are the only citizens with full language options.
I haven't seen the polling results because none is made available, but believe me when I say that every government has polled on the issue and has been frightened by a result that indicates that imposing Bill 101 language rules on CEGEP would be wildly unpopular and cost them dearly in electorial support.
It's a situation, that the public won't abide by and despite good intentions (saving the French language), discrimination is discrimination.
And so because imposing Bill 101 to CEGEP is a no-go, as separatist government after government has confirmed (despite calls to action by militant nationalist and language fanatics,) regulation is the workaround answer in the hope that the public will be hoodwinked into believing that choice has been maintained when it decidedly has not.
As Alabama Blacks in the last century found out, while they had the official right to vote, precious few actually could.
Jim Crow is alive and well in Quebec.
I cannot underscore the pure hate, jealousy and opportunism that drove this gutless and nefariously cruel decision because its real effect will also be devastating on anglophone students applying to English language CEGEPS.
It's hard to believe the Premier when he says that he will give priority to English students for enrolment in English CEGEPS. Will schools actually enforce an entrance quota system? It's already notoriously difficult to score a place even with stellar grades. I can't imagine things could improve unless the government puts down a quota system that guarantees English students priority.
Jim Crow sounding more like the case now?
And limiting the availability of enrolment to English CEGEP will drive demand among francophones because there is nothing so desired as the forbidden fruit.
Will it be that an excellent English student with a 75% grade average will be accepted before a phenomenal francophone candidate with a 95% average?
Now the government has crowed that its cap of English places in CEGEP is 17% of all admissions, a generous percentage given that
native anglos make up about 8% of the population.
But Anglos
have historically a much higher rate of attendance in college and university compared to francophones, up to 50% more.
If Anglos are given priority as the Premier promised then it leaves precious few places that francophones have available in English CEGEP.
And by the way, the 33,000 students enrolled in the five English public CEGEPS make up about 20% of the Quebec CEGEP population. The 17% cap means that the government is planning to cut that number by 15% or about 2,500 students.
Right now, of the 33,000 students in English CEGEP, about 8,000 are French-speaking, not an astronomical number compared to the 130,000 francophone students attending French CEGEP.
But 8,000 is too much for a government concerned with appearances and cutting that number seems a priority that makes a mountain out of a molehill.
For francophones, getting into an English CEGEP will simply be a case of la creme de la creme.
It reminds me of an old saying among francophone Quebecers;
"He was so sick he had to go to a Jewish doctor!"
The new saying may well be;
"She was such a brilliant student, she got into an English CEGEP,"
I mostly supported Legault and the CAQ believing that it was a better alternative to the PQ, seeing that the Liberals had corrupted their way out of public favour, but while the PQ was and is honest of its intentions, making the public wary, the CAQ is stealthily doing what the PQ could not.
But Legault's tone has been decidedly confrontational with the Premier going out of his way to remind us that he is the Premier of francophones first and foremost. He isn't even shy about it.
He did well to hide his animosity towards Anglos and Canada in his run-up to the election but perhaps there were not so subtle hints that I should have picked up on.
In the election campaign event, his wife made some disparaging comments about Anglophone culture and perpetrated the nonsense of the superiority of Quebec culture.
"On the tape, Brais also praised Quebec as a jewel in North America, with a European-style culture distinct from the rest of Canada.
We are different, we are not coming from Saskatchewan .... Have you been to Saskatchewan? It's almost the United States,'' Brais said.
She also denounced Ontarians as people who only watch American TV."
I excused Legault for defending his wife's independence and right to an opinion out of marital fidelity but now conclude that it's a family position. Madame Legault apologized for her insult but not for her beliefs.
At any rate, the entire language issue is rooted on the language militant side as being a problem caused by the English, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the majority of francophones only care about protecting their language if someone else is to be shamed, blamed.
For me, I'm actually astonished that so few francophones opt for English CEGEP with only about 6% of francophone students choosing an English CEGEP.
While the rest of the world tries desperately to learn English, not to abandon their native language, but to enhance their professional prospects and personal fulfillment, Quebec pedals the fiction that having a second language is dangerous.
It is incredible that North Korea does a better job of teaching English to students than Quebec, with most North Korean high schoolers able to carry on a decent conversation in English. Not so in Quebec, where teaching English is seen as taking a bite out of the forbidden fruit.
How sad.
As for the argument that attending an English CEGEP leads to assimilation because it is a time where young adults choose a mate, it is a fact that in two out of three English/French marriages or partnerships, the resulting children are sent to French schools.
Legault continues to pedal a false language narrative that has the effect of casting blame on the English community for the lack of effort in Quebec's francophone community to safeguard its own language.
Taking a page out of the propagandist playbook, repeating this big lie over and over again has given it a legitimacy that it does not deserve.
