Response Monday to the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government decision to pull the plug on a long-planned expansion of Dawson College — an expansion Premier François Legault’s government had initially supported — was swift and angry.
QCGN President Marlene Jennings speaks with CTV’s Maya Johnson about the decision by the Quebec government to shelve an expansion project for Dawson College in favour of “prioritizing francophone students.”
Quebec is putting Dawson College’s expansion plans on hold, despite promising the CEGEP millions for additional classroom space in 2020.
An internal memo sent Sunday by Diane Gauvin, Dawson’s director general, says the infrastructure project was quashed following a meeting with Higher Education Minister Danielle McCann.
“The government has chosen to prioritize, in [McCann]’s words, ‘francophone’ students,'” Gauvin said.
Marlene Jennings, leader of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), said obtaining new facilities is critical to improving Dawson students’ learning environment.
“Dawson, like other English CEGEPs, has an enviable record of welcoming Quebecers of all backgrounds including a large number of students who completed their secondary school education in French,” she said.
Dawson College has “suffered a serious setback” in its expansion plans after a “hastily called” meeting with the province’s higher education minister last week, the Montreal-based institution said in an internal memo.
Diane Gauvin, the director-general of the English-language CEGEP, wrote about the meeting in a letter issued Sunday.
“The government has chosen to prioritize, in her words, ‘francophone’ students,” Gauvin wrote.
The Quebec Community Groups Network said it was “utterly dismayed” by the government’s decision to change course.
The Legault government confirms that it has asked Dawson College to “work on alternative options to its expansion project”, despite the millions promised to the CEGEP for additional classrooms.
The president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), Marlene Jennings, is asking the Legault government to back down, arguing that the Dawson College expansion project is essential
to improving the learning environment for students
.
The Quebec government will not give a penny to expand Dawson College, Prime Minister François Legault said on Tuesday, judging that “it is better to expand the French-speaking colleges before increasing the capacity” of the 8,000 English-language college students.
The president of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), Marlene Jennings, was indignant at the “simply appalling” decision taken by the CAQ government. In her eyes, the team of François Legault leads a “persistent and relentless attack […] against the vitality of the English-speaking community of Quebec.”
The Quebec Community Groups Network is utterly dismayed with the Quebec government’s decision to cancel funding for construction a new pavilion at Dawson College.
The long-planned and long-delayed proposal to build a new facility to house Dawson College’s seven health-care training programs on the college’s campus was quashed on Friday when administrators received an unexpected call from Danielle McCann, minister of Higher Education. She urged Dawson to explore other options, including leasing. McCann also remarked that the government aims to “prioritize the needs of Francophone students.”
“L’ancien ministre de la métropole et responsable de la communauté anglophone sous le gouvernement Marois a appris sa leçon. Maintenant qu’il est le chef des forces souverainistes et qu’il a en main un rapport d’étape Repensez le PQ, Jean-François Lisée se lance à la conquête des communautés culturelles et anglophones du Québec.”
Saying he wants to attract more cultural communities to the Parti Québécois, Jean-François Lisée was visiting Dawson College to make a speech to English-speaking students. He acknowledges the misconnection with those communities since the last referendum and he tries to make amend.
The Quebec Community Groups Network welcomes this political move, but do not think the English-speaking communities it represents will become members in a second.
The Quebec Community Groups Network is working with Vues & Voix, formerly la Magnétothèque, on a series of reports on Quebec’s English-speaking community. The idea behind the weekly conversations with our community is to talk about our preoccupations, our successes, and our challenges. Listen to the thirteenth segment below with Richard Filion, Director General at Dawson College.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
