Quebec won't rule out appeal after court overturns out-of-province tuition hike
Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry has not ruled out appealing the Quebec Superior Court's decision invalidating a tuition fee increase for students from other Canadian provinces.
'We are currently evaluating all options. There is still a 30-day appeal period for both parties,' Déry said at a press briefing Tuesday at the National Assembly.
Last week's decision is a partial victory for Montreal's two English-language universities, McGill and Concordia. They have previously said that recent changes made by the Quebec government have led to a decline in enrolment.
Justice Éric Dufour stated that the government's 2023 decision to increase tuition fees for out-of-province students by $3,000 (a hike of 33 per cent) was 'unreasonable' and 'not justified by existing and convincing data.'
'We must ask ourselves the question: should Quebec taxpayers be paying a high price for the education of Canadian students outside Quebec?' Déry said Tuesday.
The ruling gives the provincial government nine months to comply.
The decision also overturns a new requirement that 80 per cent of undergraduate students from outside Quebec enrolled in English-language universities must achieve an intermediate level of proficiency in French by the time they graduate. This rule was scheduled to come into effect this fall.
'The judge still agrees with us, especially on French. We're told that it's the minister's responsibility to protect the French language. So, that objective will be maintained. For me, it's very important that the students we integrate into Quebec be able to master French,' Déry said.
Dufour, however, upheld the Quebec government's decision to set minimum tuition fees for international students at approximately $20,000 and to recover a large portion of the funds from English-speaking institutions to redistribute to French-speaking universities.
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