Roberge blames the school network for closed French language classes

Photo: Valérian Mazataud Archives Le Devoir Pour Jean-François Roberge, il est devenu indispensable de «changer les règles du jeu» dans l’allocation des budgets de francisation en milieu scolaire.

Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge is blaming school service centres (CSS) for their inability to meet the demand for francization. He will soon be introducing “guidelines” to ensure that their classes remain open, while respecting the budgets provided by Quebec.

In an interview for the first time since a series of service cuts in the education network were exposed in the pages of several media outlets, including Le Devoir, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) elected official was keen to point out that “no cuts” had been made to francization this year, quite the contrary.

With figures to back it up, he reiterated that overall francization budgets had increased again this year. Just this fall, he noted, nearly 1,000 new part-time groups were opened by the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI).

In the school system, where 40% of Quebec's francization lessons are given, the budgets are the same this year as last year, Mr. Roberge reiterated: $104 million.

“Neither the Minister of Immigration, nor the Minister of Finance, nor the government have cut funds. “Not at all,” he told Devoir.

Surprised to see that classes were closing in Quebec City, Estrie, Montreal and its suburbs, the minister asked in the last few days for answers.

Result: in the last six months, the CSSs have Frenchified twice as many students as for the whole of the previous year.

“It's as if they had chosen to spend 100% of their budgets in the first half of the year. And then they tell us that they no longer have the necessary funds to continue,” he thundered from behind his desk in the Parliament Building.

“Well, yes! It's certain that if they spend all their funds in the first few months, they won't have any money left for the last few months,” he mocked.

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“Changing the rules of the game”

Baffled by this situation, Minister Roberge assures students who recently saw their classes close that they will “not be abandoned” and can be redirected to other resources. He is waiting for explanations from the affected CSS as soon as possible.

The CAQ elected official also says he is looking for “guarantees that the offer will be rolled out over twelve months.” For him, it has become essential to “change the rules of the game” in the allocation of francization budgets in schools. “We will have to provide much clearer guidelines. I am not ready to sign next year under the same conditions,” he said, specifying in passing that he “has no plans to cut budgets next year.”

Asked about the form that these “guidelines” could take, Mr. Roberge refused to specify his intentions. Could he impose a quota of students per session ? A reduction in hiring ? “I saw the problem and I asked my deputy minister to make me some proposals,” he simply said.

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The minister automatically rules out that all francisation activities should be taken away from the CSS and entrusted to the MIFI or community groups. “I am not in the process of taking money away from the school system,” he reiterated.

Too much demand

In five years, the overall annual budget allocated by the government to francization has increased by more than $120 million in Quebec.

In April, six CAQ ministers announced with great fanfare future investments of $320 million over five years to increase Francisation Québec’s offerings. Then, on Tuesday, Jean-François Roberge stressed on the floor of the fifth Quebec Immigration Summit that he would continue to “defend” these investments to Finance Minister Eric Girard, who will table his seventh budget next spring.

However, the minister is under no illusions. The government can increase budgets; demand, too, continues to grow.

In Quebec, there are more temporary immigrants than ever—around 600,000 at the latest count. At Francisation Québec, “we receive about 350 applications per day.” “It's stratospheric,” Roberge noted on Wednesday.

From June 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, this equates to more than 170,000 requests for francization. For Mr. Roberge, the observation is clear: “no one thinks that we will francize so many people each year.”

According to his office’s data, 55% of people currently in the francization process are temporary workers. At the same time, François Legault’s government has repeatedly stated in recent months its intentions to reduce the proportion of non-permanent residents in Quebec.

For the Minister of Immigration, part of the solution lies there. “What we want to do is maintain and deploy Francisation Québec. But we also want to reduce this demand, which is much too great and which is caused by too great a presence of temporary immigrants on Quebec territory,” he said on Wednesday.

Could the government give priority to permanent immigrants in francization??

No, replies Mr. Roberge, who points out that his government will soon require a minimum knowledge of French for people wanting to renew their work permits. He is instead turning to the measures for distributing asylum seekers, requested from Ottawa for several months, and to his legislative proposal aimed, in the long term, at reducing the number of foreign students in Quebec educational institutions.