Francisation | Quebec injects money to reopen classes

The discontent caused by the closure of hundreds of francization classes will have got the better of the Legault government, which will announce on Monday that it is investing 10 million in order to reopen half of them.

“Thanks to this reinvestment, 5,000 more people will be able to take francization courses by March 31,” wrote the Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, on X, re-sharing an article from - who reported the news.

The minister justified these cuts by poor management by school service centers of their budgets dedicated to francization.

The number of students thus deprived of lessons now stood at 11,171 according to a review by the Collectif francisation reported on Wednesday by Duty, and continues to grow. The subject regularly made the headlines this fall and came up numerous times in the National Assembly.

The amounts that will be announced Thursday by Quebec do not constitute new money. It is rather the savings made by abandoning the allowance granted to students who took part-time francization courses.

The regions most likely to experience service breakdowns and those where there is no service point from the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) will be prioritized.

“After months of denying the problem, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is finally hearing reason […] ! This is excellent news! », rejoiced the member of Québec solidaire Guillaume Cliche-Rivard.

“A step in the right direction for the regions most affected by cuts in francization. Hoping to recover the expertise of our teams in the process of being dismantled,” reacted the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ), several members of which lost their positions.

The Commissioner criticizes Quebec

This announcement comes as the French watchdog broke its silence on Wednesday by saying it was “concerned” about the short-term repercussions of the breakdown of francization services in several regions of Quebec.

The French language commissioner, Benoît Dubreuil, had stayed away from this controversy until now. At the end of October, during the presentation of one of his reports, he explained this decision by the fact that he had received a request from a parliamentary group to investigate the matter and therefore had his hands tied.

The government comes out of this review damaged, the results of which are published on Wednesday. The commissioner urges the government to “quickly replace students whose classes have ended suddenly”.

Given the closure of francization classes in certain regions where only school service centers offered this service, Quebec’s capacity to offer francization courses in all regions could be compromised, underlines Benoît Dubreuil.

Indeed, the closure of these classes is due to “budgetary and administrative constraints” which limits the capacity of the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) “to react quickly and open groups”, Judge Benoît Dubreuil.

However, “MIFI officials explained to us the efforts they were making to quickly replace students whose classes had been canceled [et] despite these efforts, we note that several students remain waiting for a new place in francization,” underlines the commissioner.

A follow-up will be made

He therefore intends to “follow up” on his recommendations to the ministry and will report on the progress he observes in the file.

Furthermore, the commissioner emphasizes that the closure of francization classes results from an imbalance between “the supply of francization services and the demand for these services” while the number of permanent and temporary immigrants has exploded in recent years in Quebec.

The next consultations carried out by the government to establish future immigration thresholds “should be an opportunity to reflect on how to sustainably re-establish the balance between the number of people who wish to take French courses and the capacity to FQ to respond to their request,” he wrote.