National Identity and Myths of the Other in Quebec’s Tuition Discourse

• In Event: Welfare State Politics in Canada

Abstract

In October 2023, the Quebec government announced major changes to its postsecondary tuition fee structure, notably including the doubling of Canadian out-of-province tuition fees from roughly $9,000 CAD per year to roughly $17,000 CAD per year. To justify the proposed reform, the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government articulated its aims of redirecting funds towards French-language universities, protecting the French language, and saving on costs associated with subsidizing the education of out-of-province students who tend to leave Quebec after graduation. The government further framed the proposed 100 percent increase in out-of-province tuition rates as appropriate and warranted, specifically stating that even after the increase, out-of-province students would typically be paying less to study in Quebec than they would in their home province (TVA Nouvelles 2023). This provided a theoretical justification for the reform, in that Quebec would seemingly remain a welcoming and accommodating destination for Canadian students. It also provided an economic justification for the reform because out-of-province students would conceivably remain attracted to Quebec as a postsecondary destination, while paying higher fees, which could then be invested in the broader university network. However, this stated rationale was demonstrably untrue, as the vast majority of out-of-province students would pay much less for tuition in their home provinces, with an average tuition cost of $6,834 in 2022-2023 (Statistics Canada 2023). Accordingly, this paper asks, how did false claims about tuition levels throughout Canada permeate the provincial political discourse around Quebec's 2023 tuition reform, and why were these falsehoods widely accepted? This is particularly puzzling as English Canadian misperceptions about Quebec more commonly inform political discourse in Canada (e.g. McRoberts 2018; Vessey 2016). To answer this question, we conduct a discourse analysis of francophone news media sources published in the aftermath of the government’s tuition announcement. We highlight how education and perceptions of it are materially and ideologically embedded in Quebec’s national project. The paper identifies a tension between Quebec's self-image as educationally accessible, the perceived downside of that accessibility insofar as it threatens the French language, and the misperception of sociopolitical conditions relative to the rest of Canada. We argue this is simultaneously a product of social democratic nationalism and a consequence of a post-neoliberal nationalism advanced by the CAQ.

References

McRoberts, Kenneth. 2018. Misconceiving Canada, 2nd edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Statistics Canada. 2023. “Droits de scolarité des programmes menant à un grade, 2022-2023.” https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220907/dq220907b-fra.htm

TVA Nouvelles. 2023, October 13. “Universités anglophones: hausse importante des frais de scolarité pour les étudiants canadiens.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2gt0VgzqjA&ab_channel=TVANouvelles

Vessey, Rachelle. 2016. Language ideologies in social media: The case of Pastagate. Journal of language and politics 15(1): 1-24.

Authors

• Jacob Robbins-Kanter, Bishop's University

• Daniel Troup, University of Maine