English CEGEPs ask Quebec government to expand Bill 96 exemptions for Indigenous students

The directors of five English CEGEPs say exemptions to Bill 96 made by the Quebec government for Indigenous students are insufficient, inaccessible and that the law is causing students to leave the province for their higher education. 

In an open letter penned to Premier François Legault on Wednesday, the directors said the adoption of Bill 96, now Law 14, is making it more difficult for Indigenous students to learn their ancestral languages. 

The law overhauling the Charter of the French Language will soon require students at English CEGEPs to take three core courses in French or to take a total of five second-language French courses instead of the current two. 

Those provisions, the directors wrote, "are creating multiple systemic and discriminatory barriers" to the roughly 300 Indigenous students studying at their schools.

"We therefore urge the Government of Quebec to consider the gravity of the situation and to commit posthaste to a constructive dialogue with Indigenous communities," they said.

Indigenous students and leaders have for two years decried the additional barriers they say the law's higher-education requirements would create for students already facing hardships, including having to study far from home and often in their second language, English. 

Last spring, after two First Nations groups requested a judicial review of a number of the law's articles, the government committed to exempting some Indigenous students from taking the French exit exam. 

The exemption is not enshrined in the law and could therefore be repealed at any time. To be eligible, Indigenous students must meet a list of requirements and fill in a six-page form many have called invasive and a callback to colonial times. 

To qualify, students — in addition to having a status card and be studying at an English CEGEP — must live or have lived on a reserve and have studied English or an Indigenous language for at least one year of elementary or high school. 

"More than two years after the passing of Bill 96, the measures taken by the Ministry of Higher Education remain insufficient," the directors said in the letter.

Tiawenti:non Canadian, the co-ordinator of the First Peoples' Centre at Dawson College, said the open letter is a result of advocacy by students who were not feeling heard. 

"I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that students who are Indigenous, who have status, are being denied this exemption to learn in the language of their choice. It does not sit well with me that you're potentially creating two groups of Indigenous students," Canadian said in an interview Tuesday ahead of the letter's publication. 

Canadian said she already knows of at least 10 Indigenous students who chose to study in Ontario or the United States in recent years to avoid mandatory French courses. 

"In that case, those students leave their parents' homes early. They're expected to be more independent. And it's a difficult transition, especially in their late teens," she said.