Only a week after he bad-mouthed the sovereignty movement and ignited a fierce debate about the future of the Parti Québécois, Lucien Bouchard is in the news again. The formerly reclusive ex-premier garnered a fresh round of headlines as a spokesperson for a group of high-profile former-politicians and members of the business and university sectors calling on the provincial government to lift the cap on Quebec university tuition fees.
At a news conference in Montreal on Feb. 23, Mr. Bouchard said, “Quebec universities are hurting. The condition is not incurable, but it is chronic.” In addition to the removal of the cap on tuition fees, the group's Pact for the Competitive Funding of Universities calls for, among other things, the implementation of a student-loan repayment system that is proportional to graduates' income.
Members of Action démocratique du Québec praised the group's recommendations, while the PQ's education critic, Marie Malavoy, declared that “putting in place a plan like this would do more harm than good.” The debate raged on in the Quebec opinion pages with some commentators condemning the group's recommendations and others welcoming them as a much-needed catalyst for a public debate on university funding in the province.
Several professors and students were quick to oppose the idea of higher tuition. Le Soleil published a letter from the president of Quebec's Federation of Teachers, Jean Trudelle, who are argued that a dramatic rise in tuition fees would destroy the “culture of universal accessibility” and create “significant segregation” in the education system. In a letter published in Le Devoir, a collective of former student activists echoed Mr. Trudelle's concerns about the effect of a tuition hike on accessibility to higher education. The collective was particularly critical of the Bouchard-led group's suggestion that tuition fees and loan programs should be more reflective of graduates' potential earnings. “Standardized fees across different programs favour more social mobility and help guarantee that access to high paying jobs is based on talent,” the authors argued.
In her column for Le Devoir, former PQ minister Lise Payette accused Mr. Bouchard and his colleagues of advocating a step backward. “They seem to have lost sight of the fact that we wanted, as a society … to make university studies accessible to even the poorest members of society,” Ms. Payette wrote, “and now that the door to knowledge is finally open, they are asking us to close it again.”
Not everyone in the Quebec press viewed Mr. Bouchard's suggestions as a step backward. La Presse's Yves Boisvert acknowledged there was “a certain irony in seeing these ex-politicians pleading for a hike in tuition fees that they were not able to accomplish during their political life,” but then went on to argue that Mr. Bouchard's proposal was “sensible and moderate.” Mr. Boisvert contended that hikes in fees could result in more, not less, fairness in the education system. He admitted that higher fees for professional programs could have “a negative impact” on some students, but praised the pact's suggestion that those graduates who eventually make more money should pay more for their schooling.
Le Soleil editorialist, Brigitte Breton, was cautiously optimistic in her assessment of Mr. Bouchard's proposal to raise fees, calling it “a good basis for starting a discussion on how to finance higher education in Quebec.” Ms. Breton hoped that the ideas brought forward by Mr. Bouchard and his colleagues might help the Liberal government “prepare the ground and the spirit” for a new debate on the future of university funding. But Ms. Breton warned against adopting a “carbon-copy” of Mr. Bouchard's pact. She was particularly concerned by the lack of any specifics about the future of government funding for students (as opposed to for universities) and by its silence on the issue of private funding for universities. Ms. Breton warned that if the government did not proceed very carefully in its efforts to reform the system, Quebec could risk ending up with “universities for the rich and others for the poor.”
As the province with the lowest tuition fees in the country, the debate over fee freezes is not new to Quebec. And while some commentators debated the merits of a potential tuition hike, others spent the week wondering why Lucien Bouchard (along with several other former politicians) had decided to thrust himself back into the spotlight. La Presse's Alain Dubuc explained that what really got his attention was “not the message, but the messengers.” He was one of several commentators who suggested that the tendency of politicians to be more outspoken after they've retired is an indication of the restraints on Quebec's elected leaders when they are in office. “[These former politicians] have regained their freedom of thought and speech,” Mr. Dubuc wrote, “because when they were active in politics, they had their hands tied.”
Cartoon of the week
La Presse's Serge Chapleau pokes fun at Lucien Bouchard's sudden urge to pontificate in an editorial cartoon with the heading “After coming out against the PQ, Lucien Bouchard calls for an end to the tuition fee freeze.” The image shows Mr. Bouchard holding a clipboard with a speech-bubble that reads: “And don't miss next week: my report on the Olympics games, my position on daycare fees and my opinion on global warming!”
