English private schools in Quebec skirt language laws and shun government funding to boost enrolment

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English private schools have long been the nursery of Quebec’s anglophone elite. The families who ran Canada sent their children to storied institutions with grand names – sons to Selwyn House or Lower Canada College, daughters to The Study or Miss Edgar’s and Miss Cramp’s.

But that elite isn’t what it used to be. As outmigration to the rest of the country has depleted its ranks, the community’s most prestigious schools – many of them concentrated in the wealthy Montreal enclave of Westmount – have faced a recruiting crunch.

That has left them eager to enroll students from groups their founders neglected and the government forbade them: francophones and immigrants.

To do so, a growing number of English private schools have used a loophole in the province’s language laws. They’re quietly forgoing their state subsidies to place themselves beyond the reach of Quebec’s French-language Charter, thereby allowing anyone to attend – anyone with the money, that is.

The Study (Eugenie Bouchard, Phyllis Lambert) took the leap in 2016. Selwyn House (the Molsons and Bronfmans) gave up its grant in 2021. Lower Canada College (Bernard Shapiro, Tiff Macklem) will follow suit in 2024. Others are considering joining the pack.

The schools argue that the move will make their hallowed halls more diverse and ensure their survival, while critics – including the Minister of Education – accuse them of undermining the French language, making themselves even more exclusive, or both.

Either way, the manoeuvre offers a window into the tensions of a province where both main linguistic groups often feel besieged and schooling can be a demographic battleground.

Brent Tyler, a retired constitutional lawyer who has taken the provincial government to the Supreme Court over language laws in education, acknowledged that the private-school trend is “the nationalists’ worst nightmare.”

“A francophone can just go if they want to? They don’t have to jump through any hoops?” he said. “It completely goes against this idea that English education is exceptional.”

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That idea is enshrined in what could be called the founding document of modern Quebec: the Charte de la langue française, commonly known as Bill 101. Passed in 1977 by the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, it required that francophones and the children of immigrants attend French schools. With a few exceptions.

The scramble for English eligibility certificates was on. If you hadn’t been educated in English in Canada, there were a few ways to qualify. One was to send your kid to Grade 1 at a private “bridging school” where Bill 101 didn’t apply because the institution took no government money.

“They were literally certificate factories,” said Mr. Tyler.

The chess match between parents and the government only grew more complicated from there. When the Supreme Court ruled that a Quebec crackdown on bridging schools was unconstitutional in 2009, the government created an elaborate points system in its place.

Using a calculus that Selwyn House headmaster Michael Downey calls “messed up,” children now have to accumulate 15 points to earn their certificate, based on factors that include their siblings’ language of instruction and the grade awarded to their unsubsidized school, ranging from A to C depending in part on their share of eligible students.

As a result of these ratings – and because many English private schools only take government grants from Grade 7 up – a growing number of francophone and international students have been forced to leave the system before high school, further diminishing an already-dwindling pool of recruits.

“Every year, we would have eight to 10 to 12 Grade 6 students who could not stay for Grade 7,” said Mr. Downey. “That number has been going up.”

Selwyn House surveyed a landscape of diminishing applications, rival schools closing and the gradual shrinking of its bread-and-butter population. In 2021, it officially gave up its roughly $5,000-per-student annual subsidy, and left the language laws behind.

The move has required tuition hikes, although Mr. Downey said they haven’t exceeded 5 per cent in any year. The cost for Grade 7 is now listed at almost $30,000. But sure enough, more native French speakers have jumped at the chance to send their kids to Montreal’s most prestigious English school, now that it is unshackled from linguistic eligibility rules.

“Since we’ve gone private, our applications have gone through the roof, and a big contingent out of the francophone sector, which is nice,” said Mr. Downey.

The government of Quebec, however, does not think it is nice. Premier François Legault has emphasized the protection of French during his time in office. By passing Bill 96 last year, he toughened restrictions on the use of English in medium-sized businesses and government services while tightening access to English schools for temporary residents.

When asked about the trend of private schools opting out of Quebec’s language laws, a spokesperson for Education Minister Bernard Drainville replied: “We obviously deplore the decision by certain private anglophone schools to subscribe to this way of doing things.”

The minister’s office declined to say whether the government would consider legislation to block the moves.

Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of research and evaluation at the Office québécois de la langue française – the body that enforces the province’s language laws – said she was disappointed at how many francophones and allophones were eager to expensively educate their children in English, when so many Quebeckers pick it up effortlessly anyway.

“It’s unfair because not everyone can do it,” she said. “And it’s unfortunate that that’s the attitude they have to the French language.”

In written statements, some schools defended their decision, arguing that it would make them more multicultural and emphasizing the intensive instruction in French their students receive.

“Our belief is that our student body should reflect the diversity of languages and cultures that make our modern Québec society rich, interesting and attractive,” wrote Kim McInnes, The Study’s Head of School.

Other schools went to considerable lengths to avoid discussing the issue. Lower Canada College declined repeated interview requests. And the Quebec Association of Independent Schools, after months of discussions with a spokesperson about the possibility of receiving a formal comment from the umbrella organization, declined to provide one.

Ross Murray, director of communications for Stanstead College, said he was not surprised by the media-shyness of his fellow English private schools.

“Any time you’re dealing with language issues, there’s a feeling that it’s best to keep your head down,” he said.

But Stanstead shows the advantages of unplugging from government funding and its legal entanglements, Mr. Murray believes. The school, located in the traditionally anglophone Eastern Townships (and alma mater of Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary), decided to renounce subsidies decades ago in 1977.

Today, it is less anglophone than ever. After a recruitment blitz in Asia, about three-quarters of its student body would be ineligible for English school in Quebec. Ironically, the difficulty now is ensuring they enroll enough students with English as a mother tongue, said Mr. Murray.

Meanwhile, international tuition and fees at Stanstead College – which takes boarders, unlike the Montreal day schools – has climbed to a cool $79,770.