Statement and position on Bill 96
Today, the CAQ government tabled a bill that would severely restrict access to English CEGEPs by aggressively limiting the number of students accepted.
Bill 96 is an attack on education, on the rights of English- and French-speaking students to choose their language of instruction, and on the English-speaking community as a whole.
There's nothing wrong with French-speaking students improving their second-language skills by pursuing post-secondary education in English. The CAQ wants to limit opportunities for francophones to become fluent in a second language. We should be encouraging second and third language learning, not discouraging it. Attacking people's rights and imposing important life decisions on them is not the way to protect French in Quebec.
The Green Party of Quebec strongly opposes any effort to limit the rights of Quebec students to choose their CEGEP and language of instruction.
Unlike the Legault government, we believe that bilingualism is an asset, not a problem. That's why the GPQ is proposing to radically increase access to second-language instruction by requiring that all primary and secondary students receive 25 % of their instruction in a second language. In this way, young Quebecers will be well prepared for the modern job market and will be able to communicate freely in an increasingly globalized environment.
Alex Tyrrell
Leader of the Green Party of Quebec
