Quebec judge invalidates tuition hike, French requirements for out-of-province university students

A recent ruling by a Quebec Superior Court judge has overturned a tuition hike for out-of-province Canadian university students in Quebec, as well as the French language requirements that were imposed on them. The judge, Éric Dufour, awarded McGill and Concordia universities a partial victory in his 82-page decision.

The changes made by the Higher Education Ministry to raise tuition fees for out-of-province students by 33 per cent and require 80 per cent of them to learn French by graduation were invalidated by Judge Dufour. He stated that the ministry lacked data to support their claims that these students were not integrating into Quebec society.

Dufour also deemed the requirement for out-of-province undergraduate students at English-language universities to reach an intermediate level of proficiency in French by graduation as unreasonable and near-impossible to achieve. He gave the ministry a nine-month timeline to revise the fee structure, with the current rules standing in the meantime. The language requirements were immediately invalidated.

While the international student fee increases remained unchanged, Dufour acknowledged the government’s reasoning for wanting to rebalance funding between English and French universities. The Higher Education Ministry aims to redistribute money to Quebec’s French universities by charging higher tuition fees to international students who tend to enroll in English universities.

Initially doubling tuition fees for out-of-province students, Quebec later reduced the increase to 33 per cent but added the French language requirement. This raised tuition fees for out-of-province Canadian students from about $9,000 to $12,000. Premier François Legault justified the measures by stating that the presence of English-speaking students threatened the future of French in Quebec.

The heads of Quebec’s English universities criticized the tuition hikes, citing a drop in enrollment and budget constraints. McGill and Concordia expressed concerns over the unrealistic nature of the language requirements imposed by the ministry.

In response to the ruling, McGill University’s president, Deep Saini, expressed a willingness to work with the Quebec government to comply with the court’s decision. Concordia University’s president, Graham Carr, emphasized the need for universities and the government to reset and collaborate on a way forward.

Both McGill and Concordia had filed a lawsuit against the ministry in 2024 to contest the tuition changes. It remains to be seen if the ministry will challenge Judge Dufour’s ruling, as Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry’s office has yet to issue further comments on the matter.