Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas has not once, but twice, put forward a private member’s bill to see the creation of a single, stand-alone, French-only university in Ontario.
Apparently Ms. Gélinas isn’t satisfied by the smaller schools like Université de Hearst or University of Sudbury, and is equally displeased with the bilingual options like the University of Ottawa and Greater Sudbury’s sixth largest employer, Laurentian University.
It may seem odd to the taxpayer that France Gélinas wants this new school opened. After all, the pool of university students is shrinking, and even Laurentian, with one of the largest French-language programs in the province, has had to cut some of its French courses in recent years due to declining enrollment. It seems to have been a purely partisan bill to create a talking point for Ms. Gélinas.
Unfortunately for us, the Liberals, in an obvious attempt to buy votes from Francophones down south, have taken Ms. Gélinas’ idea and are running with it. The new Franco-Ontarian university, slated to be built in the heart of downtown Toronto, will take students from Laurentian, and across the northeast, thus compounding the enrollment problem and assuring more program cuts in the future.
As we send our youth down south, we can be assured of two things:
1) they will take the university sector jobs with them;
2) a good chunk of the students who leave will never move back home.
For decades, my Franco-Ontarian compatriots and I have had the mantra “perds pas le nord” (let’s not lose the north), but that’s exactly what is happening. It wont be long now before “notre place” is downtown Toronto, and no longer the north.
Kevin Brault
Nickel Belt