Get it done. That was the message from several area politicians and community members who spoke at a June 2 press conference about the provincial approval process for a French-language university at the University of Sudbury.
It has been more than two years since the University of Sudbury announced its plans to become an autonomous French-language university under the principle of governance “by and for” the Francophone community.
Université de Sudbury, as it has now rebranded itself, is one of three now formerly federated universities operating on Laurentian University’s campus.
It made the decision to transform its operations to serve the Francophone community in the weeks before Laurentian University announced it was terminating the federation agreement going back to LU’s founding 60 years before.
However, two years later, the French-language university project has yet to get off the ground.
A press conference was held by a number of politicians and community members June 2 to demand the province take action to make the Université de Sudbury project a reality.
Among those who spoke at the press conference were NDP MPPs France Gélinas and Guy Bourgouin, Joanne Gervais, executive director of the Association canadienne-française de l’Ontario du grand Sudbury (ACFO) and Denis Constantineau, spokesperson for the Northern Ontario Coalition for a French-Language University.
Constantineau sent a June 2 open letter to Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop about the issue.
“At the rate things are going, there won't be any programming offered by an institution by, for and with Francophones until September 2025!” said Constantineau, in his letter. “This is unacceptable. Our young people are paying the price, as is our regional economy.”
“We're bleeding youth, students are going elsewhere to study programs that used to exist here in Sudbury, or even worse, they're studying in English,” Constantineau stated during the press conference.
“So it's a real drain on our community. It's an economic drain on the community as well. We can't understand why there's this hesitation in the time that they've been waiting to do something with a French-language university in northeastern Ontario, they've given autonomy to the University of Hearst, they've created the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) University, both wonderful initiatives. Those went ahead. And yet for the Université de Sudbury, it seems to be stalled, and we can’t understand why.”
The coalition is demanding that “all French-language university education in the region be managed by an institution governed by, for and with the Francophone community, in this case the Université de Sudbury.”
This would mean that Laurentian University must no longer offer French-language programs and must transfer all its existing French-language programming to the Université de Sudbury, the letter said.
As well, the coalition demands that “the Université de Sudbury must have access to a budget that will allow it to manage these programs and create new ones to better meet the expectations of Northeastern Ontario’s Francophone community.”
Constantineau also referred in his letter to a blue-ribbon panel set up by the province in March to provide advice and recommendations to the Minister of Colleges and Universities on the post-secondary sector.
He said a similar body should have been created dedicated solely to French-language post-secondary education.
Serge Miville, president of the Université de Sudbury, told Sudbury.com earlier this spring that the university has prepared its application to the Ontario Post-secondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB) for an organizational assessment.
The PEQAB application was submitted to the province in January, and now they’re waiting for the province’s response, he said.
Through this apolitical process, experts will be “evaluating the University of Sudbury’s capacities as an institution,” Miville said in 2022.
When Sudbury.com reached out to Miville for an update June 2, we received an out-of-office email message.
We also reached out to Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop’s office, and received this written statement.
“Earlier this year, the University of Sudbury submitted a detailed business plan requesting funding to support its operations as a standalone university, which includes the proposed development and offering of undergraduate programs in French,” said the statement.
“The proposal is currently under review for consideration. The ministry will also consider input from the blue-ribbon panel, who will provide advice and recommendations to help keep the post-secondary education sector financially strong and focused on providing the best student experience possible.
Our government will continue to work with all of our Francophone education institutes to help deliver high quality post-secondary education for northern and francophone communities."
Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas said during the press conference that Minister Dunlop has been briefed and there have been recent meetings on the issue, but no money has flowed.
“MPP Bourgouin (Mushkegowuk—James Bay) and I went to the Minister of Colleges and Universities multiple times,” she said. “Jill Dunlop is a very nice person. She tried really hard, she understands. So we said, well, we have her on board, maybe it’s her staff. No, it's not the staff. It is Mr. Ford, and, and other ministers that are not letting this project go forward.”
Gélinas said “it's come to the point where the community said, ‘Enough is enough. We don't believe this government, we believe that they are putting hoops after hoops for Université de Sudbury to jump through because they want it to fail.’ The French population in my riding and in the northeast, do not want them to fail. They want this government to act and they want to be heard.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s associate content editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
