Regional Universities

Honourable senators, I rise today to continue the discussion initiated by the Honourable Claudette Tardif on small- and medium-sized universities in the regions in Canada.

As our honourable colleagues Senators Tardif, Gagné, Bovey, Cordy and Christmas have so aptly stated in their speeches, regional universities are key drivers of research and innovation, and the economic, social and cultural development of our communities. They eloquently reminded us of the challenges facing regional universities, including for example the tendency for research and infrastructure funding to be concentrated among larger universities to the detriment of regional universities, the need for public policy to provide a framework for possible initiatives for regional universities, and fairness with respect to research funding.

[English]

That being said, we have all observed how educational and research institutions are evolving and transforming these days, becoming essential tools that are helping Canadian society adapt to the rapid changes of our time. It is therefore surprising — indeed, disconcerting — to note that not all provincial and territorial governments in this country have recognized the essential role of these places of knowledge and research in the same way.

The recent announcement of the withdrawal of funding for the Université de l’Ontario francais, which was supposed to welcome its first students in 2020, is unfortunately a prime example of this.

The decision by the Government of Ontario to cancel the establishment of this first autonomous francophone university, which would have completed the continuum of French-language education in Ontario from kindergarten to university, represents a significant setback for the Franco-Ontarian community, the Canadian francophonie and the country as a whole.

This project represented a significant investment for the province’s economic development, particularly through job creation and the training of highly qualified bilingual workers. It also addressed a crying need of francophones in the Toronto area, where only 27 per cent of high school students pursue their post-secondary studies in French, due to the limited number of university programs offered in la langue de Molière.

[Translation]

Here is a quote from the Université de l’Ontario français’ website:

This university is a 21st-century institution that prepares its students for their role in society and for the jobs of the future. Governed by and for Ontario francophones, it operates in French and has a global outlook. Guided by values of pluralism, innovation, collaboration and excellence, the university’s focus is on broadening, applying and sharing knowledge through interdisciplinary, inductive and experiential approaches to learning and research.

No wonder francophones across Canada celebrated the adoption of the provincial act to create this university in December 2017. They knew this post-secondary institution would benefit Canada’s research and innovation sector and promote Canada’s francophone community at the national and international levels. This is a tremendous loss for the francophonie and for our country.

[English]

This distressing situation leads me to offer my humble contribution to the discussion on the importance of regional universities. To illustrate my point, I will focus on the reality of two universities in the Atlantic region that are dear to me: the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick, and the Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia.

Beginning in the early 1800s, Atlantic Canada was home to a smattering of small faith-based institutions. Little by little, many of them took on the mantle of secularism. This was the case, among others, for the Université de Moncton, which resulted from the merger of three Catholic classical colleagues in 1963, and the Université Saint-Anne, which made the definitive transition in 1971 to a secular public institution following the gradual withdrawal of the Eudist Order, which founded the institution in 1890.

These changes happened following the major transformation of Canada’s university system, which occurred with the arrival of thousands of Canadian Second World War veterans in the post-secondary education system.

To help veterans returning from the war between 1944 and 1951, the Canadian government offered scholarships to anyone wishing to pursue post-secondary education. At the end of this project, enrolment in Canadian universities did not fall as the government had anticipated, but rather continued to rise sharply.

[Translation]

In the early 1950s, the Canada Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, often referred to as the Massey commission, considered the best ways to get Canadians to pursue post-secondary education and proposed maintaining scholarship programs to encourage students to enroll in university programs.

Making education accessible to as many people as possible was a very wise societal decision. At the turn of the 20th century, less than five per cent of the adult population had a university degree. Today, thanks to the support offered to universities and the importance we place on post-secondary education, nearly 30 per cent of the adult population has a university degree and over 64.1 per cent of the population has a post-secondary degree.

In 1867, there were 17 universities in Canada, 13 of which had fewer than 100 students. Today, Canada is home to over 100 universities with over 1.7 million students, and more than 1.1 million of them are studying full time.

In New Brunswick, this examination of the place of universities in our society resulted in the creation, in 1960, of the Royal Commission on Higher Education in New Brunswick, which recommended in its final report that a francophone university be created to help New Brunswick’s Acadian community catch up with the anglophone community. This community had had access to a university education in English for many generations.

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However, this type of reflection is not unique to New Brunswick, naturally. Across the country, universities were opening their doors in the 1960s and 1970s to give people in outlying regions access to a university education. This made a university education more accessible than ever before in Canadian history.

[English]

It was in this context that the Université de Moncton and Université Sainte-Anne were born and played a decisive role in the development of Acadia and the Canadian francophonie. These two institutions are seen as great models for regional universities in the sense that they are much more than teaching and research institutions. Both are highly involved in the development of their communities, serving as incubators of innovation and strategic spaces for debating ideas and developing responsible citizens. This desire to contribute to the development of their communities on a daily basis and in the long term is in some way the primary characteristic of regional universities across the country.

[Translation]

The Université de Moncton plays an important role in developing and supporting the Acadian community it serves and helping it catch up. The university now has three campuses, in Moncton, Edmundston and Shippagan, allowing it to fully participate in regional development.

The same is true for the Université Sainte-Anne, which has, since its inception, aimed to give Acadians in Nova Scotia an opportunity to thrive through education. The university’s first building was in Baie-Sainte-Marie, in southwestern Nova Scotia, where the university’s headquarters can still be found today. The Université Sainte-Anne is truly a regional university, now offering courses all across the province at its five campuses.

From the early days of the Université de Moncton and the Université Sainte-Anne, these institutions sought to provide training for their communities in as many fields as possible. Today, several hundred students graduate every year in all fields, including health sciences, engineering, law, the arts, philosophy and administrative sciences. These young adults are leaders who are re-energizing our communities and contributing to the development of Acadia, the Maritime provinces and the country.

More importantly, we have to acknowledge the transformational role that these university programs have on demographics and Canadian society. Let’s not forget that the vast majority of first-generation students who attended these universities were the first in their families to attend a post-secondary institution.

The founding of the Université de Moncton had a profound impact on the education level of Acadians. Providing the population access to post-secondary education in their language and in their region transformed the entire New Brunswick community. Family incomes increased at the same rate as the level of education and gradually, over the past 55 years, Acadians have integrated new sectors that were previously inaccessible.

[English]

I would also like to highlight the important contribution of these universities to francophone immigration in our region as well as to Canada’s international influence. More than 20 per cent of the Université de Moncton’s student population is composed of foreign students. Many of these students remain in Canada on a permanent basis and are contributing to the development of Acadian and Canadian society.

Meanwhile, thanks to the incredible work of the north/south observatory and its French immersion program, the Université Sainte-Anne enables many Cajuns from Louisiana to pursue their studies in French in our country.

The international impact of these two universities is also evident when we consider the many international events that have been hosted on their campuses such as the Sommet de la Francophonie 1999, the Congrès mondial acadien 2004, the 2010 World Junior Track and Field Championships or the upcoming Jeux de la Francophonie, which will take place partly on the Université de Moncton campus in 2021.

[Translation]

Honourable colleagues, the Université de Moncton and Université Sainte-Anne are not unique. Canada’s francophone communities are served by an important network of small- and medium-sized regional French-language or bilingual universities that choose to be key players in their community’s development.

[English]

My plea is therefore on behalf of all these small- and medium-sized universities that contribute to the vitality of our communities, whether they are located in rural or urban areas in the very centre or the furthest reaches of our country.

[Translation]

Like those universities, the Université de l’Ontario français should have the opportunity to make its own invaluable contribution. Young Franco-Ontarians were the driving force behind the UOF. The Regroupement étudiant franco-ontarien and the Fédération de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne have been fighting for it for years. Beginning with the États généraux sur le postsecondaire en Ontario français, a broad community consultation process, they got the entire community to rally around this major undertaking. Future students had a stake, of course, but today’s youth and the entire community got on board, too. On the day of action for the Université de l’Ontario français, February 18, 2016, over 8,000 young people demonstrated in francophone high schools across Ontario and over 200 young and not-so-young people braved the cold to make their wishes known at Queen’s Park in Toronto.

The adoption of a bill to create the university in December 2017 marked the end of a forty-plus-year struggle for institutional completeness in Ontario’s education system, where Regulation 17 is gone but certainly not forgotten. According to Statistics Canada, there is still a gap between Ontario francophones and anglophones when it comes to university graduation rates. That is why shutting down this university is a major loss for our country.

I would like to close with a quote from a La Presse article by Valérie Lapointe-Gagnon, who explained why this is a loss on many levels:

Shutting down a university in the west is an awful thing. It is a denial of fundamental rights and an assault on the ideal of higher learning in our societies. Justifying unjust cuts to services for francophones on economic grounds is a denial of this country’s history . . . .

Thank you.