Montreal CEGEP students start school year with Bill 96 effects on their minds

Thursday marked the the first day of school for English CEGEP students at Montreal’s Dawson College.

As census data found French is on the decline in Canadian homes, anxiety is still high for students as the application of Bill 96, the reform on French language laws, in colleges looms.

“I think it’s good that they’re trying to preserve our original language, but I definitely think that some things should have been done for those who are less advantaged,” said Dawson College student, Aya Hafeda.

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For student Gina Alphonse, worries are growing.

“I feel kind of scared, honestly, because the world is becoming very concentrated to the French side and my parents, they’re from St. Lucia, they’re born in the Caribbean, and they don’t really understand French like that,” she said. “So it’s going to be harder for immigrants and a bunch of people to understand what’s going on in the world.”

The same is echoed by student Jacob Maala from Singapore.

“I feel like I am going to manage because I still do have a good knowledge of French,” he said. “But for people like my parents, even before Bill 96, they were suffering because they couldn’t get the jobs they like the positions that they had in my country because they needed French, but they don’t speak French.”

“It’s not fair for Indigenous people because we our first language is Cree, or Mohawk, or Algonquin,” said student Angela Ottereyes. “We’re already struggling trying to come into the Western education system.”

Bill 96 in Quebec colleges will force English students to take three additional courses in French. Francophones and allophones attending Anglophone CEGEPs would have to pass a French proficiency exam to graduate, as students attending French-language CEGEPs do.

“It’s forcing me to leave Quebec,” said Ottereyes.

Some feel the Indigenous community should be exempt from Bill 96. Ottereyes said her children don’t want to take the extra French courses.

Angela Ottereyes with her two daughters. (Credit: Angela Ottereyes / handout)

“We are trying hard to keep our language and our culture and our practices alive and the government is forcing us to learn another colonial language,” she said. “We made a decision: once I graduate from Dawson, I will be pursuing my university education in Ontario.”

The changes in CEGEPS are supposed to come into effect by 2024.

“I’m scared that he’s going to bring up a bunch of different laws and everything is really going to change,” said Alphonse.

“There’s still a way out of this and we can fight it,” said Hafeda, encouraging her peers to have hope. “The bill has already passed. All that we can do is help out at the next election and vote for the right person.”