Lasalle College de Montreal says that he faces an existential threat after consecutive fines were given for a total of almost 30 million of the Quebec government for registering too many students in their English programs.
The Private University received a letter from the Ministry of Higher Education at the end of June saying that it should $ 21,113,864 for registering 1,066 students instead of their quota for the 2024-25 academic year. That amount is added to the fine of $ 8.7 million that was broadcast last year for the same infraction.
“The first question that occurred to me is which family organization or business can afford to pay a fine,” said the president and CEO of the University, Claude Marchand.
Before the introduction of the quotas in 2023, he said that he had begged to the Government that it was not in vain to give universities a period of grace, as he had done by companies that adjusted to Law 14, also known as bill 96, Quebec Law to protect the French language.
Lasalle College received its first share at the end of February 2023, which would apply in the fall of that same year. But at that time, the university registration process for international students was underway.
“So, we were already convicted when we obtained that number,” Marchand said.
That year, it exceeded the fee for 716 students.
Lasalle College met the same problem the following year. Knowing the quota would have meant breaking the university’s contracts with some students who had enrolled before the quotas were presented and shortening their academic careers in the school, which Lasalle was not willing to do, Marchand said.
“Now we fully fulfilled in the fall of 2025, but it took us those two years to fulfill completely,” Marchand said.
“We are not challenging the law per se. We are challenging the penalty that is the result of the law.”
Universities faced fines reduced to the beginning to help them adjust, says the government
The fine per student enrolled in the quota increased with respect to last year. A spokesman for Pascale Déry, Minister of Higher Education of Quebec, says that the reduced fine rate in the first year was the transitory measure.
“Despite the close support and several warnings, it is important to note that Lasalle is the only subsidized private university that continues to challenge the French language letter and not respect the law,” said the minister’s office in a statement.
In an AX publication, Jean-François StealThe minister responsible for the French language said that the Quebec movement to the registration of limit in programs taught in English was “brave, but necessary.”
On the other hand, Marchand says that negotiating and obtaining any indication of flexibility from Dery has been complicated.
Lasalle was the only university, private or of another type, which was fined by the Government for contravening the quota in 2024 as can be seen in Quebec’s budgetary and financial regimes for that year.
Other universities were able to negotiate their quotas, such as the public Megep Marie-Victorina, which was initially assigned 232 points in its certification of university studies (AEC in French) Programs for the Autumn of 2023. That number increased to 332, according to a government document as of October of that year, published through an application for access to information.
Lasalle is disputing the two fines in a civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of Quebec, claiming, among other things, that government quotas were not reasonable to begin with. That is partly due to the fact that, as the demand says, the quotas are lower than the number of international students who enroll in an English program that the university can accept, a number established by the government itself.
The government says that its fines are intended to recover the amount of excess subsidies. But the government does not subsidize international students to LasalleThe demand continues to explain, and the particular quota that the school did not meet is at the AEC level where there are many international students.
Marchand calls the fines a “naquera” that says that the government is also fine it twice for the same student in the last two years.
“We have no more students in those [English-taught] Programs that in 2019, which is the best spirit of the law. We are totally fulfilled for the next semester and we have a public mission to serve everyone [our] 5,000 students and we want to move on. “
