Teachers criticize timing of Quebec’s new ad campaign after budget cuts [Video]

Teachers are calling the Quebec government’s decision to launch a $2.5 million advertising campaign to encourage Quebecers to speak more French “a big contradiction” given the recent cuts in funding for French courses. 

The CAQ has recently decided to cut financial assistance for people enrolling in part-time, French-language classes, and to scale down its funding for francization courses to match the amounts allocated in 2020-2021.

Olivier Houle, history and new French-language teacher, says these budget cuts do not reflect the important growth in the region’s immigrant population since 2020-2021. 

“What’s frustrating is that, the past few months, we’ve been seeing the government using immigrants as a scapegoat for a lot of problems, but the ones that are being penalized are the ones that are already here, that are already trying to contribute to society,” said Houle.

He agrees with the campaign’s message, but says it isn’t the right moment.

“I don’t think these funds, these …