Ontario doesn’t need a francophone university

Well, the Liberals have done it again, buying all the francophone votes in Ontario for the next election. We need another university in Ontario just like we need another Tim Hortons down the street.

We already have two excellent universities in Ontario that are bilingual with French professors and full French courses. There is no need to spend millions to build another institution when we already offer these services.

Laurentian University offers 38 fully French programs.

The University of Ottawa offers a wide variety of academic programs, administered by 10 faculties. It is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada. The University of Ottawa is the largest English-French bilingual university in the world.

Besides, we already have a “francophone-only university” in Ontario -- Hearst University. With three northern campuses and 800 students, it’s a Canadian post-secondary institution with campuses in Hearst, Timmins and Kapuskasing. It is a federated school of Laurentian University in Sudbury.

There are also French-only colleges like College Boreal with several campuses and La Cite collegiale in Ottawa, and Glendon, the bilingual faculty of York University in Toronto.

The University of Toronto/Mississauga campus has offered courses and degrees in French since 1853 -- more than 150 years. In the 1970s, the Department of French of the University of Toronto had more than 120 professors and instructors, making it the largest department of its kind in the world.

Obviously, there is already a French university in Toronto.

I quote Mclean’s magazine, “Not only are the options plentiful but, like it or not, French is a language of declining importance. In the 2006 census, 2.4 per cent of Ontarians spoke primarily French at home. That dropped to 2.2 per cent in 2011, according to the National Household Survey.”

Ontario, with a population of 14 million and half a million francophones, does not need another French institution, which would cost $100 million. Premier Wynne’s government is forecasted to have a deficit of $30 billion by the next election.

Ontario Is supposed to be a bilingual province. The Liberals, with their agenda, are polarizing two groups -- anglophones and the francophones, which may result with serious consequences in the future.

Let’s face reality: Canada is not a bilingual country and will never be a bilingual country if we continue to create separate learning institutions for our students, Canada’s future. Tony Sottile

Sudbury