Ontario moves forward with French-language university

Provincial government proposing downtown Toronto as likely location of campus

Just call it Sorbonne-tario.

The provincial government is moving forward on a plan to create Ontario’s first French-language university — likely in downtown Toronto.

Advanced Education and Skills Development Minister Deb Matthews announced Monday that Queen’s Park will soon introduce legislation for the proposed post-secondary institution.

“This is a tremendous step forward in the creation of the first standalone French-language university in Ontario,” Matthews said in a statement.

The minister said it would be “governed by and for francophones (and) . . . will provide access to high-quality French-language university education in the Greater Toronto Area and Central and Southwestern Ontario.”

While it will be some time before Ontario is home to anything that can rival the three Parisian universities that make up the Sorbonne, it’s a significant announcement for the province’s 611,500 francophones.

“Francophone culture and the French language have always been essential to Ontario’s identity and prosperity,” Francophone Affairs Minister Marie-France Lalonde said.

“This is strongly reaffirmed today with the government’s intent to pro- vide high-quality post-secondary education to francophone students. The creation of a new Frenchlanguage university, governed by and for francophones, is a critical milestone for Franco-Ontarians and future generations,” Lalonde said.

The government is acting upon the recommendation of the Frenchlanguage University Planning Board, a panel struck last fall to study the issue.

Last month, the group led by former official languages commissioner Dyane Adam, tabled a 139-page report recommending the new school.

Adam’s panel said the main campus of the university should “be located in Toronto, specifically, in downtown Toronto.”

That’s in part because more than 430,000 people in the GTA speak French.

“The area’s French-speaking population is also characterized by diversity thanks to francophone migration from other provinces and an influx of newcomers to Canada,” the board said.

The roughly 80,000 francophone immigrants in Ontario “present significant potential” for expanding the provincial economy into the broader international Francophonie, the board added.

Adam’s recommendation was that the new institution work with Collège Boréal, the French-language community college that has small campuses around the province, including inside the Toronto Star building at One Yonge St.