Dawson College students, staff say everyone loses when CEGEP becomes pawn in Quebec language war

Students and staff at Montreal's Dawson College say the CAQ government's decision to suspend a long-planned expansion of the CÉGEP will not only increase overcrowding, but also rob the health-care system of a planned student-run medical clinic that would've served thousands of patients each year.

The CAQ government announced earlier this week it was putting the planned $100-million project on hold.

"There's a limited capacity to build new infrastructures. We have many projects in other colleges," Premier François Legault said Tuesday defending the decision.

"I think that if we have to choose a priority, it's better to expand French colleges before adding capacity to Dawson," he continued.

"This was really a bombshell announcement, something that the Dawson community feared," Alexandrah Cardona, president of Dawson's Student Union, told CBC in an interview.

Many in Quebec's anglophone community believe the CAQ's reversal was a political decision, designed to appease nationalist voters and columnists who fear the "anglicization" of Montreal.

Liberal leader Dominique Anglade told reporters Thursday at the National Assembly that the flipflop on Dawson was "a deliberate act to divide Quebecers."

The head of the Quebec Community Groups Network, Marlene Jennings, even went so far as to describe the decision as "bullshit' in an interview earlier this week on CBC's Radio Noon.

"We're being told that we're not welcome here unless we shut up, unless we assimilate, and that the government will take every measure possible to put the squeeze on our community," Jennings said.

For students and staff at Dawson, the decision will affect their everyday lives, bringing continued overcrowding and missed opportunities.

Tim Miller, a Dawson faculty member in the physiotherapy technology department, has been deeply involved in planning for the expansion. Miller is part of something called the Interprofessional Education Pedagogy project.

It's an initiative that has Dawson students from different medical disciplines learning and working together.

"There's been research on this approach that actually proves that the quality of care for the patient increases when these students then go to the workforce," Miller told CBC in an interview.

The project includes students training to be nurses, as well as technologists in diagnostic imaging, ultrasound, physiotherapy, radiation oncology and social work — all health professionals Quebec sorely needs right now.