Thank you for your question.
That's absolutely correct: the community has completely lost trust in Laurentian University's administration. Matters were already not going very well. As I mentioned, very little effort has been made to improve French-language programming in the past 20 years. We were also told that the marketing work done to recruit francophone students was not up to snuff.
I don't know whether I discussed this earlier, but the university hired someone in 2002 to recruit anglophone students internationally. As a result, the university has regularly admitted 350 to 450 foreign anglophone students every year. It wasn't until two years ago that it hired someone to recruit foreign francophone students. That initial attempt attracted slightly fewer than 100 students. We've learned that this position was recently eliminated as part of the university's budget cuts.
As for the second part of your question, the University of Sudbury's board of regents decided on March 11 last that the University of Sudbury would become a university governed by, with and for francophones. We firmly believe that the university, which now has its charter, has a chance to continue French-language programming in the mid-north; that's essential. Otherwise there will be fewer options for students in the region, province or even other provinces who would like to come and study in French in Sudbury.
The number of options available to students in the region who want to study French has been cut. Research has been conducted on this subject, and we know that a minority of those students will go to Ottawa, Hearst or Toronto, where the Université de l'Ontario français is offering new programs. [Technical difficulty—Editor] as far as possible, and they'll have to turn to the English-language universities in order to do so. I still call that the "assimilation highway."
The University of Sudbury is well equipped to offer French-language programs to students in the mid-north. It's also well positioned to work together as part of a network with the Université de l'Ontario français in Toronto and with the University of Hearst, which is now independent because it received its own institutional charter last week.
We're also able to provide better service to students who will be completing their secondary studies and who want to study in French. The business community urgently needs young people who can speak both official languages to provide services.
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