Historic Canadian language school puts closure down to government policy

Founded six decades ago, the YMCA school was one of the early leaders in developing the country’s once booming industry of teaching English and French to students from around the world.

The language school will close in December, the end of the fall semester. Students who prefer not to continue until that date will be given a prorated refund of their tuition, Flavie Côté, spokesperson for the organisation, said.

The peak body Languages Canada says 18 private schools and 11 affiliated with post-secondary institutions closed in the first quarter of this year.

The organisation reported a 15% drop in student numbers last year. The only bright spot was an increase of 14% in French-language enrolments, sparked by a federal government effort to grow the number of immigrants who speak that language.

“The pandemic, the decline in international students, online competition and changes to immigration policies” all culminated to spell trouble for the YMCA school, said Eric Trudel, vice-president of operations for the YMCA of Quebec.

The YMCA teaches nine different languages to more than 5,000 students annually, said Côté. More than 100 people are expected to lose their jobs when the school closes.

Gonzalo Peralta, executive director of Languages Canada, placed the blame at the feet of the federal government.

“The closures in recent years of Canada’s official language programs are 100% the result of faulty or inappropriate government policy,” he told The PIE News.

In January, 2024, then-immigration minister Marc Miller announced that he was imposing a cap on the number of international students coming to Canada, blaming them for the nation’s housing shortage.

However, Languages Canada has pushed back against this idea, noting that most language students live with Canadian host families rather than in apartments. The association’s concerns have fallen upon deaf ears in Ottawa.

The closures in recent years of Canada’s official language programs are 100% the result of faulty or inappropriate government policy
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Peralta continued: “While we are grateful that Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) seems to have slowed down on making changes to the international student program, the wake of the 13 policy changes in 12 months has had a devastating effect on Canada’s language programs.”

Peralta also noted that the Quebec government has been “very unsupportive” of programs that are teaching English. French is the official language of that province.

“What Canada needs at this time is effective leadership in immigration matters, and a continuation of the current pause for policy and process changes,” Peralta argued.

The programs that have closed over the last year include English centres at Lethbridge Polytechnic in Alberta and at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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