The quota limiting the number of students at English CEGEPs and colleges that was embedded in Bill 96, Quebec’s law to protect French, was always a ticking time bomb.

Rather than restrict access to francophones and allophones altogether, as some language hawks have long advocated, the government of Premier François Legault instead came up with a complicated formula to hold enrolment at English institutions to 17.5 per cent of the entire college network.

If the cap is arbitrary enough already, divvying it up among the various schools is even more capricious.

For good measure, the government set another booby trap: hefty penalties for any public and subsidized private colleges that exceed the benchmark. Oh, and if the enrolment numbers ever dip, the proportion allotted to English CEGEPs can never ever bob back up, according to the law.

The sole purpose of these measures seems to be to limit the vitality of English institutions by backhanded means, since (last we checked) their doors are still open to all and they manage to appeal to graduates of English and French schools alike, much to the chagrin of language hardliners.

So a sword of Damocles has been dangling over English CEGEPs and colleges ever since the law was adopted in 2022. It has made many administrators nervous as they recalibrated their admissions processes to abide by the cap while also overhauling their course offerings to ensure the francophone and allophone students they admit meet the same language requirements as graduates of French institutions.

Now, the blade has finally fallen and it has struck a heavy blow against LaSalle College.

The subsidized private college has been penalized $30 million for exceeding the quota of English-program students in each of the last two years.

The government is trying to recoup $8.78 million from the college for going over the benchmark of 716 students for 2023-24 and $21.1 million for being 1,066 students over the quota in 2024-25.

However, LaSalle says the majority of its English-program students are international enrolments, who pay their full ride and receive no subsidy from the........

© Montreal Gazette