U of O Watch mission, in the words of Foucault...

"One knows … that the university and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. … It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them." -- Foucault, debating Chomsky, 1971.

U of O Watch mission, in the words of Socrates...

"An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all." -- Socrates

video of president allan rock at work

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

L’État du français dans les processus juridiques en Ontario - Affidavit de Denis Rancourt - Septembre 2015


Mon affidavit (LIEN) (PDF) décrit des violations ou des négations de mes droits linguistiques dans les processus juridiques en Ontario, depuis le 26 janvier 2012 et jusqu’à et incluant mon audition du 26 juin 2015 à Toronto devant la Cour d’appel. Sur la base des éléments de preuve décrits ci-dessous, j’en suis venu à croire que ces problèmes sont très répandus et systémiques.

Je suis le demandeur non représenté dans la présente demande d'autorisation d'appel. J’étais l’appelant non représenté à la Cour d’appel de l’Ontario dans cette cause en diffamation, et j’ai été le défendeur non représenté dans la cause qui dure depuis 2011. L’appel a été entendu le 26 juin 2015 à Toronto.

Mon mémoire pour ma demande d’autorisation d’appel se résume comme suit :

La Cour d’appel a montré de l’animosité à l’égard du demandeur. La Cour d’appel a créé une nouvelle loi répressive permettant des ordonnances de non publication permanentes contre les personnes aux moyens financiers limités. La Cour d’appel a approuvé la décision du juge de première instance de négliger toute preuve en faveur de l’appelant pour la simple raison que ces preuves avaient été présentée par l’autre partie. La Cour d’appel a ignoré les droits constitutionnels et fondamentaux du demandeur en opposition aux coûts exorbitant pour un procès en diffamation. La Cour d’appel a jugé que les liens financiers et émotionnels entre le juge de première instance et l’autre partie n’ont pas résulté en une apparence de partialité, et n’a pas considéré les déclarations du juge faites pendant le procès. Ceci s’est produit lors d’un jugement en appel durant lequel l’appelant n'a pu compléter sa requête à cause des incessantes interruptions reliées à l’exercice de son droit de plaider sa cause en français.

Rock names U of O building after mr. nobody, without broad student consultation


Allan Rock has unilaterally named the Arts Building as "Hamelin Hall", after a former rector of the university who is a nobody in terms of scholarly or societal achievements. No one has ever heard of Marcel Hamelin.

Why should the normal growth of a university, funded by the government, such as buildings and study programs, be considered an achievement of the particular rector whose well-paid job it was to oversee the administration the said growth?

More importantly, why should such an honour be decided behind closed doors, without dominant leadership from the student body?

It seems to me that students know best who or which groups of people have most contributed to personal, cultural, and intellectual advancement in society. I don't think the principal of the school is ever that person for the majority of students. Do we celebrate the entrepreneurship of a company by honouring its accountant? Never. We give the accountant a gold watch and send him off to his comfortable retirement. We honour the inventors, founders, movers and builders, not the accountants that manage public resources.

Were are the students? Were are the staff? Why does Mr. Rock so disrespect and discount the academic community?

Monday, September 28, 2015

St. Lewis v. Rancourt defamation case: Rancourt files Application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada

Denis Rancourt at the Supreme Court entrance to the Registry, on September 28, 2015

The defendant, then appellant, now applicant Denis Rancourt today served and filed an Application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada requesting an appeal from the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the St. Lewis v. Rancourt defamation case.

The full 343-page Application is publicly posted HERE-LINK, or HERE-PDF.

A summary of the Application is:

SUMMARY -- The appellate court showed animus toward the applicant. ●The appellate court made a new repressive law that allows permanent gag orders against persons with limited financial means. ●The appellate court approved the trial judge’s decision to disregard all evidence in the applicant’s favour because it was introduced by the other side. ●The appellate court ignored the applicant’s constitutional ground against the large costs for trial. ●The appellate court decided that the trial judge’s financial and emotional ties with the other side did not give an appearance of bias, and failed to consider whether the trial judge’s in-court statements show bias. ●This occurred in an appeal where the applicant could not complete his submissions due to being interrupted many times because he chose to speak in French.

The Application raises the following questions of national importance:

(i)    Is the common-law “Astley test” used in ordering permanent injunctions against unknown expression following findings of defamation constitutional and consistent with Canada’s obligations pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and was the applicant’s right of freedom of expression thereby violated by the permanent injunction?

(ii)    Under what conditions, if any, can a judge disregard evidence on the trial record because one party did not “call” or “introduce” it, in deciding whether to put defences to the jury, and were the applicant’s Charter rights of a fair trial and of freedom of expression thereby infringed or denied by the lower courts themselves?

(iii)    Under what conditions are costs of trial ordered against a defendant in a defamation action unconstitutional and incompatible with Canada’s obligations pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and did the lower courts themselves violate the applicant’s right of freedom of expression with costs?

(iv)    Is the Canadian common law test for reasonable apprehension of bias (judicial bias) unconstitutional by virtue of being a violation of Article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and did the lower courts themselves thereby violate the applicant’s right to a fair trial?

(v)    Did the appellate court itself violate the applicant’s equal-language Charter rights and privileges?

The Ontario Civil Liberties Association opposes the University of Ottawa's funding of the legal costs of the plaintiff/respondent: HERE-LINK.

A recent video-report about the case was published by Brave The World: HERE-LINK.

A blog-article history of the case is HERE-LINK.

All the court-filed documents in the case are HERE-LINK.

A file number has not yet been assigned to the Application. The procedure foresees that the file number is to be assigned within 30 days.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Allan Rock predictably sends out his director of communications rather than answer for his own record, caught making blatantly false spin


The U of O has taken a massive hit in its institutional reputation under Rock (LINK).

Rather than take responsibility and make a realistic assessment, Rock has sent out his director of communications to cry about the crash in the public media (LINK):

But some schools aren’t happy with that explanation. “We are disappointed by this change as it does not properly reflect our strengths and excellence,” said Patrick Charette, director of corporate communications for the University of Ottawa, which fell 66 spots to 284.

“Our university still ranks among the best universities in Canada and uOttawa researchers continue to excel,” Charette told Yahoo Canada News in a statement. “For four consecutive years, the University of Ottawa has been ranked among the top 200 universities worldwide by Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, for example.”

The school also ranked in the top-ten for reputation among Canadian universities according to the QS Rankings, Charette said. ...

Charette's last point is blatantly false spin. Oooops. The QS Ranking has U of O in 13th place among Canadian schools, behind the leaders (LINK):

24. McGill University
34. University of Toronto
50. University of British Columbia
96. University of Alberta
115. Université de Montréal
149. McMaster University
152. University of Waterloo
192. Western University (University of Western Ontario)
204. University of Calgary
206. Queen’s University
225. Simon Fraser University
277. Dalhousie University

U of O has, under Rock's leadership, dropped from being in the top ten Canadian schools, after almost eight years of Rock.

Furthermore, no other comparable Canadian school has fallen 66 spots. And the QS evaluators made it clear that:

... Simona Bizzozero, a spokeswoman for QS — whose annual rankings are considered among the three most influential in the world — said only about 30 per cent of the University of Ottawa’s decline was attributable to the new approach while the rest “reflects a genuine deterioration in some indicators.”

By misleading readers in this way, Rock through Charette does not give a good example coming from an institution of higher learning...

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

U of O crashes under Rock


U of O tumbles in world university rankings

Published on: September 15, 2015
“As a result, our ranking has changed significantly,” Charette said. “We are disappointed by this change, as it does not properly reflect our strengths and excellence.”

But Simona Bizzozero, a spokeswoman for QS — whose annual rankings are considered among the three most influential in the world — said only about 30 per cent of the University of Ottawa’s decline was attributable to the new approach while the rest “reflects a genuine deterioration in some indicators.”

President Allan Rock re-invented the school using his own people from outside rather than value the inside people, and has generally taken a confrontational approach with all the staff and student unions, rather than trying to include and work together.

The Rock approach has deeply eroded the university. A fish rots from the head down.

The last two VP-Academics have left. Professors are expected to jump onto Rock's bandwagon of globalization schemes, or be ignored. The Medical Neurology Department has been told that it could be closed by the College of Physicians. The professors' union has often noted unjustified increases in executive salaries. The school is being sued for millions because Rock dismissed the entire Gee-Gees hockey team without regard for the lives of the athletes, over criminal charges that involved two players. And when controversies have hit, Rock has systematically hidden behind someone or some committee, not hesitating to throw whoever under the bus (a VP-Academic, a coach, an entire hockey team...), and often made a point of being out of town. Now the francophone associations are calling for the creation of a real francophone university in Ontario. ...

Meanwhile Rock has a hand in a new family business of growing medical marijuana.

The damage will take some time to repair. The politician who was called "ethically challenged" by the Ottawa Citizen in 2003, before being shipped off to the UN and then landing on the steps of Tabaret Hall, moves on to greater things in 2016.

"[Rock's] behaviour since the Irving affair became public has revealed him to be ethically challenged. […] it took Rock days to apologize. And he only grudgingly did so after Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw rose in the Commons and offered an unqualified apology for accepting a ride on the Irving corporate jet three years ago. She also announced she was reimbursing the family for the flight."
Ottawa Citizen, November 8, 2003, page 1.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Welcome back U of O students! Consider this...

A new academic year has ruptured its embryonic sac and lies on the pavement in front of Tabaret Hall, in a puddle.

The fetus needs to pick itself up and consider taking charge of the pop stand.

Will the newest "juvenile revolution" start here and now?

Here is what I mean:


Predicting the Next Juvenile Revolution...
By Denis G. Rancourt

The establishment, not so very long ago, had a healthy fear of juveniles. In the 1950s:

A thousand conferences, agencies, committees, and newspapers alerted the country [USA] to the danger. Juvenile delinquency was the only rebellion around, and it had to be stopped.
   Articles on teenage delinquency gushed forth. Experts labelled it a "national epidemic," projecting some two and a half million cases. "Unless this cancer is checked early enough," warned one popular book, 1,000,000 Delinqints (1955), "it can go on spreading and contaminate many good cells in our society.... [1]

Although politicians called for it, there was no purge like there was against Communism [2], only a tightening of civil and institutional controls, including city-wide curfews. But the genie was out of the bottle due to changing economic reality and modern technology:

The greater access to money and especially to automobiles, which allowed the young to escape watchful parents, fostered their identities as individuals with specific sexual, musical, and consuming needs. [3]

However, the first modern juvenile revolution did not occur until newly populated campuses exploded in the 1960s. The students rejected being treated like owned children, while being drafted for war.

The students revolted, walked out, demonstrated, and squatted without relenting. They obtained:
  • independence over their personal lives (no oversight of off-campus activities, no curfews, no discipline for non-academic matters)
  • the right to unionize and collectively own buildings and businesses on campus
  • respect of their power when it came to imposing a military draft
  • minority representation on all university committees (including the Senate and Board)
These were lasting victories of a true and bloody [4] juvenile revolution.

While the revolt vehemently and explicitly expressed a desire to be free from the clutches of true legal power over the institution (which resides in the Board), as in Mario Savio's iconic speeches



the furthest success in that direction was to obtain representation on university "governance" committees, which is no small accomplishment if the representatives impose themselves rather than allow themselves to be co-opted tokens.

But the 1960s achievements of partial democracy and partial student liberation in the institution were perceived as threatening and have been systematically eroded by the concerted efforts of establishment forces.

The counter-revolution was already well underway by 1975 when the Trilateral Commission, founded by David Rockefeller in 1973, published The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies. The report recommended restructuring public institutions to address the identified threat stemming from "an excess of democracy". They knew how to fix that...

What followed, starting in the 1980s, was a catastrophe on the scale of a macro-economic and macro-societal restructuring:
  • Reversal of The New Deal and of post-WWII middle-class access to economic independence, 
  • gutting of professional independence of teachers, 
  • gutting of tenure (replacement by contract staff), 
  • complete corporate alignment of the university mission, 
  • codification and confinement of radicalism within allowed "justice and equity" programs, 
  • student-debt slavery extended far into post-studies life, 
  • tighter ideological processing in all the professional programs, and new imposed programs for journalists, etc., 
  • totally institutionalized childhoods including after-school activities, 
  • more grading and performance evaluations than you can shake a stick at, 
  • more homework and "volunteer" work than ever, 
  • "zero tolerances" of drugs, traffic violations, petty crime, payment delays, improper language, etc., 
  • more surveillance than in any novel about a dystopia, 
  • being fired for comments on social media at every corner, 
  • etc.
... the list of post-1970s abuses that most citizens actually celebrate and defend is a long one. All of the "99%" (non-elite) suffered the same fate, to varying degrees.

As a result, more than ever these days, all school pupils are literally in a prison, with locked doors, yard time, prison guards, and parental home visits. College and university students have no time to think, but instead are on a brutal and meaningless treadmill, with periodic PowerPoint torture [5], while being shackled with financial debt, rather than being paid for their labour [6].

What has kept the lid on USA juveniles (except in Canada's province of Quebec, to some extent)? What has stalled the next US-Canada-Europe... juvenile rebellion?

Several factors have contributed, as I see it.

First, juveniles are seriously constrained and corralled in every aspect of their lives, but that alone is not normally enough to suppress vital instincts.

Second, the state, like any police state, is vicious in attacking and punishing student dissidents with police-induced judicial consequences, augmented by punitive measures applied by the educational institutions themselves. This is a strategy to kill any spontaneous or planned emergence of rebellion. 

Third, many students themselves have been largely neutralized in their brains, to be seekers of justice fairly provided to them by the very system that imprisons them, to seek "being oppressed fairly". A mass of students has essentially been zombiefied by the poison of the "radical" "justice and equity" programs, anchored in "critical theory" "at the service of the design of a better society". They have swallowed the myth that liberation is establishment-regulated participation in the design of a "just society".

Fourth, in a divide-and-conquer attack against the mind, students have been turned against each other with manufactured hyper-concern for their own religions, skin colours, genders, sexual preferences, and superficial "privileges", rather than recognizing the common enemy of an oppressive establishment that eats them alive, irrespective of their individual attributes.

Ageism is a unifying psycho-social force that channels a juvenile rebellion against the systemic oppression of youth. There is ageism, but it is presently used as a strategy for survival, rather than a force for rebellion. Ageism and inter-generational solidarity with trusted agents and coalitions with trusted cells are not opposites in a juvenile revolution. The former is visceral motivation while the latter are strategic choices. [7]

Fifth, and possibly most importantly, juveniles are both drugged by their parents and self-medicated to escape and "perform".

The pharmaceutical industry for drugs that optimize the shoolability of children is massive. These potent mood-altering drugs are widely prescribed against the symptoms of repressed childhood (so-called attention deficit disorder, etc.), and are now frequently marketed as "smart drugs". These are the Ritalins, etc., known as nootropics. Nootropics have spawned a pervasive black market among juveniles forced into "performance" work and are widespread among students. [8]

The self-medication to escape meaninglessness and powerlessness is both from substances and from technologically enabled stimulation (personal music devices, social media, communication technology). Much of the needed identity management is authentically communicative, such as YouTube testimonials, status posts, and tweets, and is often supplemented by face to face continuations.

In addition, there is a significant pot culture of escape. While pot (like all drugs) is a helpful personal exploration tool, it is also frequently primarily used to escape the brutal world by creating a safe space, and simply to dull the pain of being violated by the institutions of "education".

Thus, there are many effective avenues of personal identity management that allow long-term survival. The mental space is self-managed away from the visceral impulse of authentic rebellion. This is combined with the fact that students are still able to physically escape the institution, both in separate physical spaces, which can be as small as a student apartment, and via their computer and phone screens in the classroom or elsewhere.

Sixth, although the school and university environments are brutally dehumanizing, in terms of institutional obedience-training and indoctrination, they are also accompanied by a constant brainwashing that the student has merit and high status by virtue of being in school, and that the student has entered a privileged club whose members experience fulfillment and meaning. And, within each program, there is "choice", which some students reason to themselves allows them to personalize their experience.

Seventh, the media and institutional spaces are actively cleansed of any eminent examples of successful rebellions, and of the personal rewards of authentic rebellion. Teachers and professionals are harshly prosecuted for anything that could resemble "corrupting the youth". Instead, professional status and military service are portrayed as providing the ultimate personal rewards.

The May 1968 message "Sous les pavés, la plage!" is both absent and written in a very foreign language. There are no teachers writing re-mixes of the 1969 "the little red schoolbook". You cannot even utter the "N-word", let alone assign unconstrained reading of the 1967 essay "The Student as Nigger" [9].

At my own recent binding arbitration into my 2009 dismissal from my tenured full professorship of more than two decades, after I had been critical of the administration and created a popular activism course which had to be given in the largest auditorium on campus, the hired university lawyers spent the majority of their efforts to argue the propositions that I incited students to violence, had incited students to bonfire the campus at UBC via an invited talk, had connections to fire-bombing domestic terrorists, had publicly called the president a "douchebag", etc., etc. [10], with such "exhibits" as the fact that one of the clips in one of my YouTube-channel playlists is this one, which, for no other reason, was played during the arbitration hearing:



The anarchist video is an example of fringe-culture rebellion connected to anti-globalization demonstrations, not an example of campus rebellion against institutional suppression of student lives.

Eighth, the constant and overbearing propaganda that there are mega-threats to humanity, including global warming, potential health epidemics, etc., that require dedicated collaboration with the establishment and its scientists. Add the threats from "foreign invaders", and homegrown "terrorism", etc. All such research and propaganda also serves US corporate and geopolitical interests. Institutions and governments do not work against themselves, ever. [11][12]

For all these reasons (first to eighth, above), therefore, so far, there has not been a new juvenile revolution against student slavery. You can't even use the word "slavery" because that would be "misappropriation", blah blah blah.

But it is slavery, just as wage-slavery is slavery, and its damage is deep and lasting (see [6]). And as with any slavery, there is a large psychological barrier against recognizing the slavery. Every slave has invested into the system and identifies with the system. To reject slavery would be to vaporize one's identity and could induce massive grief at the prospect of having lost one's past life.

So, will the student-slaves ever revolt again? Will there be another mass juvenile revolution?

I believe it is inevitable. There are constant sparks, and the gasoline of human suppression is just under the corporate facade. Institutional totalitarianism is advancing at a furious pace. The war economy of global exploitation has endless needs... Rebellions are emerging all over the "developing world", and new geopolitical blocs (e.g., BRICS) are emerging that challenge US domination, which breaks the isolation and forces some moderation both abroad and at home.

At any moment, the sight of beach sand from under the broken pavement could cause a frenzy. There could result real physical solidarity against the targeting of the most daring, the emergence of vision, and the organization of a committed juvenile front.

This can only work if the next juvenile revolution goes significantly beyond the juvenile revolution of the 1960s, beyond minority representation on committees, and on towards true power to run the institutions of juvenile imprisonment and make them into institutions for and by juveniles. Students are workers in the economy and must, as a start, be fairly paid for their labour (see [6]), as the first transitional demand.

Never mind tuition, students must be salaried. If society wants juveniles to do the hard work of learning skills, because society wants those skills, then a living wage is an immediate prerequisite. This was understood in the Middle-Ages but has been "forgotten". Youth cannot be used as a pretext to exploit and capture.

Children were taken from factory wage-slavery and put into factory schools. Now juveniles accumulate debt for the "privilege" of being molded into service professionals.

Sooner or later, there will be the next juvenile revolution, and university president salaries will drop. Students will fire and choose their teachers, and will decide what needs to be learned. They will learn how to make all the most important decisions about their own lives, by the practice of making those decisions. And they will learn how to make and re-create powerful institutions made in their liberated image rather than controlled by outside occupiers.


Endnotes

[1] Jacoby, Russell, The Last Intellectuals, 1987 (2000 edition, Basic Books), p. 63
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
[3]  The Last Intellectuals, p. 64
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
[5] Rancourt, Denis G., "On the sacred space of the university classroom", Activist Teacher, October 3, 2009, http://activistteacher.blogspot.ca/2009/10/on-sacred-space-of-university-classroom.html
[6] Rancourt, Denis G., "Adult Students Please Get Real", Dissident Voice, April 27, 2015, http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/adult-students-please-get-real/
[7] The same is true of racism in racial liberation struggles, and of violence in struggles to survive attempted genocides. See: Rancourt, Denis G., Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism, Stairway Press, 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_and_Free_Expression_in_the_Fight_Against_Racism
[8] For example, this 2009 5 O'Clock Train - CHUO 89.1 FM investigative radio interview: "Upper Year Psychology Students on School, Deadlines, Medication and How to Survive University", December 3, 2009 show: http://trainradio.blogspot.ca/2009/12/upper-year-psychology-students-on.html
[9] Farber, Jerry, "The Student as Nigger", 1967, first published in the Los Angeles Free Press. Canadian Union of Students re-publication: http://www.studentunion.ca/cfs/1968/1968-cus-student-as-nigger.pdf
[10] A transcript of the lengthy hearing is fascinating and was published by a former student who attended the proceedings: Cover-article-LINK, Transcript-LINK. The emails of a hired student spy to the university executives, explaining her use of false cyber-identities and covert machinations are most instructive: Spy-emails-LINK.
[11] Rancourt, Denis G., "Climate Stupidity and Human Survival", Dissident Voice, May 26, 2015, http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/climate-stupidity-and-human-survival/
[12] In particular, carbon politics is domination geopolitics. The US is branding itself as "the clean-energy superpower", including at the recent G7 parade. Next it will continue to attempt to strangle and extort the energy development of the emerging BRICS global economy, using a combination of green blackmail rhetoric, global carbon-economy monetary instruments, military posturing, covert and direct targeted nation destruction, and sanctions. And, of course, the same folks always suffer the destructive consequences of these global economic instruments that purport to be intended to "save the planet": The Carbon Rush documentary film trailer.


Dr. Denis G. Rancourt is a former tenured and Full Professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is known for his applications of physics education research (TVO Interview). He has published over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, and has written several social commentary essays. He is the author of the book Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism. While he was at the University of Ottawa, he supported student activism and opposed the influence of the Israel lobby on that institution, which fired him for a false pretext in 2009: LINK.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Les francophones de l’Ontario demandent une université provinciale de langue française

COMMUNIQUÉ
 
Les francophones de l’Ontario demandent à la première ministre Wynne de s’engager à créer une université provinciale de langue française
 
Toronto, mardi 10 février 2015 – Rassemblés en conférence de presse ce matin à Queen’s Park, des représentant.e.s du Regroupement étudiant franco-ontarien (RÉFO), de L’Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (L'Assemblée) et de la Fédération de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne (FESFO) ont demandé à la première ministre Kathleen Wynne de s’engager à créer une nouvelle université de langue française en Ontario.

Cette demande constitue l’une des principales recommandations découlant des États généraux sur le postsecondaire en Ontario français, une large consultation communautaire tenue dans plusieurs régions de la province depuis l’automne 2013 et dont le rapport final est rendu public aujourd’hui.

Comme première étape de mise en œuvre, les trois organismes demandent à la première ministre et à son gouvernement de nommer, au cours de la prochaine session parlementaire, un Conseil des gouverneurs transitoire chargé d’assurer le démarrage de cette université d’ici 2018. Selon les organismes, cette nouvelle institution universitaire devra avoir un mandat d’offrir une programmation académique en français sur l’ensemble du territoire ontarien et devra entreprendre ses activités dans le Sud de la province, là où l’écart entre la population francophone et l’accès aux programmes postsecondaires en français est le plus grand.

« Depuis des décennies, les Franco-Ontariennes et les Franco-Ontariens aspirent à avoir le contrôle complet de leur système d’éducation. Après l’obtention d’écoles primaires et secondaires, de conseils scolaires autonomes et de collèges communautaires de langue française, le temps est venu pour que nous obtenions une université que nous gouvernons complètement, une université qui respirera qui nous sommes », a partagé Denis Vaillancourt, président de L’Assemblée.

« En cette année 2015, pendant laquelle nous célébrons le 400e anniversaire de la présence française en Ontario, mais aussi où nous constatons que l’assimilation et l’accès aux programmes postsecondaire en français demeurent des défis importants pour notre communauté, nous demandons à notre gouvernement de saisir avec nous cette occasion de bâtir un établissement du XXIe siècle, constitué par et pour les francophones de l’Ontario », a ajouté Geneviève Latour, coprésidente du RÉFO.

Pour Marie-Ève Chartrand, présidente de la FESFO, « il est important que cette université soit un lieu de recherche, d’innovation et de rayonnement pour tous les Ontariens et Ontariennes d’expression française, qu’ils soient nouvellement arrivés ou installés ici depuis des générations. Le temps d’agir est maintenant si nous voulons nous assurer que les futures générations puissent continuer à s’épanouir et à grandir en français en Ontario. Une université franco-ontarienne, ce n’est pas qu’un rêve, c’est possible et c’est nécessaire !  »

Les organismes partenaires ont terminé la conférence de presse en exprimant leur souhait de rencontrer la première ministre Wynne, afin de franchir les prochaines étapes pour la mise en œuvre de ce projet rassembleur pour l’Ontario français.

Renseignements supplémentaires :
  • Pour lire la demande complète qui a été formulée par les organismes partenaires, cliquez ici.
  • Lisez ici le Rapport du Sommet provincial des États généraux sur le postsecondaire en Ontario français.
  • Pour visionner la conférence de presse en entier, cliquez ici.
- 30 -

Renseignements :

Regroupement étudiant franco-ontarien (RÉFO)
Alain Dupuis
Directeur général

Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (L’Assemblée)
Corinne Atiogbé
Directrice des communications

Fédération de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne (FESFO)
Andrée Newell
Directrice générale