After autistic student denied, Quebec faces calls to reform French exemption process

After autistic student denied, Quebec faces calls to reform French exemption process

Experts, politicians want appeal process, less strict criteria for exemption

Quebec is facing sharp criticism and calls to reform its French-language exemption process for students with disabilities following the removal of an autistic student from a local college.

The province's Charter of the French language grants children with serious learning difficulties a waiver from passing French in school, but parents, education experts and politicians say the process to receive that exemption isn't easy — and it can hurt students' prospects.

“I think it's a humanitarian issue,” said Elisabeth Prass, a candidate with the Quebec Liberal Party in the riding of D’Arcy-McGee. As MNA, she served as critic for persons living with a disability or with autism.

“I think that to tell a child, a young person, ‘because you don't have the ability to learn this language, you're no longer going to be able to follow your educational path,’ I think it doesn't serve anyone.”

The reaction comes after CBC News reported on Henry Gendreau, an autistic student from Gatineau, Que., who now has to finish high school in Ontario.

Quebec’s Education Ministry denied his disability-based request for a French-language exemption from his high school, resulting in his removal from his post-secondary studies after one semester.

The 18-year-old was accepted to his CEGEP program on the condition that he obtain this exemption, as he’d failed his mandatory French classes in his English high school and never graduated.

His father says learning French was an insurmountable challenge for Henry, who was non-verbal until around the age of five.

Calls mount to reform Quebec’s disability-based French exemption for students

QS, PLQ candidates want appeal process

Prass says the bar to prove you cannot learn French — a criteria needed to get the exemption — is too high.

“To say you don't fulfil their criteria because you cannot learn the language or you cannot learn a certain subject, again, I think is just really cruel,” Prass said.

There is currently no appeal process when an exemption request is denied. Prass says there should be a reform to include one.

Alejandra Zaga Mendez, a candidate for Québec Solidaire in Verdun, agrees the process needs to be reviewed.

“I think we have to open up a little bit to have more transparency,” said Zaga Mendez.

The process to apply for an exemption to Quebec’s Education Ministry is done by the school. The ministry doesn’t communicate with parents.

“It's an obstacle instead of being a partnership that we can create,” Zaga Mendez said.

Quebec autistic student denied disability-based French exemption, removed from college

Thousands of Quebec children with disabilities kept out of school due to lack of resources

She says former education minister Bernard Drainville also said the process needed to be reformed.

“To create this type of partnership between schools and the kids in order for them to finish high school, to have a diploma,” she said.

Process skews toward refusal, lawyer says

Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey calls Henry’s situation “unjust.”

He argues the exemption process doesn’t ask the right questions and skews toward refusal, when it should be the opposite.

“What they should have asked themselves first of all is, ‘is this a good faith demand for an exemption?’ It is. ‘Will it be in the best interest of the child?’ I think it clearly will be,” Grey said.

He also agrees the process should include an appeal mechanism or an easy judicial review.

CBC News reached out to the Parti Québécois and the Quebec Conservatives for comment but didn’t hear back.

Quebec’s outgoing CAQ Education Minister Sonia LeBel declined to comment.

Both Prass and Zaga Mendez say if their political parties are elected to form government in the upcoming Quebec election, they will review the exemption process.

Gloria has been a journalist in Montreal for more than a decade. Prior to joining CBC, she reported in three languages and five different countries for Global News, France 24, Berliner Zeitung and Diario La Tribuna in her native Honduras.