For immediate publication
Montreal, February 21, 2025
An article in Le Devoir reveals that Quebec Minister of Higher Education (ministre de l’Enseignement supérieur du Québec) Pascale Déry, conducted an investigation into Montreal’s Dawson and Vanier CEGEPs under the influence of pro-Israel groups, CJA and CIJA (Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs). According to the article, the CJA website claims to have influenced Ms. Déry, with the help of CIJA, to launch the investigation. The article in Le Devoir quotes the CJA website: “We are pleased with this decision and will continue to engage directly with the Minister and the institutions throughout the process,” CIJA also wrote on its Facebook page in an English-language post.
The article in Le Devoir further states: “A member of the Sephardic community, Minister Déry sat on the CIJA board of directors from 2016 to 2022”. On February 4, the Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN) sent her a letter in which it denounced the “political instrumentalization of the administrative investigation process” that the minister is allegedly using at Dawson and Vanier colleges, as well as the “appearance of a conflict of interest” in which she places herself because of her past involvement with CIJA.
Interference in choice of academic course
In a press scrum on Tuesday, February 18, 2025, Ms. Déry did not answer questions about this possible conflict of interest. She acknowledged having expressed reservations about the French course entitled “Palestinian Appartenance” offered at Dawson College. Ms. Déry said: “I actually intervened on the content of the course for one simple reason, which is that the context was really explosive,” she justified. What I asked was: to avoid adding fuel to the fire, in this French course, […] could we have avoided talking about more sensitive and divisive issues?” She emphasized that “some students” felt “discomfort” over the content of the course.
Still according to the article in Le Devoir, “In a recent investigation by La Presse, “10 teachers said they saw this gesture as interference on the part of the minister. Sources have reported similar concerns to Le Devoir.” The FNEEQ-CSN responded to Pascale Déry’s confession. The union said it was “deeply outraged by the admission of the minister, herself a signatory to the collective agreement for CEGEP teachers, in which she committed to respecting academic freedom.” “This fundamental principle is even recognized by UNESCO, which reminds us that the State must never interfere in this way. This blunder by the minister indicates that it is time to strengthen and extend the Academic Freedom Act [in the university environment] to the college network, as the Federation has been demanding since 2021,” said the president of the union, Benoît Lacoursière, quoted in the article in Le Devoir.
Pro-Israel Quebec Government
Pascale Déry has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that she interfered in the administration of Dawson College and Cégep Vanier on behalf of two pro-Israel organizations, one of which she represented as a member of the board of directors from 2016 to 2022. She is also a perfect example of the pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias of the current Quebec CAQ government of François Legault. We remind the public that it was the Legault government that opened a trade office in Tel Aviv in full knowledge of the apartheid nature of the State of Israel and the genocide in Gaza starting in October 2023. Recently, PAJU co-president Bruce Katz sent an open letter to Quebec Minister of International Affairs Martine Biron asking whether the Legault government’s office in Tel Aviv is open. Ms. Biron has not responded.
Resignation required
Under these circumstances, it is incumbent upon Ms. Déry to resign from her position as minister. Ms. Déry has clearly stepped outside the bounds of her mandate and is clearly in a conflict of interest situation having political ramifications. She positions herself as a minister based on communitarian values. The fact that she is a Sephardic Jew is not the issue: everyone has a heritage, a culture. But the fact that she uses her position as minister to promote Zionist values, the values of Israel First, indicts the entire Legault government as complicit. If Ms. Déry refuses to resign, it is incumbent upon the Legault government to remove her from her position. Otherwise, the Legault government confirms its complicity in Pascale Déry’s conflict of interest and her political interference in the administration of Quebec’s CEGEPs. She has flouted the principle of academic freedom and must therefore resign or be removed from her position as minister by the Premier of Quebec.
-30-
Contact : info@paju.org
