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The controversy over academic freedom at the University of Ottawa was sparked in September 2020, after a professor used the word "nigger" during a lecture to illustrate how certain groups reclaimed words or phrases traditionally used against them. The professor's use of the word and the ensuing outrage was first reported by Charley Dutil and Paige Holland in the university's anglophone student news outlet, Fulcrum . [1] The university suspended the teacher after an offended student filed a complaint. The debate about whether the suspension was justified and about academic freedom then flared up. The controversy was lively, and generated a lot of media coverage in Canada, and also attracted some attention in Europe. [2] It prompted reactions from the federal government of Canada: the Bloc Québécois defended full academic freedom, while the New Democratic Party and the Green Party of Canada were against it. [3]
A survey suggests that the majority of Canadians agree that freedom of expression should be protected in universities, including the use of offensive language in certain contexts. [4] However, in Quebec, the predominance of the academic freedom to offend by mentioning the N-word seems more strongly or unanimously defended, whereas in English Canada the very mention of the word is more frequently associated with a racist act: thus, according to some professors, the University of Ottawa case reveals the cultural gap between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada. [5] In Quebec, the controversy led to the creation of an independent commission, headed by Alexandre Cloutier, to examine the question of academic freedom. [6] According to the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, who made his statement on February 13, 2021, events like the one at the University of Ottawa are caused by a handful of radical activists who are trying to engage in censorship. [7]
In April 2022, the Quebec CAQ government tabled Bill 32 a bill on Academic freedom in universities. [8] [9] The bill passed in June 2022. [10]
Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is part of the Constitution of Canada. It is commonly known as the notwithstanding clause, sometimes referred to as the override power, and it allows Parliament or provincial legislatures to temporarily override sections 2 and 7–15 of the Charter.
The University of Ottawa, often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on 42.5 hectares directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa across the Rideau Canal in the Sandy Hill neighbourhood.
Franco-Ontarians are Francophone Canadians that reside in the province of Ontario. Most are French Canadians from Ontario. In 2016, the Government of Ontario calculated that there are approximately 622,415 francophones residing in the province. The majority of Franco-Ontarians in the province reside in Eastern Ontario, Northeastern Ontario, and Central Ontario, although small francophone communities may be found in other regions of the province.
Université Laval is a public research university in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The university was founded by François de Montmorency-Laval as Séminaire de Québec in 1663, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Canada and the first North American institution to offer higher education in French. The university, which was founded in Old Québec, moved to a new campus in the 1950s in the suburban borough of Sainte-Foy–Sillery–Cap-Rouge. It is ranked among the top 10 Canadian universities in research funding and holds four Canada Excellence Research Chairs. Like most institutions in Quebec, the name "Université Laval" is not translated into English. The courses are offered in French.
The Charter of the French Language, also known in English as Bill 101, Law 101, or Quebec French Preference Law, is a law in the province of Quebec in Canada defining French, the language of the majority of the population, as the official language of the provincial government. It is the central legislative piece in Quebec's language policy, and one of the three statutory documents Quebec society bases its cohesion upon, along with the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Civil Code of Quebec. The Charter also protects the Indigenous languages of Quebec.
This article presents the current language demographics of the Canadian province of Quebec.
Bye Bye is an Quebecois sketch comedy special, broadcast annually by Ici Radio-Canada Télé on New Year's Eve. The yearly program features sketches satirizing the past year's events, followed by a countdown to the next year itself. Originally beginning in 1968, Bye Bye '98 was the final edition of its first run, until the show was revived by the comedy troupe Rock et Belles Oreilles, who produced the 2006 and 2007 editions of the show.
The Ottawa Police Service is a municipal police force in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The OPS serves an area of 2,790 square kilometres and 1,017,449 people alongside several other police forces which have specialized jurisdiction.
Anti-Quebec sentiment is a form of prejudice which is expressed toward the government, culture, and/or the francophone people of Quebec. This prejudice must be distinguished from legitimate criticism of Quebec society or the Government of Quebec, though the question of what qualifies as legitimate criticism and mere prejudice is itself controversial. Some critics argue that allegations of Quebec bashing are sometimes used to deflect legitimate criticism of Quebec society, government, or public policies.
François Legault is a Canadian politician serving as the 32nd premier of Quebec since 2018. A member of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), he has led the party since its founding in 2011. Legault sits as a member of the National Assembly (MNA) for the Lanaudière region riding of L'Assomption.
The Université de Montréal is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on Mount Royal near the Outremont Summit, in the borough of Outremont. The institution comprises thirteen faculties, more than sixty departments and two affiliated schools: the Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal. It offers more than 650 undergraduate programmes and graduate programmes, including 71 doctoral programmes.
Amir Attaran is a Canadian professor in both the Faculty of Law and the School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Denis Rancourt is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa. Rancourt is widely known for his confrontations with his former employer, the University of Ottawa, over issues involving his grade inflation and "academic squatting," the act of arbitrarily changing the topic of a course without departmental permission.
France Martineau is a professor and a Canadian linguist. Martineau is an expert in Canadian French linguistics and considered a leader in historical sociolinguistics as well as a pioneer in the digital humanities. Martineau presently holds the University of Ottawa Research Chair Le français en mouvement: Frontières, réseaux et contacts en Amérique française.
Ricardo Duchesne is a Puerto Rican-born Canadian historical sociologist and former professor at the University of New Brunswick. His main research interests are Western civilization, the rise of the West, and multiculturalism. Duchesne's views on immigration and multiculturalism have been described as racist and white nationalist. He has denied being a racist to the mainstream press, but has described himself as being "the only academic in Canada, and possibly the Western world, who questions the ideology of diversity while advocating white identity politics."
The Canadian Officers' Training Corps (COTC) was, from 1912 to 1968, Canada's university officer training programme, fashioned after the University Officers' Training Corps (UOTC) in the United Kingdom. In World War Two the Canadian Army was able to produce quality officers due to the high standards of the COTC.
Danielle McCann is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 2018 provincial election. She represents the electoral district of Sanguinet as a member of the Coalition Avenir Québec and is the former Minister of Health.
The Act respecting the laicity of the State, introduced and commonly referred to as Bill 21 or Law 21, is a statute passed by the National Assembly of Quebec in 2019 which asserts that Quebec is lay state. It prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by certain public employees in positions of authority and grandfathers in those who were already in office when the bill was introduced. The statute operates despite the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and also notwithstanding certain sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In recent years, several incidents of apparent racism have occurred at the University of Ottawa, located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Some students and staff members have labelled these incidents as racism.