The Quebec government continues to take cues from the Trump administration

Has the CAQ government officially entered its Trump era?

Instead of acknowledging a recent Quebec court ruling that concludes there was “an absence of data” to support the provincial government’s 33% tuition fee hike for out-of-province students (a move that overwhelmingly targets the province’s English universities), the CAQ has chosen to double down.

Not only is Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry rejecting a ruling that unequivocally declares both the tuition hike and the French proficiency requirements for non-Quebec applicants “unreasonable and therefore invalid,” she even took to social media to accuse The Gazette and Le Devoir of publishing “incorrect information” about the court decision. And this, while the judge gave the government nine months to go back to the drawing board.

Let’s be real. When it comes to language and identity policies, data-driven decisions have never been the CAQ’s forte. Time and time again, the government has routinely relied on anecdotal evidence and antiquated perceptions over hard facts to justify increasingly punitive measures aimed at minority groups. Whether legislating on language, secularism, education or integration, “lack of data” is a recurring theme.

When a government contemptuously ignores court rulings — like the Trump administration is doing south of the border — it undermines the rule of law and erodes public trust in our institutions. The CAQ has clearly been told in legal terms that it has no evidence for the actions it’s undertaken, yet it’s still pushing through with them.

When dogma and identity politics trump facts, it never leads to anything good.

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Read more weekly editorial columns by Toula Drimonis.