Collège Universel opens 2,000-seat Gatineau campus as Quebec debates who gets to stay
Tashi Farmilo
Collège Universel officially opened its new Gatineau campus at 228 Saint-Joseph Boulevard on September 24, welcoming dignitaries, diplomats and provincial election candidates to mark the occasion. The building has room for up to 2,000 students, giving the private college, now close to a decade in the Outaouais, space to grow at a time when both local students and those arriving from abroad are looking for somewhere to study.
Students past and present, faculty, staff and partners filled the building for the celebration, touring the new classrooms and common spaces and toasting a turning point for the school.
The guest list was a snapshot of the questions facing Quebec's students less than two weeks before the October 5 provincial election. Four candidates attended: Suzanne Tremblay of the Coalition Avenir Québec, Sacha Cannon of the Liberals, Anne-Marie Couturier of the Conservatives and Doryan Pansanel of Québec solidaire. Hull-Wright city councillor Steve Moran was also there, as were two diplomats: Mouna Mouline of the Moroccan embassy and Chouchou Mozo of the embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The diplomats' presence reflects where the school recruits. The college told the Moroccan newspaper Le Matin in 2022 that it draws a large number of international students each year, particularly from Morocco and elsewhere in Africa. It also said students can take their program in either English or French.
Those students arrive in a province that needs more people: more future students to fill classrooms, more workers to keep hospitals running, businesses and public services active, and more families to sustain communities. Quebec families are having fewer children, and the population is getting older, so immigration now accounts for nearly all of the province's growth. That growth has almost stalled since the provincial and federal governments began tightening immigration. Quebec added only about 16,000 people this year, a small number for a province of roughly nine million. The Institut de la statistique du Québec expects the population to hover around 9.2 million for decades rather than keep growing.
For schools, that means fewer young people coming up through the system over time. For the wider economy, it means fewer people ready to step in as others retire. Across Quebec, residents aged 65 and older already outnumber those under 20. Every nurse, technician or tradesperson who retires needs someone trained to take their place, and colleges are where much of that training happens.
The Outaouais is in a stronger position than most of the province. It is one of the few places where young people still outnumber seniors: just under 22 per cent of residents are under 20, compared with about 19.5 per cent aged 65 or older. The region also keeps attracting newcomers, both immigrants and people moving from other parts of Quebec and Canada, many of them from Ottawa, where homes cost more. So, while Quebec's overall population is expected to level off, the Outaouais is projected to keep growing by about 14 per cent between 2021 and 2051. That means continued demand for classroom seats here for years to come.
Quebec has been clear about who it hopes will fill the gap. Its 2026-2029 immigration plan aims for more than three in four new permanent residents to speak French. It also wants roughly two in three to be people already living in the province, including international students who studied here. In practice, a Quebec diploma is one of the clearest routes to staying. Students from Morocco and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where French is widely spoken, fit the profile the province says it wants.
Whether those graduates can stay depends largely on the provincial and federal governments, and the rules have changed several times in two years. For years, the Programme de l'expérience québécoise offered people who studied in Quebec a fast track to permanent residency. Quebec froze the program's student stream in November 2024, then scrapped the program entirely last November. This summer, Premier Christine Fréchette's government revived it for two years, starting July 2. For now, only people who already qualified before it was scrapped can apply, and that window closes October 31. The government has not said who will be able to apply after that. Getting into Quebec in the first place has also become harder, with the province capping college-level study applications from abroad at 22,606 in each intake period.
For Collège Universel's students, the diploma they choose makes a difference. Like other Quebec colleges, the school offers the DEC, or diploma of college studies, in two streams: pre-university programs that prepare students for university, and technical programs that train them for a specific job. It also offers the AEC, a shorter job-focused attestation. Of the three, only the technical DEC qualifies a graduate for the fast-track program on its own. A student in a pre-university program would generally need to go on to finish a university degree first. Quebec has also dropped a requirement that graduates have studied in French, which matters at a college where students can take their program in either English or French.
Quebec's current immigration plan aims to limit the number of international students in the province to 110,000 by 2029. The parties whose candidates attended the ceremony disagree on how many newcomers Quebec should welcome as permanent residents and on the future of the fast-track program. Whichever party forms the next government will set those rules.
Two questions remain open: how many of the campus's 2,000 seats will go to students from abroad, and how many of those students will be able to build a life in Quebec once they graduate.
Collège Universel's new 2,000-seat Gatineau campus opens as Quebec needs more young people and workers but has tightened the rules on whether international students can come and stay, and the outcome of the October 5 election could shape those rules. Photo: Courtesy of Collège Universel Facebook page