Quebec higher education minister dismisses call for free tuition

A month before Quebec's PSE summit gets underway, Pierre Duchesne, the province's higher education minister, is rejecting calls for free university tuition. He says several good ideas emerged during the dozen meetings with students and university officials organized by the Parti Québécois since its election in September. However, he says free tuition is not an option for the PQ government, which is considering instead indexing tuition fees to the cost of living. Duchesne pledged to come up with concrete solutions for tuition fee reform. Féderation étudiante universitaire du Québec president Martine Desjardins says several individuals who were invited to the summit disagree with the PQ's position. "The consensus is clearly not around indexation," she says. "Even at the summit table with all of the people involved in the university milieu, we don't hear the word 'indexation' except when it comes from the government." CBC