Heads of management schools say Québec's reputation as "welcoming" will take years to rebuild

Heads of three leading management schools from Québec, Canada's French-speaking province, have said that welcoming international students has been affected by a reform passed by the Canadian government in 2024 that imposes quotas on international admissions.

"There was a drastic political change that was quite surprising and brutal for schools in the sense that Québec used to be a very welcoming province for international students, but we started to have quotas and admission limits for international students," Frank Pons, Dean of FSA ULaval, said on 08/04/2026.

He was speaking during a roundtable with Anne-Marie Croteau, Dean of John Molson School of Business, and Federico Pasin, Director of HEC Montréal.

Pons said the problem was not so much the limit on quotas, but the visibility for international students: "Those policies have a very significant impact on reputation. And it will take years to rebuild that."

The schools' representatives also mentioned strengthening their relationships with South America and Europe (particularly, for institutions in Québec, with France) as they…