Quebec town rallies after 'disappointing' decision to halt Canada's oldest French homestay program

The mayor of a small Quebec town that's introduced thousands of Canadians to the French language and culture for the past 92 years is calling on Western University in London, Ont. to keep the program going.

Since 1932, Western has sent an estimated 30,000 youth and professionals to Trois-Pistoles, 250 kilometres north of Quebec City, to live and study through its French Immersion School. The five week program pairs students with a host family and is considered Canada's oldest French immersion homestay program. 

Last fall, Western said it was stopping the program for 2024 due to a decline in host families. Western told CBC News on Wednesday that it was reviewing the program to identify areas for improvement and to ensure its success in the future.

But that concerns Trois-Pistoles Mayor Philippe Guilbert who started a petition last week encouraging community members and former students to tell Western what the program has meant to them. 

"The announcement of Western University to take a pause and start a process of revision is really disappointing because it was a solid program that's been around for 92 years," Guilbert said. 

"It's a part of the community. We have hundreds of students from Ontario that come here each summer, so it brings great social and economic impacts and is a big benefit for Trois-Pistoles." 

No one from Western was available for an interview Wednesday. 

Demographic changes, inflation major factors

Trois-Pistoles has a population of 3,200 people and Guilbert admits that after the pandemic, it has been a challenge for the community to meet Western's minimum enrolment bar of 150 students.

Part of it, he explains, is financial. Western's bursaries for host families haven't increased to the keep up with inflation, and some families said they couldn't afford to house students. Other host families were ready to retire. 

"There have been lots of demographic changes. A lot of families who are aging used to host six or seven students at once, but now the new families are hosting fewer students," Guilbert said. "When an older family retires, we have to find more families to host the same amount of students."

The program was life changing for Natasha Foster, 40, who couldn't speak a word of French when she enrolled in 2004. Foster, originally from Toronto, now lives in Trois-Pistoles and works as a secretary for a Francophone school board in the region.

She also met her husband Jean-Phillipe, who was a student leader in the program at the time. 

"I found myself hanging out with actual Francophones and so I learned French the real way, not in a school room but actually listening, taking it all in, talking, and making mistakes," she said.

"I went from being someone who cannot say her name in French to being able to function fully in a Francophone environment, and that's all because of this school."

The program brings vibrancy to the small city which feels revitalized when students come, Foster said, who was a host in 2015. 

"It gives the town a chance to see the diversity that's in the world, it helps our economy and when students are here, you know that life is renewed," she said.

The mayor's petition has garnered hundreds of signatures in the past week, which he said he plans to submit it to Western to include in the program review. Western said it will have the review prepared by the spring.

"The whole point of the immersion program is to really live with people," Guilbert said. "If you're just reading books, you learn the language but you don't practice it. And in an immersion program like this, you live with the community and develop relations with the families."