Opinion: Bilingualism is flourishing in Montreal, and that’s a political problem

Open this photo in gallery:Raise the price of something, and people will consume less of it. That’s the unassailable logic behind carbon taxes.Since 2013, Quebec has had carbon pricing, to discourage carbon pollution. And as of next year, when it doubles tuition fees for out-of-province students at its three English universities, it will have a pricing system to discourage language pollution.Quebec has valid fiscal reasons for this move. Across Canada, undergraduate education is heavily subsidized for Canadians, with those subsidies coming from the provinces. When a student from Alberta enrolls at McGill in Montreal, the difference between the tuition they pay and the considerably higher cost of their higher education is borne by Quebec taxpayers.And Quebec is a net importer of students from other provinces. (Ontario and Nova Scotia are even bigger importers.) Six other provinces – led by Alberta – are net exporters.According to an analysis by Higher Education Strategies, in 2018-19, Q...