Sting Operation

In 1967, the Université de Montréal altered its charter so that graduates of Jesuit-run institutions such as Loyola College and Collège Sainte-Marie would no longer be able to trade their certificates for degrees. In a sign of Quebec’s swing toward secularism, UdeM had recently appointed its first lay rector, Roger Gaudry, who wished to distance his school from the nearby Catholic colleges. Loyola kept petitioning for its own university charter, as it had done since splitting off from Collège Sainte-Marie in 1896. Provincial officials, though, instructed the school to forge ties with an existing English university — a directive that didn’t align with its desire for independence.

The likelihood of Loyola receiving its own charter further dwindled when, in 1972, Quebec’s Conseil des universités presented a report to the education minister, François Cloutier, stating that the government could not permit the creation of another English university “unless it is justified...