Canadian Students Protest

[mtbturtle]

Quebec's 'truncheon law' rebounds as student strike spreads | Martin Lukacs | guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 May 2012 10.26 EDT

A draconian law to quell demonstrations has only galvanised public support for young Quebecois protesting tuition fee hikes

At a tiny church tucked away in a working-class neighbourhood in Montreal's east end, Quebec's new outlaws gathered on Sunday for a day of deliberations. Aged mostly between 18 and 22, their membership in a progressive student union has made them a target of government scorn and scrutiny. And they have been branded a menace to society because of their weapons: ideas of social justice and equal opportunity in education, alongside the ability to persuade hundreds of thousands to join them in the streets.

Under a draconian law passed by the Quebec government on Friday, their very meeting could be considered a criminal act. Law 78 – unprecedented in recent Canadian history – is the latest, most desperate manoeuvre of a provincial government that is afraid it has lost control over a conflict that began as a student strike against tuition hikes but has since spread into a protest movement with wide-ranging social and environmental demands.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/24/quebec-truncheon-law-rebounds-student-strike

[Forest_Dump]

Hmmm. Might I ask if this is "new" in the US? The Quebec student protests have been a pretty hot topic for months now and it is definitely not a simple issue.

[Watson]

I would check that source because it doesn't sound anywhere near the truth on this side of the pond? The news here is that 70% of students are attending classes, tuitions are the lowest in the country, and there is very little public/taxpayer support. There is likely a strong protest of the law against gather but that should not be regarded as support for the students. There are also reports that other unions are supporting the students financially but that is because they have their own agenda. It started out as about tuition, but seems to have morphed into something more complicated.

[mtbturtle]

Forest,

I only have a vague recollection of having heard something about it but it hasn't really been in the US mainstream media as far as I know.

This article in Dissent Quebec's Student Revolt Goes Viral and another one I read recently said basically it's "new" to the US.

Another in Dissent One Hundred Days of Student Protests in Québec: Printemps Érable or Much Ado About Nothing? has a few more details and starts off with What would Spinoza do :)

“What would Spinoza say?” one of the student strikers asked. He had taken a course on Spinoza with Carlos earlier in the year and was now blocking our way into a class that we were teaching together this term. The students of the philosophy department at McGill University had just voted to join the longest and largest student strike in Québec’s history to protest the government’s plan to raise university tuitions. His task was to enforce this decision.

[Watson]

The other agenda, poking through?

[mtbturtle]

Hi Watson,

I don't know what you are referring to with your question.

[Watson]

The suggestion reported was other unions are supporting the students financially because they have their own agenda. They want the student protest to spread nationally and perhaps into the US. I think the Wall Street protest started small and about corporate corruption and as it grew special interests added a multitude of issues to the point that the corruption was lost if not forgotten. There were several occupy protests in different cities and protesting different issues. For some, this is nothing more than an opportunity to promote their other agenda, whatever that is.

[Forest_Dump]

Sorry I seem a bit tardy about responding but these days I can only manage to visit here 2 or 3 times a week.

Watson actually has been giving more but not all of the story. It did certainly start off being about tuition and I am sympathetic to that issue even though Quebec does have the lowest tuition on the continent. But that has always been because Quebec has been heavily subsidized by the rest of Canada and has a disproportionate amount of political clout. You could almost say Quebec is very much like France in having a strange blend of Marxism and ultra-right nationalism revolving around the language issue plus a few other things like a history dominated heavily by the Catholic church, they used to have their own terrorists (the FLQ), an ugly history of treatment of FN peoples (see the Oka crisis, plus discussions regarding the separation of Quebec and FN people then separating from Quebec), etc. But on the other hand, Montreal and Quebec City are the most European-like cities in North America and Montreal has a unique culture for restaurants (I hear routinely the best on average in the western hemisphere) and worth the visit for that alone.

However, the student riots started off with plenty of popular support but they lost that support because 1) the more radical student groups (specifically CLASSE) refuses to compromise in any way; 2) the student riots really got out of hand almost every night for a while with plenty of destruction, looting, etc., and including violence against students who decided to go to classes instead of striking (only about 30-35% of students ever supported the strike) including times they went into universities and colleges and harassed and threatened students and professors; and 3) the "student" protests have definitely been infiltrated and at times taken over by other causes including the "Occupy" movement and, in particular, the "Black Block". Of course, unfortunately, it seems the Quebec Liberal government has also been bungling their responce to at least some degree including some possibly Draconian tactics. But it is tough to say because the student protests have definitely gotten very out of hand at times.

[Watson]

Anything you and weakmagneto can add is most welcome for me, as I just hear the news, as slanted as that may be. And to share it here and with the US, and GB is just a truth to be shared widely.

[Forest_Dump]

Well, its still in the news every day.

[weakmagneto]

Just an update: The Canadian Students Protest is now Canada-wide including support in US cities such as New York and Chicago.

The causes driving thousands — and occasionally hundreds of thousands — of people into Montreal's streets are myriad. What began as a mostly student uprising stoked by the province's plan to hike tuition by 75 per cent over five years has broadened into a wider social movement, with people denouncing the mass arrests in Montreal and Quebec City in the last 3½ months, the Canadian Grand Prix auto race that starts this weekend, and Bill 78, Quebec's emergency legislation that restricts public demonstrations.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... tests.html

[Watson]

A report I heard was this protest is getting larger because unions collectively are trying to regain their fading support and power and they are also looking to recruit a new generation of leadership.

[Forest_Dump]

You might get a bit more information if you check out the web sites for the Toronto Star or Globe and Mail newspapers. Sorry I can't remember the Montreal english paper.

[weakmagneto]

Just an update on the Montreal Grand Prix Party Crashed By Protestors:
CBC News
Posted June 8, 2012

Hundreds of demonstrators besieged Montreal's Grand Prix street parties Friday night, as police used pepper-spray and reportedly rubber bullets, arrested a dozen people and forcefully pushed back crowds of protesters and bystanders alike.

Starting at around 9 p.m. ET, a group of about 200 demonstrators formed on downtown Crescent Street, right next to a street festival for Grand Prix revellers. A protest march of another several hundred people headed toward the same location.

Montreal police and officers from the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial force, spent two hours in a cat-and-mouse game trying to block the second group's approach to the area try to prevent a confrontation between demonstrators and Formula One fans.

Eventually, the two crowds of demonstrators bracketed the party, one group at the foot of the Crescent Street zone and one at its head. Baton-wielding riot police formed lines at both ends to prevent the marchers from milling into the bar scene, which made for some bizarre moments.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... erway.html

[Watson]

As I write this the students are promising to disrupt the Formula car race events and give visiting fans something to remember. This is so much different than how students would behave if they really wanted what they said they wanted. It is more political, more organized, better funded, yet their are those that think this is just a small group of spoiled rich kids. Other commentators do hint at the more serious agenda.

[Watson]

The student protesters have found a new low. What educated people would think this is a good idea? Oh ya, I ones not going to class. What the hile are they thinking?


http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Jew ... story.html

[Watson]

University tuition fees in Quebec were frozen at $540 per year from 1968 to 1990. In 1994, tuition rose to $1668 per year, after which it was frozen until 2007, when it grew by $100 per year until 2012, making it $2168. Overall, tuition increased an average of $37 per year or 300% between 1968 and 2012, not including other fees that are paid to universities (e.g. administration fees, student service fees, etc.).[9] However, the overall cost living inflation as measured by an aggregate inflation index commonly used by economists rose 557% from 1968 to 1990,[10] and Quebec has the lowest tuition fees in Canada.[11] [12] Quebec students pay only 10% of the cost and benefit from transfer payments from other provinces whose students pay up to three times more tuition. [13]

Quebec is a net recipient transfer payments from the Federal Government which the province then uses to pay for programs. The province does not disclose how it spends those Federal dollars. However these transfer payment have become politically charged with people in provinces that give more to than they receive in Federal transfer payments see Quebecs in general, and the students in particular, as getting more than their peers and complaining about it. [14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebe ... t_protests



Just a bit of historical context from wiki, but my emphisis.