{"id":1052,"date":"2012-03-21T10:51:41","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T14:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cupfa.org\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2012-03-23T15:41:27","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T19:41:27","slug":"massive-demonstrations-support-quebec-students-striking-against-fee-hikes-richard-fidler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cupfa.org\/fr_CA\/massive-demonstrations-support-quebec-students-striking-against-fee-hikes-richard-fidler\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive Demonstrations Support Quebec Students Striking Against Fee Hikes — Richard Fidler"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tens of thousands of students and their supporters marched in major Quebec cities yesterday, March 18, in opposition to the Jean Charest<\/a> government’s promise to impose a 75 per cent increase in post-secondary education fees over the next five years. In Montr\u00e9al some 30,000 \u201cformer, present and future university students\u201d responded to the call of the Coalition large de l\u2019Association pour une solidarit\u00e9 syndicale \u00e9tudiante<\/a> (CLASSE).[1]<\/a> The march stretched for more than 1.5 kilometres, according to Le Devoir<\/a><\/em>. Thousands more marched in Quebec City, Sherbrooke and Alma.<\/p>\n

This week, more than 200,000 university and college students will be striking throughout Quebec, and their ranks continue to swell. The strike began four weeks ago on some campuses. While the main demand is of course to stop the proposed hike in fees, many of the students support the demand of the CLASSE, which is spearheading the strike movement, for free post-secondary education.<\/p>\n

This message \u2013 that education is an integral right of Quebec society, and must be accessible to all \u2013 has struck a responsive chord among broad layers of the population. In recent days, the students’ demands have inspired strong messages of solidarity from their professors, more than 1,600 of whom have signed a powerful statement against neoliberal \u201ccommodification\u201d of education and the privatization of university funding. (The professors’ statement is translated, below.)<\/p>\n

The Strike Spreads<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thousands of parents are now organizing through Facebook in support of the students, and many participated with their children in the marches yesterday. High school students are joining in, with strikes planned in several schools this week. The major trade-union centrals have issued calls for solidarity with the striking students.<\/p>\n

The government continues to stonewall the student demands, and Finance Minister Raymond Bachand is expected to confirm the increase in his budget speech tomorrow. The increase will boost student fees by $325 a year for five years. Yesterday’s demonstrations were a prelude to even bigger student protests planned for March 22. And the organizers are already planning further actions in weeks ahead.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, student demonstrators have faced violent attacks by police using tear gas, sound percussion guns and rubber bullets, and hundreds have been arrested. In one such attack, a Montr\u00e9al student was hit in the face and may lose sight in one eye. But this repression has, if anything, aroused mass indignation and public expressions of support for the students.<\/p>\n

As the business media never cease to remind us, Quebec university fees are the lowest in Canada. But that is because Quebec students have mobilized repeatedly against attempts to raise them. As Chantal Sundaram notes in Socialist Worker<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 1968 to 1990, tuition fees in Quebec were frozen at $500 a year. After a hike of about 150 per cent from 1990 to 1993, a PQ government introduced a new freeze in 1994. But that same government opened the door to a new increase in the name of deficit cutting in 1996. It faced a Quebec-wide student strike with mass street protests and gave up that idea. Fees have also increased by $100 a year over the past five years under the Charest government.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday’s strike comes only seven years after the last one. In 2005, an unlimited student strike shut down nearly every post-secondary institution in Quebec to protest the cutting of $103-million from bursaries to convert them into loans. The students won, forcing the government to backtrack on a policy it had already passed. That strike received massive public support and was the source of the \u2018red square\u2019 badge, worn by thousands of students and supporters, which is also in use today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike has been organized faculty by faculty through mass assemblies and democratic votes of the students; it began in mid-February when the CLASSE threshold of a pro-strike vote of 20,000 students in at least seven student unions was met. At first, Education Minister Line Beauchamp dismissed it, claiming the movement represented only 2 per cent of the province’s 495,000 post-secondary students. But already more than 40 per cent of the total student population are on strike.<\/p>\n

And now other student organizations, traditionally less militant than the CLASSE, are planning their own actions to protest the fee increase. For example, the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration \u00e9tudiante coll\u00e9giale du Qu\u00e9bec (FECQ) has announced it will hold a sit-in at the National Assembly on March 20 when the finance minister tables his budget.<\/p>\n

Changing Winds, Changing Forces<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 2005 student strike ended with serious divisions in the movement; the CLASSE predecessor was sidelined and in the end the government negotiated only with the FECQ and a rival organization, the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration \u00e9tudiante universitaire du Qu\u00e9bec (FEUQ). At the outset of this year’s strike movement, the CLASSE had only 40,000 members, while the FEUQ boasted 125,000 and the FECQ 80,000. However, the relationship of forces within the student population may be changing rapidly in the current mobilizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something in the air,\u201d 21-year-old CLASSE leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois told Le Devoir<\/a>. \u201cThere is momentum. The Arab Spring, the indign\u00e9s<\/em>, the Occupy movement… There is an entire discourse being advanced about the interests the governments serve. They do not work for the majority. And the question of the increased education fees is a stunning demonstration of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

…an important feature of the movement is the attractive appeal of the CLASSE demand not only for a freeze on fees, but for free university education as a right of society.<\/p>\n

According to another CLASSE spokesperson, Jeanne Reynolds, \u201cIt is a whole vision of education that is changing. That’s why people are mobilizing so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

And indeed, an important feature of the movement is the attractive appeal of the CLASSE demand not only for a freeze on fees, but for free university education as a right of society. Other organizations have advanced similar demands for treating social services as a public right, not an opportunity for private profit. In a statement coinciding with yesterday’s marches, the Coalition oppos\u00e9e \u00e0 la tarification et \u00e0 la privatisation des services publics<\/a>[2]<\/a> called for public participation in the students’ actions and opposition to the Charest government’s increase in electricity rates and its tax on medicare services. \u201cAlthough the Charest government is so far showing its rigidity, it is our impression that the relationship of forces is increasingly in the students’ camp,\u201d Coalition spokesman Fran\u00e7ois Saillant told the media. Saillant is also a leading member of Qu\u00e9bec solidaire, Quebec’s party of the left. \u2022<\/p>\n

Richard Fidler is an Ottawa member of the Socialist Project. This article first appeared on his blog Life on the Left<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe are all students.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Quebec profs issue call for unlimited general strike of campuses<\/strong><\/p>\n

This appeal by Quebec post-secondary teachers<\/a>, signed initially by 21 professors, has now been signed by more than 1,600 others in support of their students.<\/em><\/p>\n

As professors who strive to bequeath knowledge to all those who seek an education, we support the students striking in democratic defense of accessibility to university education and in justified opposition to the commodification of education. We say to these student youth who are standing firm that they are not alone.<\/p>\n

Beyond the legitimate demands linked to the precariousness of student status, it is the future of education and Quebec society that is at stake in the conflict between the students and the government. This strike is an extension of the numerous struggles that have emerged in recent years challenging the subordination of the public good to private interests with the help of a scandalously obliging government.<\/p>\n

An Increase That Impoverishes Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most immediate issue in the current conflict is of course the increase in education fees. This 75 per cent increase, we note, follows the 30 per cent increase imposed since 2008. These increases are draconian, and they fit within a logic of privatization of the funding of our public services. Among its most obvious consequences, we can anticipate a substantial increase in student indebtedness, as we see in the rest of Canada and in the Anglo-Saxon world as a whole, as well as a significant decrease in accessibility to education.<\/p>\n

This privatization of university funding, based on a neoliberal premise, treats students as customers. To profit from their investment, they will be tempted to choose their area of study in terms of its financial yield and potential for employment. The logic of indebtedness regiments the students de facto<\/em> in the world of finance, and subordinates their decisions to the bankers. The student thereby becomes an agent of reproduction of the social order, instead of a citizen participating fully in the evolution of his or her society. Academic freedom and the entire critical dimension of university education would appear to be threatened with obsolescence.<\/p>\n

The discourse of the Liberals, the ADQ\/CAQistes[3]<\/a> and the university administrations claims that the increase will help solve the problem of \u201cunder-funding\u201d of Quebec universities. But we should instead be talking about \u201cmalfunding,\u201d considering the huge transfer of funds once devoted to education and basic research to investments in real estate, private research, advertising and the financing of a powerful bureaucracy. In this sense, the central issue is less the under-funding than what we choose to fund in our universities. To what degree are we prepared to sacrifice courses considered unprofitable, to reduce accessibility to studies in order to feed the endless appetite of the boards of directors?<\/p>\n

From One Revolution to Another<\/strong><\/p>\n

Underlying the debate over the increase in education fees is a conflict between different models of education. Finance Minister Raymond Bachand evokes a \u201ccultural revolution\u201d when he attacks the achievements of the Quiet Revolution<\/a> by returning education fees to what they were prior to 1968, when the university was essentially reserved to a male elite. The creation of a more egalitarian system of education, such as we enjoyed until the 1990s, was the end result of a broad collective debate expressed, for example, through the Parent Commission[4]<\/a> and the vitality of the student movement of that time.<\/p>\n

We note today that the conservative revolution being implemented by the Liberal government is not the product of any debate and is presented to us as an inevitability. Symptomatic in this regard is the Agreement to lift the lid on student fees (Pacte sur le d\u00e9gel des droits de scolarit\u00e9<\/em>) announced in 2010. It was based on a sham consensus featuring the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the Conseil du Patronat and neoliberal think tanks (IEDM<\/a>, CIRANO<\/a>), organized of course under the leadership of the bard of the lucides<\/em>, Lucien Bouchard<\/a>[5]<\/a> himself. The denial of any form of opposition or dialogue opened the way to Raymond Bachand’s budgets, just as the injunctions of the \u201cbanksters<\/em>\u201d [English in original] have imposed austerity policies here and elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n

As a result, we have to consider the student movement and its demands as a voice of resistance. For several years now, the students have been presenting an intelligent analysis of the issues related to post-secondary education, and calling for a public debate, a d\u00e9bat de soci\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> on the future of education. This demand has been met by a dogmatic refusal to open the dialogue and recognize the students as legitimate interlocutors. This stiff resistance explains the fact that the debate is now being expressed in the streets. The violent police repression of the students is the material expression of the contempt for those who struggle, often imaginatively, to defend what they know is precious to each of us: education as a public good.<\/p>\n

Everyone United Against the Increase<\/strong><\/p>\n

Considering that the increase in education fees masks an ongoing privatization of funding of the universities, that it challenges universality as a model of accessibility to post-secondary studies, and that it furthers the transformation of institutions of learning into mere market organizations, we think the unlimited general strike is a justified method in the circumstances and that the students’ demands for a freeze on student fees and free education are legitimate.<\/p>\n

The students are inviting us to build a new political way of thinking (imaginaire<\/em>) that can revive the democratic and modern foundations of the educational system and of Quebec society as a whole. Within this perspective, we greet their call to general mobilization as an invitation to defend the right not only to higher education but also to the civilizing implications of the university. As professors, we respond: We are all students!<\/p>\n

Authors:<\/strong>
\nBenoit Guilmain, Coll\u00e8ge \u00c9douard-Montpetit;
\nAnne-Marie Le Saux, Coll\u00e8ge de Maisonneuve;
\nSt\u00e9phane Thellen, C\u00e9gep du Vieux Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

Signatories:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Normand Baillargeon, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al; Mario Beauchemin, Pr\u00e9sident de la FEC-CSQ; Claire Fortier, Coll\u00e8ge \u00c9douard-Montpetit; Isabelle Fortier, \u00c9cole nationale d\u2019administration publique; Gilles Gagn\u00e9, Universit\u00e9 Laval; Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Julien, Coll\u00e8ge \u00c9douard-Montpetit; Anna Kruzynski, Universit\u00e9 Concordia; Benoit Lacoursi\u00e8re, Coll\u00e8ge de Maisonneuve; Diane Lamoureux, Universit\u00e9 Laval; Georges Leroux, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al; Karim-Mathieu Lapierre, C\u00e9gep de St-J\u00e9r\u00f4me; Mich\u00e8le Nevert, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al, pr\u00e9sidente du SPUQ; Jacques Pelletier, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al; Martin Petitclerc, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al; Guy Rocher, Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al; C\u00e9cile Sabourin, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Trois-Rivi\u00e8res; Jean Trudelle, Coll\u00e8ge Ahuntsic, pr\u00e9sident de la FNEEQ-CSN; Louise Vandelac, Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

Endnotes:<\/p>\n

1.<\/a> An English translation: Broad coalition of the Association for student union solidarity.<\/p>\n

2.<\/a> In English: Coalition against fee-for-service and the privatization of public services.<\/p>\n

3.<\/a> A reference to the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec, a new right-wing party led by Fran\u00e7ois Legault, a former Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois minister. The CAQ recently absorbed the right-wing Action D\u00e9mocratique du Qu\u00e9bec (ADQ).<\/p>\n

4.<\/a> The report of the Parent Commission in the early 1960s launched a far-reaching educational reform that ended church control of education and led to the founding of a province-wide network of public universities and community colleges.<\/p>\n

5.<\/a> Bouchard, a former Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois premier, authored a right-wing manifesto a decade ago that was issued by prominent right-wing ideologues who called themselves \u201clucides<\/em>,\u201d the clear-eyed realists. It provoked the publication of an alternative manifesto from leading progressives who called themselves the \u201csolidaires<\/em>,\u201d those promoting solidarity of the oppressed and exploited. The name was subsequently adopted by Qu\u00e9bec solidaire.<\/p>\n

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