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April 9, 2012 - No. 50 Quebec Students Fight Tuition Fee Increases No Tuition Fee Hikes! Oppose Attempts to Turn Students' Defence of Right to Education into a Law-and-Order Matter!  "Education, a collective good!!" • No Tuition
Fee Hikes! Oppose Attempts to Turn Students' Defence of Right to
Education into a Law-and-Order Matter! - Marxist-Leninist
Party of Quebec (PMLQ) Quebec Students Fight Tuition Fee Increases No Tuition Fee Hikes! Oppose Attempts to Turn Students' Defence of Right to Education into a Law-and-Order Matter!The Marxist-Leninist Party of Quebec (PMLQ) denounces the recent manoeuvres by the Quebec government -- through judicial bodies, administrations at education institutions and the police -- to criminalize the students' fight for the right of all to education and turn it into a law and order matter. In Alma, the college administration has threatened some students, backed by police and security guards, with the loss of their session if they refuse to submit to the injunction forcing them back to class. Some injunctions from the Quebec Superior Court to break the student strike in Montreal and Quebec City were granted on the basis that the labour code's provisions for strikes do not apply to student strikes. Shame on the Quebec government which is fully to blame for the present crisis and for its refusal to freeze tuition fees.
Anti-Social Basis of the Demand that Students "Do Their Part"Charest says that students go to school to better their
personal situation and therefore it is
fair that they do their part. According to him students are a special
interest group outside of the general interest of society. There are
the people who already pay for education (whom
Charest refers to as the "taxpayers" so as to exclude the youth) and
there are the students who must do their share too. On the contrary,
the demands of the
students are part of the claims all members of society are entitled
to make on society by virtue of the fact that they are born to society
and depend on it for their well-being.
This includes the right of the youth to be educated to serve society
and the responsibility of the government to guarantee this right. For Jean Charest and the Liberals, the demands of the students do not serve the general interest of society and are on the contrary a burden on society and taxpayers, what they call the "middle class," and the government cannot afford to pay for them because it has no money. The fundamental responsibility of the government as the guardian of the well-being of the people and the nation is not, according to the Charest Liberals, to see to the realization of the rights of all but to "balance the budget" and pay the debt. According to this neoliberal logic, students are consumers, people who require health care are consumers and so are those who use other social programs and public services. They must "do their part" through the introduction of all kinds of user fees and special taxes. However, those who take possession of the natural and human resources of Quebec for their private enrichment are working for "the economic development of Quebec." This anti-social outlook must not pass! No to Politicizing Private Interests and Depoliticizing Public InterestsIn the 2012 budget of the Charest government, huge sums of public money are diverted into pay-the-rich schemes: tax credits for work force training and research and billions in infrastructure and direct handouts for the Northern Plan. These pay-the-rich schemes and the neoliberal policies of the Northern Plan are justified with the logic that putting all the nation's resources at the disposal of the global monopolies will produce economic development and it is therefore in the general interests of Quebec to do so. This discourse is what is called politicizing private interests. It is done by depoliticizing the public interest, such as guaranteeing the right to education for all, which instead becomes the private affair of the individual student who wishes to improve their situation by getting a degree. Therefore those who want the degree must "do their share" because they are doing it for their own private interests. What It Means to Be Political
The use of the courts, disinformation and law-and-order measures against the students shows that the Charest government refuses to account for its anti-social and anti-national agenda and that the students are entirely justified in forcing it to be politically accountable. To be political is to defend the individual and collective rights and harmonize the individual and collective rights with the general interests of society. It is to take up the social responsibility to decide the political, economic and social affairs of the nation. To be political today is to defend the public good against the sell-out of the nation's resources for private interests and to defend the social programs and public services against privatization in the service of private interests. It is to fight to restrain monopoly right and defend public right on all questions. To be political is to stop the backward motion of society to medievalism when everyone was forced to fend for themselves. To be political is to push society past the crisis-ridden welfare state towards a modern society that recognizes that all have rights by virtue of being born to society and that the responsibility of the state is to guarantee these rights.
The PMLQ condemns the government of Quebec and holds it responsible for the situation in education. The Charest government must maintain the freeze on tuition fees while the issue of financing education and guaranteeing the right to education is discussed among the people so they can express their clear and coherent opinion on the matter. The PMLQ hails the students of Quebec who, despite the difficulties imposed by the government in its attempt to criminalize them, continue to demand the right to education for all. The PMLQ calls on the people of Quebec to continue to step up their support for their sons and daughters who resist and persist, confident in the justness of their cause. By defending their interests, they defend the interests of society, in favour of a bright future for all.
Students Denounce Use of Courts and Reiterate that a Political Problem Requires a Political Solution
Three student unions and their allies have denounced the recourse to the courts to sabotage the student movement against increased tuition fees. They point out that the tuition increase is a political problem and requires a political solution. On March 29, Judge Lemelin of the Quebec Supreme Court ordered that the picket lines of the Alma college students be lifted, saying "the legality of the strike is questionable" and that this pressure tactic touches on "labour laws." A student at the CEGEP d'Alma asked for the injunction. The Alma students held a demonstration to denounce this recourse to the courts. "The majority of CEGEP d'Alma students democratically chose to strike, and it is totally unacceptable to allow a court to cancel that choice. We are angry and we will make it known!" said Émile Duchesne, President of the Alma College Student Association (AÉCA). The AÉCA also announced that it would hold a new strike vote, in order to consult its members on a follow-up action plan. "The decision to strike is a political decision that must be taken democratically by the students, and not imposed by a court. We will consult our members again in due course on the strike on [March 29]," Duchesne added. On April 2, University of Laval students had to let
through a student who wanted to go to attend an anthropology class,
after
the Quebec Supreme Court granted a provisional injunction against their
picket lines. In his
ruling, Judge Lemelin said, "it is appropriate to ask serious
questions about student rights [... of those] who wish to study and
complete
their school year with complete freedom." The week before, a University of Montreal law student seeking a similar injunction lost his case. The Université du Québec à Montréal has also said it will go to court to have the picket lines removed so as to resume classes. Far from condemning these court proceedings, the Education Minister declared them a legitimate recourse for students who support the tuition increase to attend their classes and predicted a "week from hell" for those who want to save their degree. "Such a judicial intervention in the political field is extremely worrying. This will only throw fuel on the fire," said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson for the Broad Coalition of Student Union Solidarity (CLASSE). "The decision to strike must be taken collectively and democratically. It is unfortunate that the courts have cut off the debate. Will we see a resurgence of legal remedies for the campuses on strike?" asked Mr. Nadeau-Dubois.
Jean Trudelle, President of the National federation of Quebec Teachers expressed profound concern at an injunction granted to a University of Laval student by Judge Bernard Godbout. "The battle taken up by the student movement to block the tuition increase is social and highly political. We deplore that the debate is being carried to the courts in response to individual demands to the detriment of collectively taken decisions," he said. "This is not the first time in Quebec's history that the courts have tried to stifle a popular movement and it has never worked. Be it in Alma or elsewhere, we will not let any court bully the democratic will of the Quebec students," said CLASSE spokesperson Nadeau-Dubois. He added that CLASSE will fight any legal request to prevent the student strikers from picketing. (Translated from original French by TML Daily) Students Continue Strike Actions Ten thousand students demonstrate in Sherbrooke, April 4, 2012. Far from being defeated or intimidated by the legal
actions and other measures that attempt to block them, the students
and their
increasing number of allies have intensified their actions. "Students will not retreat or give in and will continue to fight as long as this government persists in its desire to indebt Quebec families. Quebec youth are standing up and will make every effort to be heard by the government!" said Martine Desjardins, President of the FEUQ. "If they think they can crush the student movement with a few injunctions -- Mr. Charest, as Youth Minister [under Prime Minister Mulroney], you should know we won't be silenced. You can trust the student movement to find new ways to shame this government," said Léo Bureau-Blouin, President of the FECQ. "This spring belongs to the students and to all those who reject the decadent policies of the Jean Charest Liberal government awash with corruption and usury. By refusing to discuss with the students, he has confessed his own guilt," said the FEUQ and FECQ in a joint press release. On April 2, more than 3,000 students responded to the call of the Broad Coalition of Student Union Solidarity (CLASSE) and also demonstrated in Sherbrooke. "After eight weeks on strike, its time for the student's
anger be heard in Jean Charest's riding," said Jeanne Reynolds,
co-spokesperson for CLASSE. CLASSE also informed at the action that of the 192,000 students on strike, 77,330 are now officially on strike indefinitely, and no renewal votes will take place unless a formal offer from the Liberal government is made. "If the Minister of Education believed that the student movement would run out of steam after March 22, she was mistaken. There are now 77,330 people who will not even consider returning to class until the minister makes a formal offer to the student movement," said Reynolds. "The future of Quebec is no longer in your hands, it is
in ours," said Olivier Mercier, spokesperson for the Sherbrooke CEGEP
Students' Association. CLASSE took the opportunity to announce an important
resolution adopted at its congress last weekend -- the establishment of
a
negotiating committee with the other provincial students associations.
This put a stop to the monopoly media propaganda and attempts to create
divisions within the student movement. "We're highlighting the solidarity among the student
federations regarding the negotiations with the government. It's the
entire student movement that will go before the Minister of Education
to find alternatives to the tuition increase," said Gabriel
Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson for CLASSE, who indicated
that CLASSE will refuse to negotiate in the absence of the other
student organizations.
April 2 also saw more than 500 McGill University students demonstrate in the streets of downtown Montreal. Like their counterparts at Concordia, they are facing threats from the administration. Also in Montreal, on March 31, thousands on bikes and rollerblades took part in an action to defend the tuition freeze, denouncing Minister of Education Line Beauchamp's intransigence. The day before, the Minister said she would negotiate with the students if they abandoned their stand on the tuition freeze. Needless to say, this statement increased the anger of the students organizations which reiterated their calls for a tuition freeze. In Laval on March 31, 500 students held an action
outside meeting of Liberal Party members, while Liberal leader Jean
Charest provocatively told the gathering that he "always listens to
the students." "The future of Quebec is
not in freezes, in moratoriums and closures. It's the Quebec
universities, it's the Quebec society,
it's the choice we have made and our government will defend it, because
it's the only possible choice for the future," said
the Premier. Apparently he
wasn't interested in defending his stand
to the students, exiting through the back door under escort.  Quebec City, April 4, 2012 In the Quebec City region students continue to organize activities to oppose the government's decision to raise tuition. On Thursday, April 12, students in health sciences will mobilize on St-Jean Street. Dressed in lab coats, they will denounce the tuition increase at the traffic lights on Laurier boulevard. The same day, History Graduate Students Association has called an action at the Gabrielle Roy Library at 3:00 pm. Participants will be invited to share quotes on the topic of education and inscribe them using chalk, pencils and cardboard. Meanwhile, architecture students have maintained their "red line" every morning on Honoré-Mercier Boulevard for the second consecutive week. As well, two more actions were held on April 4; one at the University of Quebec Park, and the other at the corner of Honoré-Mercier Boulevard and St-Jean Street. In the Outaouais, students at the Université du
Québec en
Outaouais voted on April 2 to renew their strike. Other notable actions
include a vote by the students at the École secondaire
Grande-Rivière, a high school in the Aylmer area, in
favour of a demonstration against increased tuition fees. When the
students were blocked from taking action on their decision by the
administration, striking students from CEGEP de
l'Outaouais held a demonstration outside the school. In related news, the collective of unions and students at the university level, in a recent meeting of the University Partners Roundtable (TPU), denounced the government's refusal to have open dialogue and negotiate with the students to end the strike. The TPU expressed its outrage at the lack of genuine dialogue and the imposition of higher tuition fees as a so-called fair share to be paid by students. The TPU also deemed it necessary to to set the record straight on its December 6, 2010 meeting which the Charest government has been flogging non-stop to justify its intransigence. The TPU explained that students were not the only ones to walk away from the table. The TPU denounced the ideological orientation of the discussion at that meeting. It highlighted that the government's attitude there was clearly laid down by Finance Minister Raymond Bachand who left the December 2010 proceedings with this parting shot: "You wanted to discuss something else, that is your right, but the agenda was clear." The continuing actions leave no doubt about the
students' determination, which is earning the admiration of the entire
population. Education Is a Right!     Rimouski, March 19, 2012 (Translated from original French by TML
Daily. Photos: H. Laporte, S. Fournier) Politicization of Private Interests in Education
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The
PMLQ
denounces
the
arrogance
of
the
recent
declarations
of Education Minister Line Beauchamp. They show the
Charest government's desperation in the face of the students'
determination. The Minister is trying to divide students with
pronouncements to the effect that those who are against the tuition
hikes
are defending a "social cause," while those who seek injunctions
against the strike are defending "individual rights." It is a pathetic
attempt to pit individual rights against collective rights, while
totally ignoring the fact that it is in the general interests of Quebec
society to defend the right to education. It is also a pretext to
justify resorting to law-and-order measures to realize
what it calls individual rights. This is utter hypocrisy, because the
harmonization of individual and collective rights with the general
interests of the society is a concern that belongs to the entire body
politic, not something that is brought into being by a government
decree or by the courts. By resorting to the courts,
disinformation, police violence and rule by decree, the government
reveals its refusal to render account for its anti-social agenda. This
covers up the
broad offensive the government is carrying out against the public good,
including the individual and collective rights of students, to
steal Quebec's social wealth for the enrichment of the few. By opposing
the massive tuition fee increases, the students are
defending the public good from the broad imposition of monopoly right
taking place in Quebec today.
 "Education is a right, not a commodity." |
Ménard warmly thanked the consulting firm McKinsey, which is part of the group. The company's website reads, "The Montreal office of the McKinsey team has supported the work of the Action Group on Student Retention and Academic Success. At the heart of this work, the team conducted research and analysis, consolidated the Group's recommendations and orchestrated the writing of the report: 'Literacy for Empowerment: undertaking a national project on student retention.'" McKinsey, headquartered in Paris, has been linked to Enron and Worldcom.
Less than a week after the group filed its report, the Charest government, through the Youth Secretariat, launched its Youth Action Strategy 2009-2014 on March 27, 2009. The Ministry of Education also announced that this strategy "proposes a new approach to enhance and improve government action on this important issue: the joint initiative between the government and the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation [...] with additional investments totalling $50 million." Of this, $25 million comes from state coffers and $25 million from the foundation. That same day, Ménard issued a press release where he hailed the news: "The partnership between the Quebec government and the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation [...] will allow the establishment of an essential support structure to the regions in the fight against dropouts, as we recommended in our report Literacy for Empowerment."
Note that the Chagnon Foundation is part of Ménard's Action Group on student retention.
A few months later, in September and October 2009, the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill 6 and 7 introduced in March of that year, establishing public-private funds in the education and social services sectors, that instituted the Chagnon Foundation's participation (see TML Daily, December 22, 2009 - No. 239). According to the Chagnon Foundation, its partnership in Bill 7, An Act to establish an early childhood development fund in the fight against school dropouts will cost $25 million in public funds and an equal amount from the Chagnon Foundation. Also according to the Foundation, the various partnerships between the Quebec government and the Foundation totalled, in 2010, $1 billion 50 million.
Since 2009, several groups were formed after these agreements. One of these is the Mobilys Foundation, a charity (for which Ménard and his son are respectively president and vice president) specializing in the development of interactive platforms -- Facebook pages, for example -- and who in 2011 received 1.5 million over 3 years from the Ministry of Education. On the organization's website, funding is solicited using the following arguments;
"Why fund the Mobilys Foundation?
"- The private sector must play a significant role in stimulating youth retention in school to ensure a qualified and competent relief force.
"- Because Mobilys permits companies to involve their employees in a simple and effective manner.
"- Because for every dollar invested, the Education Ministry contributes equally, thus doubling the private sector's impact."
In December 2009, following a partnership agreement with the Youth Secretariat and the André Chagnon Foundation, the group Réunir Réussir ("Unite Succeed") was formed. Its mandate is to manage the $50 million fund for academic success.
Avenir d'enfants ("Children's Future"), also a non-profit organization created in October 2008, "to support the overall development of children five years and younger living in poverty in order to promote successful school entry" administers a sum of $400 million to be disbursed over ten years; $250 million from the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation and $150 million from the Young Children's Development Fund under the charge of the Ministry for Families and Seniors.
In 2010, the monopoly Rio Tinto announced a $15 million investment over five years for its program Together for Student Retention. "We were struck by the high dropout rate and the alarm sounded by Mr. L. Jacques Ménard and Education Minster Michelle Courchesne," said Jacynthe Côté, Chief executive of Rio Tinto Alcan at a Montreal Chamber of Commerce luncheon. "... The program Together for Student Retention supports community organizations that have proven themselves in encouraging student retention and who work in areas where Rio Tinto Alcan is present."
The introduction of public-private partnerships in education goes far beyond the financial issue. Individuals such as Ménard and Chagnon have privileged positions in society, by their wealth and their links with the establishment.
Their perspective on Quebec's future is dictated by their vision focused on private capital taking precedence over the public domain. L. Jacques Ménard, with the publication of his book, said, "I propose that basically our governments govern instead of taking their own pulse poll to poll. Business leaders should assume the risks inherent with their role and lead us towards sufficient wealth to sustain the ambitions of our youth. Union leaders should return to being leaders that provoke change, rather than fall back on their past and their so-called immutable rights."
In his report "Literacy for Empowerment," Ménard reiterates his anti-worker position. In the section called "Action 9: Incorporating incentives and tools to manage performance targeting student retention in the education system, based on the recently enacted law to that effect," he writes, "The rigidity of collective agreements is a block to the establishment of effective incentives."
Charest puts hundreds of thousands of dollars from the socialized economy into private hands (not to mention all the tax exemptions for foundations) and these unelected individuals are taking advantage of their privileged positions to decide where that money should be invested. Claude Chagnon, eldest son and president and chief operating officer of the Foundation, said in an interview to L'Actualité, "Quebec is still in its infancy in this area [new philanthropy]. But the time when foundations were content to receive requests and sign over cheques is over." As for Rio Tinto, the Alma aluminum workers have rightly pointed out the hypocrisy of the monopoly that boasts of investing in future generations as it attempts to sell out the future of an entire region to quench its thirst for profit and domination.
He who pays the piper calls the tune, as the saying goes. The Quebec people refuse to surrender control of their social wealth that should be invested in education and social programs, to the hands of a wealthy minority, who uses their position to impose an anti-social vision and interfere in public services. The arrangements made by the Charest government and the National Assembly with the Chagnon Foundation politicize their private interests and further marginalize the efforts of public sector workers to defend public education programs that allow all to express their humanity. The social wealth is created by the labour of the Quebec working class which must be placed in a position to decide where and how it should be invested.
(Ministry of Education, Observatoire Chagnon, Persévérance scolaire, Mobilys, Rio Tinto, Wikipedia, McKinsey, L'Actualité. Translated from original French by TML Daily)
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