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May 16, 2012 - No. 70 Quebec Blame the Charest Government, Not the
Students,
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 Student demonstration, Sherbrooke, April 25, 2012: "Democracy thrown in the garbage?!" |
Jean Charest's position is childish. His notion of democracy is not for "in between elections" as well as "during an election." His "I am elected to decide and your role is to submit" definition of what democracy stands for is in contempt of everything the so-called democratic institutions are said to stand for. To make speeches according to which the courts and police are an integral part of making sure democracy is preserved merely exposes that Charest's democracy is not the people's democracy, as is also the case with the Harper dictatorship. All Charest's class brothers and all his class sisters agree with him but this does not make it right. Just because they wield the power to imprison the students does not make their notion of democracy any more credible! This democracy still needs renewal!
The long and short of the Charest government's incredible foolishness is that the government is squarely responsible for the anarchy and violence it is fuelling at an increasingly rapid rate. It should stop it immediately. This demand is not negotiable. It should stop creating anarchy and violence, and it could do so by rescinding the fee hikes, setting up a National Commission to discuss the proposals of the students, as well as the government, professors and any other interest in the society that wishes to make itself heard and permitting the public to draw their own warranted conclusions. All the norms of a public inquiry, information and discussion must be enforced so that warranted conclusions can be drawn in a professional manner, not by twisting conclusions to achieve the results pre-decided by private interests.
The government must stop trying to scam everyone into submitting to its corruption. It must stop criminalizing political life and the students. Blame the government, not the students, for anarchy and violence!
Oppose the Criminalization of Political Life in Quebec
Students face the riot police at Lionel Groulx Cegep May 15, 2012 (L) and Rosemont Cegep (R) May 14, 2012. (CUTV)
The failure of the Quebec government to impose its dictate on the students has now led it to criminalize even further the political life in Quebec in a manner that harbours serious dangers for not only Quebec but also the entire country.
The blame for the failure of the democratic institutions to earn the respect of the students lies squarely with Jean Charest, his government and the entire ruling class and their media. Those institutions are focussed on paying the rich and using the state apparatus to achieve that aim. Their program to usurp all the assets of society to ensure the rich make big scores is behind the program to raise student fees and the students have rightly pointed out this fact.
Students have called for a reasonable discussion on how the universities could be managed differently. They explain that the inquiry they have done thus far indicates no problem of underfunding per se but rather mismanagement of the funds at the disposal of the Cegeps and universities. This mismanagement arises because the people in charge serve private interests instead of the public interest. Serving the public interest requires that the right to education be provided with a guarantee so that society can flourish for the good of all.
Rather than dealing with opposing viewpoints in a responsible political manner, the Quebec state is criminalizing the students' right to their own conscience and organizing violent assaults on them for putting forward their demands. The government is now threatening to up the ante. While police assaults on students increase, rumours of other draconian measures it might take are heightening tensions. Such criminalization of the political life of Quebec goes against the interests of the entire polity.
In spite of accusations of brazen corruption, the Charest government continues to hand over wealth produced by the Quebec working class and people to private interests. It is thus a matter of great shame that all official circles across the country have joined the chorus calling for the use of police powers against the students. This shameful activity includes the establishment political parties that are either demanding an escalation of the attacks against the students or running for their lives lest they be branded with the same brush as the students.
This is not a time to play coy. It is not a time to pretend to side with the students and their right to education by dividing them into good students versus bad students. It is not a time to speak about the need to uphold the democratic institutions against some alleged lawlessness of the students. Referring to the slander that the demand of the students is extremist, one student put it very eloquently: Asking for a profound change in the direction of the education policy is a political stand not a bloodbath, she said. Why is the government responding with a bloodbath and then saying the students are extremists?
CPC(M-L) calls on all democratic political and social forces across the country to take clear stands on who is responsible for the escalation of the crisis in Quebec. The students are fighting with conviction and sincerity yet are met with rubber bullets, tear gas, truncheons, arrests, beatings and criminalization. They are even threatened with fines should they refuse to return to class. How can such things be justified no matter what high ideals are cited?
The Charest government is directly
responsible for
creating an atmosphere of anarchy and violence with its illegitimate
attempt to raise tuition fees to benefit the banks and private
interests that use skilled workers without paying society for their
education. The government wants students and their parents to pay
exorbitant interest rates to guarantee odious profits for the banks.
The proposed tuition fee hikes have nothing to do with the issue of
underfunding of universities or making them competitive or making
Quebec students equal to their counterparts in the rest of Canada. The
fee hikes have everything to do with paying
the rich and perpetuating a system of class privilege not only in
Quebec but also across the country.
CPC(M-L) also rejects the suggestion that those who benefit from the government's corruption and pay the rich schemes should be the ones who decide to use police powers against the students. It must not pass!
Using police powers to criminalize political life in Quebec serves private monopoly interests. The media, political parties and legislatures in the service of these private interests should not be permitted to deliberate on the legitimacy crisis of the democratic institutions and blame the students for the shortcomings of those institutions. The criminalization of politics on the part of the ruling circles is self-serving and highly irresponsible; their dogmatic discourse contributes to lowering the level of political life even further. It is unacceptable to dismiss those who think differently by marshalling even more police powers. Their aim to keep the people at bay to prevent them from taking up and having a say on the problems they and their society face cannot be achieved because the people demand their say and right to be at the centre of all aspects of life in this modern world.
The Charest government faces an election in the next few months and the ability of the Official Opposition to take a political stand that favours the polity is in serious doubt. The increasing use of police powers, criminalization of political life and the pathetic media campaign to create sympathy for Jean Charest serve to divert the attention of the people at home and abroad away from the real issues facing them and their society. This includes the unconscionable use of the state and its institutions to pay the rich and depoliticize the demands and needs of the people.
CPC(M-L) calls on all democratic forces to oppose in no
uncertain terms the criminalization of political life in Quebec and
Canada by the Charest and Harper dictatorships. Denounce with contempt
the government and media attempts to justify the criminalization of
political life and divert the people from the
issues they face. Stand firmly with the Quebec students to hold the
Charest government to account to freeze tuition fees and not turn back
the clock on the historic mission to give the right to education a
lawful guarantee.
The Mire of the Government's
Unscrupulous Behaviour
Victoriaville, May 4-5, 2012: "Charest + cronyism = corruption"; "Arrogance: the 'power' of the weak."
Unscrupulous Behaviour: Having or showing no moral principles; not honest or fair.
TML once again denounces the disinformation of the Quebec government, the media and reactionary forces which divert from the substantive issue for which the students in Quebec are fighting. Despite their disinformation, the students are not in the least confused.
As of May 14, close to 200,000 students had held general assemblies and rejected the unscrupulous tentative agreement the government announced on May 5. The government claimed the agreement was the product of negotiations between the government and representatives from the student associations along with the Conference of University Rectors and Principals of Quebec (CREPUQ), the Federation of CEGEPs and various labour unions. The triumphalist statements issued by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education to sum up the negotiations as well as the brutal police attacks at Victoriaville most certainly contributed to the students' anger and rejection of what the government called the deal. The main reason why this offer was so massively rejected, however, was because it was a fraud; its aim was to fool the students into giving up their strike and demands in exchange for a unconfirmed inquiry into how the universities are managed and unconfirmed commitment to put savings identified into eliminating user fees and then the increased fees. It quickly became clear that the rectors of the universities and directors of the CEGEPs would in no way agree to such a review and that the students were to exercise no control over the process. The so-called agreement kept intact the plan to make the students in need and their parents pay the banks for their education by indebting themselves and then stretching out the period during which they pay interest on the debt under the hoax of making education affordable. Stopping the fee increases is the sole demand of the student strikes since mid-February and the students have proposed measures that make it so.
Two Visions Clash
It is claimed universities are underfunded to the tune of $620 million. The government says the students must pay and the students say the money is already in the system. It is misspent.
"One must clearly understand that the resources destined for teaching are lower than those available to Canadian universities as recognized in the government's, 'A Fair and Balanced University Funding Plan' presented in its 2011-2012 budget. This underfunding of Quebec universities is evaluated at $620 million, or $3,100 less per student," the president-elect of the board of the CREPUQ, Ms. Luce Samoisette, Rector of the University of Sherbrooke said.
"The underfunding of Quebec
universities is recognized
by all, and has been for many years. It is high time the situation is
resolved," Daniel Zizan, president-director general of CREPUQ, added.
Thus there is no disagreement that resources destined for teaching are missing. The disagreement is over the neoliberal scheme of the Quebec government to make the students pay higher fees by indebting themselves and their parents to the banks so as to increase the profits of the private banks. The banks' interest payments are guaranteed by the government, meanwhile, the monopolies receive educated and skilled labour free of cost. This is the issue.
The money in the system is also squandered in corrupt deals and public-private-partnerships that end up as boondoggles. Students point out that Premier Jean Charest wants "users" -- Quebec citizens -- to pay for access to higher education, hospitals, etc. in order to conform to his public-private-partnership (P3) agreements. It is part of the plan of governments across the country to continue to take from the public purse to pay the rich. These governments are unscrupulous. They have no interest in public institutions, "other than to deliver them to the private sector in exchange for the contents of a brown envelope and a lucrative seat in a corporate boardroom at the expiry of a political career," one student pointed out.
One student explained: "In June 2008, then-Education Minister Michelle Courchesne [President of the Treasury Board, who now takes over as Education Minister from Line Beauchamp who resigned May 14] said she would introduce a bill in the 2008 fall session of the National Assembly that would tighten governance at Québec universities as a result of a $750 million real estate disaster at UQAM called Îlot Voyageur. During each of the student protests that pass the corner of Berri and Ontario Streets, demonstrators point at the concrete skeleton that has languished unfinished since 2008 and collectively at 'boo' this symbol of the Education Ministry's negligence and management of Quebec universities. Ironically, as President of the Treasury Board, member of the negotiating committee and signatory of the current 'agreement,' Courchesne reveals her government's recurring ineptitude that the student movement is opposing. They denounced the government's attempt to offload its responsibilities to a Provisional Council that would pit students against university administrations, creating divisions in society rather than seeking genuine solutions and conciliation."
Government's Unscrupulous Behaviour
The government's offer to the students in the May 4-5 marathon negotiating session confirms its insincerity in dealing with the student crisis, its incompetence at managing public institutions and its totally unscrupulous nature, students say.
Nothing in the "agreement" addresses the tuition fees nor offers any proposal for reducing the 82 per cent tuition increase over seven years. The document proposes to end the crisis with the establishment of a Provisional University Council (PUC), whose mandate would be to make recommendations to the Minister of Education by December 31 about "the optimal utilization of universities' financial resources and show, where they exist, recurrent savings that can be freed up." There is also no commitment to use these potential savings to reduce tuition increases. Instead they would be used to decrease the $500-$800/year user fees universities have been allowed to charge over the last few years. It is irrational because these vary greatly from institution to institution making it an untenable proposal. Furthermore, if no savings can be "freed," then the status quo prevails. As well, the deal contained no provisions to prevent universities from continuing the practice of unilaterally increasing user fees! As a temporary measure, the deal proposed $125 reduction in user fees to compensate for the tuition increase during the 2012 fall semester.
Once it became known that the university rectors had no intention of permitting their affairs to be reviewed, it was clear there would be no deal. It was all smoke and mirrors.
The proposed 19-person Provisional Council was to effectively audit universities to flush out administrative spending abuses. Based on the composition of the Provisional Council (six university rectors, four union members, two people from the corporate sector, one CEGEP administrator, two government bureaucrats and four student representatives) its motivation to scrutinize university spending practices and recommend budget cuts to reduce student fees was doubtful from the outset. Before she resigned, Education Minister Line Beauchamp was quoted in Le Devoir saying, "If gains for students are to be had, they still need to be calculated and are not guaranteed." This opened the door for the Provisional Council to declare that university spending practices have been optimized and that no money can be "freed" from their budgets.
The Degeneration of Bad Faith Negotiations
Based on reports by members of the student negotiating teams present at the meetings, corroborated by union leaders present, the government instilled a false sense of urgency to the 22-hour-long talks that left student representatives without sleep for two days. At one point during the negotiations, the students were told that their proposals for the Provisional University Council would be accepted and that there would be parity in representation. It was also suggested that a moratorium on tuition increases would result from the Provisional Council's findings. This created a sense of achievement for student negotiators who understood they had a deal. Afterwards, the government negotiated with each of these representatives separately, at a time they were too tired to think straight. The government engaged in the unscrupulous practice of modifying a few lines here and changing a few words there, effectively diluting the offer and eliminating any hint of its intention to resolve the dispute in a mutually beneficial manner. Then, in another flurry of urgency, individual student negotiators were reconvened to sign the document even though they were not clear that it no longer resembled what they had previously agreed to.
This kind of trickery is beyond what are called bad faith negotiations. It is beneath contempt. It is to the merit of the youth that they stood as one to reject with all the contempt it deserves the agreement said to have been reached given the situation. And for this, they are now being punished even more, with harsher penalties, with more attempts to force them to submit. It is not only self-serving. It is cowardly through and through.
What the Student Associations Had to Say
The Broad Coalition for Student Union Solidarity (CLASSE), representing the majority of the students, rejected the government offer at its May 10 National Convention. "The only thing the negotiating committees actually signed was a commitment to present this offer before the general assemblies so that students could discuss it and vote on it. We did not go back on our word, since we never accepted the offer such as it was," Jeanne Reynolds, the spokesperson for the CLASSE, explained.
"After three months, how can we come back empty-handed? How could we be satisfied with an offer that is so ambiguous as to its meaning as concerns reducing the student fees and which does not respect the issues for which students are on strike in the first place?" she asked. "The message we are sending the Minister is that if she wants to see students go back to class, there will have to be an offer concerning the fee hikes, and not things concerning user fees or even student loans."
Meanwhile, the member
associations of the Quebec
Federation of University Students (FEUQ) unanimously rejected the
government's offer. "The associations within the FEUQ have unanimously
rejected the offer," Martine Desjardins said. In addition to rejecting
the offer the students demanded clarification about
what the government intends to do, she said, pointing out that the
students reaffirmed their demands.
Following a series of consultations, the Quebec Federation of College Students (FECQ) announced that the agreement reached between the student associations and the government was deemed incomplete by the member associations. FECQ association members rejected the agreement in its current form by 83 per cent.
Demand for an Independent Public Inquiry
into the Events in Victoriaville
On May 9, the Coalition Against User Fees and the Privatization of Public Services, requested a independent public inquiry into the police actions at the events organized by the Coalition May 4-5 in Victoriaville at the Quebec Liberal Party's (PLQ) General Council meeting to protest the government's anti-social offensive.
"Today, we denounce Jean Charest's management of the student conflict and the police intervention strategies," the Coalition wrote in a statement. "For the past three months, this outrageous mismanagement has aroused increasing anger among students and social movements. And in response to this increasing discontent caused by the government's bad faith on this issue, we witnessed in Victoriaville the escalation of repression used by the police, repression that nearly cost a protestor his life! Responsibility for this abuse lies with Jean Charest."
"We have not seen Jean Charest denounce the abusive violence exhibited by law enforcement with respect to the civil demonstration. When police fire rubber and plastic bullets, it is reasonable to ask whom condoned the violence," the Coalition added.
The Coalition's
co-spokesperson, Johanne Nasstrom,
addressed the casualties. "There were about 400 minor injuries treated
by
medics, including open wounds (some requiring stitches), burned eye,
bruising caused by projectiles, breathing difficulties due to gas and
sprained ankles. Is this the message of dialogue that
the government wants to send?"
"[The police] fired so much tear gas that people could not disperse. They vomited, fell on the ground, lost their sense of direction. [...] We found ourselves in a situation of total chaos," Nasstrom added.
"The Quebec Police [SQ] started bombarding all the demonstrators and protesters with tear gases, without warning or order to disperse, ten minutes after the demonstrators arrived outside the hotel in which the PLQ General Council was being held," Nasstrom explained. "Once the gas was launched, the demonstration broke up, the vast majority of demonstrators fleeing the noxious effect of the dangerous gas. In order to further disperse the demonstrators, the police gassed excessively for two hours and used plastic bullets, causing major injuries to some people attending the event."
"Many people were injured by police bullets, some very seriously. A young man caught one in the eye, suffered a fractured skull and lost the use of his eye. He had to undergo major surgery, remains hospitalized in intensive care, although his condition, first deemed critical, has stabilized. Another young man suffered a head injury and cerebral contusion. He stayed four days in intensive care under observation. A young girl suffered a broken jaw and lost several teeth. She was hospitalized for four days and underwent major surgery. "
"While the government has asked the student representatives to condemn violence, Jean Charest does not denounce the abusive violence exhibited by law enforcement as part of the civil demonstration. When police fire rubber and plastic bullets, it is reasonable to ask who authorized the violence. The Premier of Quebec, rather than making jokes in bad taste in front of some investors, should denounce police brutality," added Jeanne Reynolds, co-spokesperson of the Broad Coalition for Student Union Solidarity (CLASSE), also present at the press conference.
Dominique Peschard, spokesperson for the League of Rights and Freedoms, a member of the Coalition, said: "The number and severity of injuries caused by the use of plastic bullets for crowd control in Victoriaville alone are worthy of an independent public inquiry. However, since the beginning of the student strike the League of Rights and Freedoms has collected a set of material that warrants investigation focusing largely on the strategic plans used by law enforcement, including the use of various weapons, mass arrests and preventative detention conditions of detainees as well as conditions of release. In addition, the League calls for the immediate cessation of the use of plastic bullets and any other similar weapon as a technique for crowd control."
"What we have seen in Victoriaville is a real tragedy," said Marie Blais of the Quebec National Federation of Teachers (FNEEQ-CSN) and co-spokesperson of the Coalition. "After the event, people were shocked, stunned. Nobody thought that this kind of police operation could occur in Quebec," she said. The Coalition has also received numerous reports in recent days that many parents of students are just as shocked as those who were present at the event. "We cannot, as a society or government, defend freedom of expression only when it suits us. Rights are there to be protected precisely when they are threatened, and this is the responsibility of government," concluded Ms. Blais.
On May 9, delegates of the Central Trade Union of Quebec (CSQ) at their General Council meeting in Saint-Sauveur in the Laurentians, adopted a resolution condemning the police violence used against student protests, including at the May 4 demonstration in Victoriaville.
Some CSQ delegates were present in Victoriaville and witnessed the extent of the violence. The police rushed to gas and charge all the protesters present, with no justification, they said. To the CSQ delegates, the repressive attitude adopted by police forces since the start of the student conflict is very disturbing, troubling and unworthy of a democratic society.
"Never in the history of Quebec, have we seen a government be so obstinate and refuse to discuss with its students, its own youth, preferring instead to send them against heavily armed police who spared neither batons, nor rubber bullets nor tear gas canisters and [stun grenades]. The worst is to see the police make no distinction between the few, easily identifiable, vandals present and the vast majority of peaceful demonstrators of all ages," the CSQ delegates said.
The SQ Declares a Job Well Done
In response to the accusations, the next day the SQ, responsible for the police deployment in Victoriaville, announced that a review of the evidence collected "does not suggest that the three most seriously injured protesters were hit by plastic projectiles." The SQ spokesman Jean Finet presented his version of events denying any blame for the situation. In particular, he continued to keep secret the nature of the set-up to trap the demonstrators. Many of those present at these events describe what looks to be a plot to incite violence and chaos, especially with easily accessible materials like bricks and objects left behind the flimsy fences and near the hotel where the Liberal Party General Council was being held. Finet said the SQ let the protesters approach the building "for the sake of protecting their right to freedom of expression." The police have been criticized in the past for keeping protesters too far away from the targets of their protests, he said, and this time the SQ wanted to accommodate them. Totally ignoring the fact that the security forces had removed garbage bins, flower pots and other so-called projectiles from the entire town, he answered a question about the fact that there were construction materials and projectiles on the ground right next to the convention centre, by claiming that police "cannot control everything."
To divert attention from the police brutality and public perception of a plan to entrap the students, Finet said "1,110 arrests have been made so far but this number may increase." Even though all the events since the student strike and protests began show the students are not engaged in violent acts but peaceful civil disobedience, Finet shamelessly asked the public to help identify "the criminal perpetrators."
Artists Declare Solidarity with Student Strike
As the student strike entered its 13th week, far from running out of steam, the student movement has formed the basis of a larger popular mobilisation against the policies of the government. Given the strong relationship between education and culture, more than 500 artists and cultural workers signed a declaration of solidarity with the Quebec student general strike. Artists and cultural workers are calling upon the Minister of Culture Christine St-Pierre to be consistent with her mandate and take a public stand against the tuition hike.
Text of the Statement
We, the undersigned artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, performers and cultural workers of all disciplines, declare our solidarity with the Québec student strike movement.
The dramatic tuition increase being imposed by the Liberal government will further threaten equitable access to education and will bury future generations under massive debt. It represents a neoliberal policy of austerity economics that targets the social infrastructure of Québec and reinforces systemic social inequalities.
For months now, hundreds of thousands of striking students have taken to the streets, organising mass demonstrations, holding community teach-ins, performing creative and disruptive direct actions, to not only resist the tuition hike, but to affirm that education is a collective right, not a private commodity. Faced with a government that wants to reduce the production and transmission of knowledge to the logic of the market, students have clearly refused and voiced alternatives.
The assault on education is also an assault on culture. Artists and cultural workers also produce knowledge, they engage in the vitality of public discourse and ideas. The ideology underlying the current changes in the universities, of which the tuition hike is only one aspect, is the same ideology that aims to privatise and commodify our cultural production.
A society that values education and culture is vibrant and generous, one that does not become sickly and spiteful.
The struggle for accessible education is central to the broader struggle for social justice. As artists, we stand behind the students, just as they are standing in solidarity with current workers' struggles.
The Union des artistes, representing over 11000 members, publicly demanded a moratorium on tuition increases. On the national day of action, March 22, artist-run centres and cultural organisations across Québec closed their doors and their members joined the students in the streets. Many renowned artists, locally and abroad, have emphatically shown their support for the movement.
With this declaration, we commit to further amplifying the voice of the student struggle. We declare our steadfast support for the hundreds of thousands of students who have courageously ignited one of the largest popular mobilisations in Québec's history. We are inspired, we are thankful, and we will not let them fight alone.
We do not pretend to speak for them, nor in their name. We support, and will continue to support, the collective decisions taken by members of the CLASSE, the TACEQ, the FEUQ and the FECQ. We strongly condemn the repression and criminalisation of dissent that is currently taking place and denounce firmly the violence of the police, who seem to place the value of property above and beyond those of living people.
We demand that Minister St-Pierre, of the ministère de la Culture, des Communications et de la Condition féminine, respects the mandate that was given to her by protecting that which her own government is currently assaulting. We ask that Mrs St-Pierre immediately and publicly oppose the tuition hike and support the aspirations of a generation of students who have the future of society at heart.
To view the signatories: www.artistescontrelahausse.org
For more information:
artistescontrelahausse@gmail.com
Contact: Kevin Yuen Kit Lo, 514-686-7253
What the Students and People Have to Say
The government's refusal to discuss and negotiate lies in the fact that it is imposing private interests onto the Quebec society, in this case the demands of the banks to get guarantees for loans given to students with extended periods of repayment. The scam is not unlike the 40-year subprime mortgage deals which made the banks oodles of money before they either collapsed and brought all the people who had to forsake their homes down with them or were bailed out while the people lost their homes. It also serves the monopolies which want the government to finance only the kinds of skilled labour they want so as to be more competitive on global markets. This is called "investing in innovation and creativity." This is why the government refuses to discuss and refuses to listen to the youth who are proposing ways to finance the education system which is not on their backs to make it an even better asset for Quebec's youth and the society they will inherit.
A Reader in Montreal
***
The provocations escalated when the Minister of Education called a negotiating meeting for the weekend with many so-called partners all of whom were there to teach the youth how to negotiate! Around-the-clock negotiations should be abolished as they only serve to pull scams and trick one's adversaries. Of course the government forces have the advantage when it comes to trickery and fraud. The students are not there to engage in trickery and fraud. They are there to find a real solution to the crisis in education and their proposals merit serious attention. If the government held a serious public inquiry into what the education system requires and if the inquiry were indeed intended to strengthen the system of education to make it better able to serve the public good, then those who hold different opinions would not be criminalized. The entire society would draw warranted conclusions, make reasonable accommodations and so on. It would create and strengthen public opinion, strengthen the social fabric, instead of tearing it apart as the government is doing. Doing its duty to uphold the public good is not this government's aim.
A Student at the University of Quebec in Montreal
***
It was incredible to hear Education Minister Line Beauchamp run to the Liberal Council Meeting after the so-called weekend negotiations and crow, "Yeah! We made it and did not give an inch on the fee hike!" That said it all. The so-called negotiations were all a scam to get the youth to "behave" and give up their fight in defence of their right to education and in defence of the rights of all.
A Bus driver in Gatineau
***
The police assault on the youth in Victoriaville seems to have been prepared and brutally executed with precision. This is why, in their report, the police say they carried out their job "flawlessly." What the police are saying is that this is what they planned and what they planned is what they carried out. It was a job well done. Shame on them. Shame on their lack of social responsibility. When policing is no longer to preserve the peace but engage in combat against civil society, it shows the degeneration which is taking place.
A Mother who attended the demonstration with her daughter
***
At the beginning of the strike, Premier Jean Charest and Education Minister Line Beauchamp argued for tuition increases to resolve university underfunding. Their offer now claims that universities have more money than they need, allowing them to squander millions on severance packages, luxurious promotional trips and marketing campaigns.
A CEGEP student
***
The government's offer was aimed at further dividing the population and improving its position in opinion polls. The media say that opinion polls show 62 per cent of the population support Charest's tuition increases. This is not a credible result since the media do not explain the issues properly. They spread hysteria that the students buy $4.00 lattes and expensive cell phones and are spoiled brats. Then they report that an even higher percentage of people believe Jean Charest is seriously mismanaging the student crisis. All of it is to create confusion, isolate the youth and vindicate the police assaults. It is very irresponsible.
A McGill student
***
The current government has never considered the students' proposals aimed at preventing the further privatization of higher education and lowering of tuition fees. Jean Charest's adherence to a Private-Public Partnerships (P3) model of good governance has allowed his government to "invest" public funds into large infrastructure projects so that the private sector can reap big profits. The clash is over the kind of society Quebeckers want. The younger generation vs. the agents of the big corporations.
A Maisonneuve CEGEP student
***
One of the more interesting ideas that has been on the lips of students for months and has been absent in public debate, is the reinstatement of the capital gains tax on financial institutions. A slight 0.3 per cent capital gains tax on financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, etc.) would provide sufficient funds to freeze tuition to current rates with enough left over to effectively reduce tuition fees. A bit more could provide free tuition for everyone interested in a higher education. The Charest government actually cancelled the capital gains tax to financial institutions who continue to announce record profits, often in excess of $1 billion, every quarter. A recent Globe and Mail article, reports that "Canada's debt-to-income ratio was 151 per cent at the end of [2011]" and will probably rise to 160 per cent, "a similar level to that of the United States just before the financial crisis." With an increase in tuition rates of 82 per cent over seven years and student loans that are guaranteed for the banks, the Charest government is adding to the debt burden of middle class households while helping banks increase their profits.
Jean Charest is handing out billions of dollars in public funds for his legacy, the Northern Plan, to build roads and extend power lines to open up northern Québec to the mining and forestry industry. The government's $277 million subsidy to extend route 167 north of Chibougamau, that will lead nowhere other than a future uranium (Matoush project) and diamond mine (Foxtrot project) is just one example that would alone cover tuition increases.
Excerpt from a student's blog
***
While the Quebec government is using draconian methods to deprive the students of their right to conscience and abusing human rights in the most flagrant way with police attacks, it is also using "safe" noxious gases despite the experience with the mustard gas used in World War One and the effects these gasses have on the human person. This is not progress.
A Reader in Windsor
***
While Quebec students are truncheoned, with all party agreement, the political parties in the federal parliament held a take-note debate to express concerns about human rights abuses in Iran! It merely proves that they want NATO to bomb Iran and that they do not care about human rights at all!
A Reader in Windsor
***
The media say that the population of Quebec stands behind Jean Charest to pass draconian measures against the youth. This is not true. Workers are the majority in Quebec and we have our own experience about how these so-called democratic institutions facilitate robbery and fraud, using bankruptcy protection laws, stealing our EI funds and depriving us of our pensions, then claiming there is no money while the monopolies reap huge profits. In forestry the retirees were supposed to receive millions of dollars from the bankruptcy proceedings and this figure has systematically been dwindled into nothingness. All of it is done by one institution or another called democratic. What is democratic about these institutions escapes me.
As fas as I am concerned, the Charest government and Jean Charest personally are fully to blame for the crisis and the students are fighting for the people of Quebec, in defence of education and that is what the Charest government does not want to recognize.
A Worker in Rouyn Noranda
Demonstrations Continue
Every day and night students march in downtown Montreal, greeted as usual by the applause and encouragement of the residents in neighbourhoods they march through and from passing motorists. "Charest and his media are so desperate, they claim that students do not have the support of the population. The cause they are defending with such conviction is that of the future of education in Quebec so this cannot be. Look at everyone greeting us from their windows and porches!" one demonstrator told TML.
Montreal, May 15, 2012
Police block protestors' access to the Jacques Cartier Bridge during the students' 22nd consecutive
night march in Montreal, May 15, 2012. (Michelle in Montreal)
Longeuil, May 14, 2012
Students on strike block access to the Montval Building in Longeuil, May 14. This is the main headquarters of the Quebec government in the Montérégie. In addition to housing the regional offices of the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sport, the building houses the local Departments of Transportation, Environment, Economic Development and the Housing Authority and Office of Disability. (Universitv)
Outaouais, May 14, 2012
On May 14, 2012, following the resignation of Education Minister Line Beauchamp, hundreds of students in the
Outaouais took to the streets and held a mass march, with banners that read "No to the tuition hike!"
and "Charest, back off!" (luttesaouais)
Nightly demonstrations by students are taking place in Montreal under the slogan, "Manif de soir jusqu'à la victoire." Pictured here, a demonstration on the evening of May 6, 2012. Two students, a male and a female, denounced the police. Showing the high level of repression being used on regular basis, the officers then single out the two youth, rush through the crowd and violently tackle and arrest them. While the students chant slogans denouncing the police and demanding the immediate release of their comrades, further reinforcements of riot police arrive as well as a paddy wagon. (CUTV)
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