I think the whole issue is about separatist radicals using the students as a dupes/pawns in an effort to unseat the present Liberal government by forcing its leader Jean Charest to call an election with a resultant Parti Quebecois win and a following referendum on Quebec separating from Canada..

PS on a side note,As a newbie here and needing some info about some aspects of the forum how do you contact a moderator or get to a section devoted to helping newbee's?

that currently is 95% Meta and 5% Help.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1240

Don't let the long, contentious threads scare you - and feel free to post any questions you have there.

DU doesn't have moderators, but each Forum and Group has hosts, any of which you can contact with questions about that forum/group. You can find a list of hosts at the top of each forum/group by clicking the "About this Group" button.

Hope that helps!

I went to the meta section and every time i tried to post a question a window popped up telling me i dont have enough posts to create a topic..
Kinda defeats the purpose of having a help section as newbees are very likely to need help.
Being on many other forums i'm having a hard time navigating around this one as its not laid out like other forums,i'm sure you know what i mean, why is this forum different and why is the normal forum format not used?

Thanks
Jim

Let me end you a DU Mail with some info.

OTTAWA—Is the Quebec’s spring of discontent just the latest manifestation of a distinctive micro-climate or is it the harbinger of an angry Canadian season?

As the confrontation between premier Jean Charest and the Quebec student movement continues to spiral out of control, the tentative answer is a little of both.

While the Quebec circumstances are unique, no one should presume that the rest of the country and, in particular, major cities like Toronto are immune to the kind of social unrest that has overtaken Montreal.

Quebec does have a distinctive history of cyclical social crisis. Most of its elder statespersons earned their stripes by successfully challenging the status quo at the time of the 1960s Quiet Revolution.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1179442--hebert-quebec-s-streets-not-unique-in-staging-discontent

The "Liberal" government there is actually, for all practical purposes, a Conservative Party government. The Quebec Liberals, in fact, have been a party of center-right corporate bigshots since the early 1970's, when Robert Bourassa took over and committed the party to abandoning the progressive politics it had brought in in the 1960's, policies that were known as "The Quiet Revolution". It's not a party that you should feel any loyalty to as a left-of-center person.

Also, the proposals of the PQ are not for full independence, but for "sovereignty-association", which would essentially be a radically loosened federal arrangement. Those proposals, if implemented(and support for even sovereignty in Quebec is at record lows in the polls there at the moment) would not lead to the actual breakup of Canada, although they would change the constitutional structure of that country.

The student movement, however, is not the creature of the PQ. Quebec has a growing non-PQ left(in the Seventies and early Eighties, the PQ won far more support for its social democratic policies than it ever did for actual sovereigntism, but then threw those supporters under the bus by embracing the kind of neoliberal austerity program that all parties at botht the provincial and federal level in Canada have carried out since the late 1980's)and the student movement is a legitimate grassroots protest against the neoliberal austerity consensus, manifesting in this case in a direct protest against the neoliberal idea that all the costs of post-secondary education should ultimately be borne by the students themselves(ultimately, the people who are pushing for higher tuition costs also want to restrict the political content of university courses and, if they really get their way, a purge of leftists from university professorships as we saw in the U.S. in the 1950's). The movement is real, and it's fighting for you, unless, of course, you're a millionaire.

If you are Canadian, I suspect you've based your opinions on this issue from what you've read in the National Post and on Sun TV.

Last edited Fri May 18, 2012, 04:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I always thought "sovereignty-association", was a bit of a joke for Quebec its like wanting your cake and eating it to,like we are a separate nation from Canada but keep sending us all that Canadian money.If you are going to separate go all the way eh!
As for Quebecs breaking up Canada by its separation i look at it more like Canada ridding itself of a giant Albatross that just takes and gives little back.
As for the students? i cant believe a $300 increase in yearly tuition is the cause of so much discontent thus my thoughts as to the alternate agenda of separatists using the students as pawns.also the entire Assembly Nationale wearing red square badges in support of the students kinda give a big clue.
As for Quebec separation? its just under the surface and will become very apparent when the PQ get in and then call a referendum on the issue.
My observations about students and the topic of Quebecs separation come from local media + 2 daughters in Concordia and talking to 300+ guys at the factory most being uni lingual Francophone and their love of extolling the virtues of a separate Quebec.

That the students have to be defeated and the tuition increase imposed just to hold Canada together.

And it's incredibly insulting that you refuse to accept that the students could actually care about this issue but are only being used by separatists. That sounds like the people in the South in my country who argued that black folks would have been perfectly content to live under Jim Crow(or before that, spend their days happily singin' and dancin' in them old cotton fields back home)if it weren't for them pesky "outsiders&quot first the abolitionists, then the Communists)"putting ideas in their heads".

If you were a student, you'd be IN those protests-of your own free will.

I use the term Student lightly as many of the agitators arent students at all but you seriously think the massive student movement in Montreal is about a $300 raise in university tuition, a tuition i might add that is only $1500 per year to begin with?
Why is the French media portraying the current government in a negative light on the issue, Why are all the members of the separatist opposition Parti Quebecoise calling for the government to call an election over the issue,Why are all the unions in support of denying the incumbent government from instituting its $300 raise?

Your analogy that these students are in some way on par with the plight of the black slaves in America's past is rather insulting and makes light of those that lived through the ordeal of slavery and those through time that have had to endure the insidious racism that seems to thrive in your country.
A better analogy would put these people on par with last years OWS group only difference being they dont have to subject themselves to the discomfort of living in tents.

Out of curiosity Ken If all this turmoil was happening in your city what would be your solution to the problem?Cave in to the students demands to rescind the $300 raise in tuition?
Have massive protests in the streets eveytime the price on something goes up?
Sounds like Anarchy to me..

There's no reason to make it even more expensive to attend university.

I would NEVER say that the students have to be defeated in the name of the solely right-wing goal of "preserving order".
Order can only truly be preserved by creating a society free of injustice.

And no, I wasn't comparing the students to slaves...I was comparing the opponents of the students(and those students have widespread support all across Canada now, btw)with the slaveowners and with everyone who shares the mindset that nobody would challenge anything unless somebody else puts the idea in their heads.

This isn't JUST a battle about the tuition increase...it's a battle about the whole neoliberal program...whose objectives are not only to make university education affordable to the few, but to cut social benefits down to nothing, eliminate most if not all the legal protections workers have against the exploitative tendencies of management, remove environmental safeguards, and get rid of all rights and all benefits for people of color, including the First Nations(FN)communities all across Quebec and Canada.

And the PQ isn't opposing the tuition increase as part of a separatist conspiracy. It's opposing it because the grassroots left in Quebec (which has traditionally been one of the major components of the PQ electoral coalition, a component that now has a left alternative that it could potentially switch to in the recently formed Quebec Solidaire party)has forced them to take that position. Left to their own devices, the PQ wouldn't care about the tuition increase.

At this point, I really have to ask you, and I don't wish to be offensive...why are you posting on a left-of-center discussion forum when your political views seem to be clearly right-of-center(I could also ask why you work among francophones in Quebec when you appear to be an anglophone that is prejudiced against francophones, but I'll leave that aside for now...)?

We'll agree to disagree on some of the issues Ken, as for

"why are you posting on a left-of-center discussion forum when your political views seem to be clearly right-of-center"

"I could also ask why you work among francophones in Quebec when you appear to be an anglophone that is prejudiced against francophones",

Last edited Sat May 19, 2012, 03:53 PM - Edit history (1)

It's not as if this wouldn't be happening if Quebec's official opposition weren't separatist. Non-separatist leftists oppose massive and unjustified tuition increases as well. And anglophones all over Canada are supporting the Quebec students.

The federal Quebec NDP MP's are backing the students as well, from what I understand.

And really, what's so terrible about "let(ing) the kids run the show"? If that had happened in the U.S. in the 1960's, we'd have been out of Vietnam by 1968 and would have universal healthcare and full civil rights for all. Most of our problems come from letting bitter, cynical middle-aged types run the show(btw, I'm 51, before you start calling me agist).

The student fight here is also a fight for the working class. If the increase goes through this time, they'll just keep increasing tuition, and they'll make it impossible for any of your kids to ever get a college education(this has been the goal of the right here in the States since they were forced to accept the passage of the G.I. Bill after World War II).

Finally, the Quebec government isn't trying to wipe out Engish culture, they're simply trying to protect francophone culture, which is endangered from the perpetual incursion of English from three different sides. They may have been a bit heavy-handed, but it's not as if they could have left things as they were in the early 60's, when a francophone might go up to the counter at Eaton's in Montreal, start to speak to a clerk in their natural language, only to be crudely cut off by that clerk and told to "speak white".