Massive Student Strike/Demonstrations In Canada!

CounterPunch
April 15, 2005

Lessons for US Radicals
Students Rise Again in Québec
By TOM REEVES

Tom Reeves was co-author with Karl Hess of THE END OF THE DRAFT (Random House, New York, 1970). He was National Director of the National Council to Repeal the Draft from 1968-1972. He has written about a range of U.S. foreign policy and other political issues for CounterPunch, Z, Rabble, Interconnect, Dollars & Sense, the NACLA Report and other print and internet magazines.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Right next door to the apathy that is almost universal on U.S. campuses, there has been an amazing revival of student activism unseen for decades in Québec. Yet almost no U.S. students will know anything about it because of a virtually complete black-out in mainstream U.S. media--and very little coverage even on U.S. alternative and left-wing sites. Perhaps that doesn't matter, since most U.S. students seem perfectly content with the status quo. But if U.S. radicals knew more about the Quebec upheaval, they might find ways to spread the fire to the young south of the border.

Between 60,000 and 100,000 militant students marched in Montréal on March 16. Thousands more marched in Québec City, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivière, and just about every other Québec locality with a CEGEP (somewhat similar to U.S. community colleges) or University. Students blocked the Port of Montréal, closed down the lucrative Montréal casino, blocked Federal Highway 40, and occupied various government and Liberal party offices in Québec City and Montréal--often for days at a time. In all, close to 300,000 students went on strike, closing almost all public higher education in Quebec for up to seven weeks (and continuing on many campuses). Up to 15,000 secondary school students joined demonstrations in solidarity--with backing from teacher's unions. Many University and CEGEP professors' and administrators' associations also endorsed the strike--as did a wide range of Quebec's other labor unions.

The strike began February 23 with a walkout by 30,000 CEGEP and University students, organized by the most radical of the three major student associations, CASSÉÉ (a coalition of the Association for Student Union Solidarity--ASSÉÉ--and unaffiliated student groups). The motivating grievance was a drastic cut in student stipends from the Quebec government, announced by the Liberal Minister of Education--some $103 million (Canadian dollars--U.S. equivalent about $80 million)--per year, beginning with this academic year's promised amount. ASSÉÉ included in its demands an end to the Liberal government's planned privatization and decentralization of some CEGEPs and other higher education programs, as well as a call for free tuition, and "humanistic curricula."

And the strike has been a huge success. On April 3, the Liberal government caved almost completely on the student stipends--promising to restore immediately $70 million this year, and to return to the $103 million for coming years. They also shelved immediate plans for privatization and decentralization (seen as an attempt to divide students).

http://www.counterpunch.org/reeves04152005.html