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The Quebec Student Strike Movement

© David Newman

All across the Province of Québec, hundreds of thousands of students have worn a little red square felt, while countless more have been looking to get their hands on them. Red fabric is quasi-impossible to find in Montreal these days.

The red square show solidarity with the student movement, particularly the recent strike efforts by CEGEP, University and even some High School students in response to the Charest Governments reform to the loans/bursary system as well as a host of reforms that will restrict access to education.

Around the last week of February, one by one, CEGEPs and University Faculty Associations at Université de Montréal, UQAM and Université de Sherbrooke began to vote in favour of strike.

A strike is a last resort. The student movement had done phone campaigns, letter campaigns, large demonstrations and protests, negotiations with the government through the Student Federations, all without getting anywhere. Any progress that may have existed vanished, also, when a cabinet shuffle changed the minister of Education from Pierre Reid to Jean-Marc Fournier.

The Charest reforms essentially cut $103 million out of the bursary system, either in straight cuts or in conversion to loans, which leads to a rise in student debt.

At present, there are already people who take many years to pay off their student debt, some even up to 10 years or more. With less bursaries, those people will be joined by even more people, for a longer period of time. The poorest students will either be forced to pay back their loans for years, or give up on the idea of post-secondary education, returning institutions like McGill or Laval into places for the new-world Aristocracy.

The strikes have been going on for weeks, the students are getting annoyed at the lack of respect and response from the Government.

Multiple final offers from the Minister have been insulting to the students. The money, they say, is easily found, if the PLQ just rolled back its tax cuts, or simply eliminate tax credit for the largest corporations.

The Student Movement has been stronger in Quebec than anywhere else. The present tuition freeze was due to a Strike in 1996, during the reign of Lucien Bouchard's Parti Québecois, yet this strike is larger than any since 1968.

There has never been this much unity among Quebec students. Faculties that would usually be unsympathetic to what many would see as left-wing ideals have gone on strike, such as the Ecole des Hautes Études Commerciales. Also, while the support for the student movement is weaker due to the proportion of out-of-province and international students, McGill University, hardly known for its activism, voted for a one-day strike, held on March 18th. Concordia also was on strike, a couple of days earlier.

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