In almost every report on the social movement now sweeping Quebec, including my own, words like conflict, crisis and stand-off figure prominently. Anger is omnipresent. The anger of protesters, the anger of government, the anger of those supposedly inconvenienced. Pundits scream about mob rule, anarchy in the streets and the dissolution of society as we know it.

Don't get me wrong, there is anger, present of course. But that is not what you see if you take to the streets, or watch CUTV's live stream. Pundits can't stop bemoaning the inconvenience to "ordinary" Montrealers posed by these protests. But I wonder, are there any "ordinary" Montrealers left to inconvenience?

Quebec is known for swift and drastic shifts of popular opinion. From the election of the first PQ government, to the rise of the ADQ and the Orange Wave, public opinion in this province is prone to sudden reversals.

The results of the most recent poll, an online survey of 1000 Quebecois conducted between May 23 and 25 by CROP for Radio-Canada, seem to suggest we are in the midst of such a dramatic swing.

I'm just back as a medic from the large student strike and anti-police brutality demonstration in Montreal where the cops were shooting exploding tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades into crowds of people -- really irresponsible, criminal and injurious.

We know that protesters in the West Bank and Gaza have been killed and seriously injured after being hit by tear gas canisters and so-called crowd control projectiles -- so this alarm is not just about the chemical effects, but also the kinetic trauma cause by the shooting projectile or explosion.

This week, there are more than 65,000 students on strike in Québec. University students, but also college-level students, are walking out of classrooms to reverse the 75 per cent raise in tuition fees over five years announced in the last provincial budget. In the space of a single week, the number of strikers has tripled, and more strike votes are set to take place at the end of February and the beginning of March. Québec is under strong pressure from its government and elites to catch up with Canada's average tuition fees and to raise the ratio of private funding in higher education institutions.

A 75 per cent hike

On November 10, over 203,000 McGill University and CEGEP students in Quebec chose to have a one day general strike in protest of the upcoming tuition hikes. While 30,000-plus students marched through downtown Montreal, 14 students entered McGill University's James Administration building and peacefully occupied Principal Heather Munroe-Blum's office on the fifth-floor.

A Word: Un Mot:

On Nov. 10, The Link, The McGill Daily, and Le Délit will come together and take to the streets in solidarity with thousands of university students across Quebec to distribute a copy of the special insert you're holding.

It's not the first time our student papers have been compelled to put out a joint paper. Our last collaboration was in 1989, after the Montreal Massacre at the École Polytechnique, when students "came together to put their thoughts and feelings on paper."

This week, we're joining forces as Quebec students are facing yet another historic moment in the ongoing fight to keep education accessible.