This article was originally published on August 30, 2012, in Montreal, by The McGill Daily.

In mid-summer, almost four months after the Quebec student strike of 2012 had entered uncharted territory as the longest in the province's history, Premier Jean Charest played his final card. With CEGEP students prepared to renew strike mandates despite threats of a lost semester, and the Special Law lying in shreds under the feet of a hundred thousand illegal demonstrators, Charest called a provincial election, over a year before his term was set to expire. On September 4, Quebec residents will enter voting booths.

I went to McGill in the late '80s and early '90s when tuition fees were less than $1,200 a year, so with summer jobs and some parental help I graduated from my first degree debt-free. For my MA, which I took in Ontario, I worked part-time and graduated after one year with a debt of $10,000.

By way of comparison: my partner went to university in Ontario after grants were eliminated, and when the first round of tuition fee hikes were implemented. He completed a BA and then an MA, and graduated with a debt load (and compound interest) requiring monthly payments of $650 for 10 years.

On Wednesday, William Watson wrote a comment piece in the Financial Post in which he was critical of Armine Yalnizyan's recent essay on inequality. In his piece, Mr. Watson alleges that Armine "is guilty of fantastical reminiscence," particularly with respect to her take on post-secondary education (PSE). Among other things, Mr. Watson points to the fact that PSE enrolment has increased very substantially over the past half-century in Canada.

An Ontario election is slated for October 6, and the reigning Liberal Party will attempt to pull off a third consecutive majority government. In that vein, the Liberals have recently made a slew of campaign promises in the post-secondary education (PSE) sector. Notably, they've committed to reducing undergraduate tuition for "middle-class Ontario families" by 30 per cent, amounting to "$1,600 per student in university and $730 per student in college."

According to a September 5 Toronto Star article: