With mammoth student protests in Montreal on May 22 (The Globe and Mail reported up to 250,000; CTV news reported 400,000), smaller protests in other parts of Quebec, and sympathetic marches in centers such as Calgary, Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, New York and Paris, the attention of Canadians -- and many across the globe -- are turning to Quebec.

As students in Quebec continue their 14-week strike, students in Nova Scotia continue to be reminded that post-secondary education is not a priority for the Nova Scotia government. Students and faculty at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in particular are bracing for severe funding cuts as the provincial government continues to target the school, which has faced financial hardship for several years. Students have already been told to expect $900 in total fee hikes, including tuition fee increases and the introduction of new fees. NSCAD will also be offering fewer classes and making further program cuts. The university is recommending laying off 26 faculty and staff members.

It was bound to happen.

After almost three months, Margaret Wente finally got wind of this kerfuffle in Quebec about students refusing to buy into the whole "but it's just the cost of a cappuccino a day!" rationale for why a 75 per cent increase in tuition fees over five (or 82 per cent over seven) years is, like, the way of the future. Or something.

On CBC's The National last week, Rex Murphy weighed in on Quebec's student protests; the transcript can be found here, and the three-minute video here. He calls the protests "short sighted," points out that Quebec already has the lowest tuition fees in Canada, and suggests the students' actions are "crude attempts at precipitating a crisis." He says they are the "actions of a mob," are "simply wrong," and should be "condemned."

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