Student strike - lockout and repression #8

I will be at tonight's demo in just a few minutes to un-welcome the lock-out legislation the zombies in the National Assembly will congratulate themselves on passing.

In the meantime, here's a terrific video inspired by the popular demo "slogan" (exclamation?) "Cha-rest... Woo-hoo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMAm16YkDjQ

Une majorité des Québécois pour le gel ou la baisse

(Québec) Selon un sondage Harris-Decima, une majorité des Québécois serait en faveur du gel ou de la baisse des frais de scolarité. Mais les Québécois seraient tout de même plus favorables à une hausse que les Canadiens des autres provinces, qui paient déjà davantage....

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201205/17/01...

google translate:

A majority of Quebecers to freeze or lower

(Quebec) According to a Harris-Decima survey, a majority of Quebecers would support the freeze or lower tuition. But Quebecers would still be more favorable to higher than Canadians in other provinces, who are already paying more.

The telephone survey was conducted from May 10 to 14 with 1,014 Canadians. For the whole country, the margin of error is + / - 3.1% 19 times out of 20. The margin of error increases for Quebec. It is + / - 6.2%, due to the small sample of 248 respondents.

The survey was commissioned by the Canadian Federation of Students.

The question asked was: "Do you think it would have tuition fees of colleges and universities in your province be reduced, frozen at current levels or increased?"

In Quebec, 40% of respondents favored an increase. This is the highest proportion in the country. They were also 40% for the gel, and 15% for lower charges.

Across the country, only 16% of respondents wanted an increase in fees. They were 45% for the gel, and 33% for lower charges.

Nathan "Si j'étais Jean Charest"

video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W8yN0wCgpbw

google translate:

Nathan, 10 years, offers advice to Jean Charest on the student strike.

Follow us on Facebook (The World According to Nathan) and Twitter (@ nathan depending)!

Thank you to Pierre Foglia, who introduced us to Nathan in his column of April 12, 2012: http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/pierre-foglia/201204/11/01-4514... ...

And a big thank you to Nathan and his family.

This video was shot May 12, 2012, in the 13th week of the student strike against rising tuition fees, before the resignation of Beauchamp and the announcement of a special law.

Jean Charest n'a pas l'intention de rencontrer les leaders étudiants

(Québec) Le premier ministre Jean Charest n'a manifesté aucune intention de rencontrer les leaders étudiants qui se sont déplacés à l'Assemblée nationale, jeudi, alors que la loi spéciale sera déposée sous peu.....

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/dossiers/conflit-etudiant/201205/17/01...

google translate:

Jean Charest has no plans to meet with student leaders

Quebec) Premier Jean Charest has shown no intention to meet with student leaders who traveled to the National Assembly on Thursday as the special act will be filed shortly.

He spent much of question period to suffer the wrath of the opposition. "What a waste, what a terrible mess!" Thundered the Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois. "We are discussing a special law against our children, against our youth, all because of the stubbornness of the Prime Minister because he must save the face of Prime Minister." She said Mr. Charest was "locked into a logic of siege", showing "contempt" and "is dead set against the young."....

Students smooch during the student protest in Montreal, Thursday, May 17, 2012.

Une loi spéciale dérogatoire à l’esprit de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne ?


40. Toute personne a droit, dans la mesure et suivant les normes prévues par la loi, à l’instruction publique gratuite.

http://www.vigile.net/Une-loi-speciale-derogatoire-a-l

google translate:

A special act derogatory to the spirit of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Like many Quebecers, I listened to the speech of our Prime Minister on the conflict with the students. There is unfortunately nothing new in the special bill proposed by the government.

Jean Charest did not intend to move or on tuition or on university management. Instead he decreed a break by suspending classes until August, thereby pulling the rug out from under students.

In fact, the bill will end the effects of the student strike. All who will go to their classes in schools that have agreed with their students to a resumption of classes before August can not be prevented from doing so by striking students.

According to Jean Charest, the right to education is a fundamental right that allows all students to access their classrooms but could not be prevented from doing so, while, in fact, the Charter of Rights and freedoms rather recognizes the right to free public education.

     40. Everyone has the right, to the extent and the standards provided by law, to free public education.....

Unionist wrote:

You can find the text of the law [url=http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Politique/2012/05/17/003-conflit-et....

I seriously doubt that there has been any legislation which approaches the fascistic nature of this bill in recent history. Its aim is not just to crush the strike - it is to crush the student associations. It targets not just the freedom of peaceful assembly - it actually attacks freedom of association. It's far worse than any predictions I personally had seen in the media.

And the repression of demonstrations, unless I'm reading it wrong, isn't restricted to students. For example, under section 16, anyone who organizes a demonstration of 10 or more people in a place "accessible to the public" must notify the police 8 hours in advance of the time, place, duration, itinerary, and means of transport. The police can then require a change of place or itinerary. Violations of any part of this by an individual (whether through action or omission) attracts a fine of $1000 to $5000 for a day or part of a day that the violation takes place. If it's a leader of a student union, or the organizations itself, the fines can go much higher - up to $125,000, and that's double for recidivism.

There are also clauses allowing the educational institution, if it thinks a student association has violated something or other, to deprive it of all usual privileges (collection of dues, offices, etc.). The length of time is one semester for every day of violation. There's a reverse onus in several of these clauses.

I really can't continue. This is the face of fascism.

 

That really is a stunning piece of legislation. Wow. 

..here is the headline from the wall street journal. to read any more of the article you need to subscribe.
Class Warfare Is Weighing on Quebec

MONTREAL—Quebec's government is trying to restore calm as sometimes-violent student demonstrations stretch into their fourth month—disrupting daily commutes and drawing a rare travel advisory from the U.S. consulate.

Students, protesting planned tuition increases by the government of the French-speaking Canadian province, have been staging night marches and boisterous demonstrations since February, but protests have turned more violent. Dozens of students and police have been injured in near-daily melees in and around Montreal, in several cases as striking students try to bar students who want to finish their studies from classrooms.

Late Wednesday, police arrested 122 after students rampaged through downtown ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230344840457741001257666938...

Catchfire wrote:

Where is Canada's party of the left?

Good question. It will be interesting to see if "the French Defamer" believes in equal opportunity when it comes to wading into provincial affairs, and passing judgment on premiers.

*smirk*

Better go back to the other thread, Boom Boom.

epaulo13 wrote:

Late Wednesday, police arrested 122 after students rampaged through downtown ...

WSJ wrote:

Late Wednesday, police arrested 122 after students rampaged through downtown streets, smashing bank windows, police said. The rioting followed an all-day emergency cabinet meeting of the Quebec government.

After the meeting, officials proposed legislation that would suspend classes until August to allow for a cooling-off period. The provincial parliament was slated to meet Thursday evening to debate other measures to better protect students who wanted to continue their studies.

Meanwhile, four protesters have been charged with "inciting fear of terrorism" after allegedly detonating smoke bombs this month inside Montreal's subway system. After a last-ditch effort at negotiations this week, the province's education minister, who also served as deputy premier, stepped down.

Increasingly, some protesters have described their fight as not just over tuition increases, but also against what they say is a corrupt capitalist system—a shift that has frustrated the government as it tries to negotiate the tuition-fees dispute.

At a protest march on Tuesday, Matthieu Deutté used a loudspeaker to address a group of around 200 students.

"What began here three months ago as a student strike has gone on to be a protest against a whole system," said Mr. Deutté, a 25-year-old student of administration.

That has officials and businesses here worried that the violence could drag on, deterring visitors at the start of Montreal's summer tourism season. Last month, the U.S. consulate in Montreal issued a travel advisory for Americans in Canada—rare for Canadian cities—warning them to stay away from protests.

At Boutique Legends, a souvenir shop in historic Old Town, manager Amita Verma said protests have at times left the area "dead," adding, "That's worrisome."

Sympathy among other Montreal residents for the students has waned as the protests have dragged on.

Marie-Josée Le Blanc supported the protesters early on. But on April 20, hundreds of them poured into the mall where she works, smashing windows. For days, security guards restricted access to the mall, forcing clients of her optician shop to cancel appointments. Ms. Le Blanc said her student daughter also now wants to get back to classes.

"It's gone on too long," Ms. Le Blanc said.

The provincial government, and many Quebecers and Canadians outside the province, point out that even with the planned tuition increases, students there pay far lower fees than almost anywhere else in North America.

Over the next seven years, the Liberal government has proposed raising fees by 75%, to around 3,800 Canadian dollars (US$3,765) in a bid to trim a C$3.3 billion deficit. The average student in Canada pays C$5,366. Last year, U.S. students paid average tuition of $8,244 at a state public college, according to the College Board, a not-for-profit organization.

Still, student leaders say the increases are an affront to Quebec's long-enshrined efforts to make higher education accessible to all. In the 1960s, the so-called Quiet Revolution brought sweeping change to the previously conservative Catholic society and created a system aimed at boosting access to higher education.

"Schools should be free," said mechanical-engineering student Julien Lavigne. But some critics say the protest chants are more the cry of the privileged than the oppressed. Mr. Lavigne, who recently returned from teaching snowboarding in Japan, still attends a part-time mechanical-engineering course that remains unaffected by the strikes.

"I am not doing this fight for myself," but for others who can't afford education, he said.

The protests have split students into three groups. Those wearing red squares of cloth—denoting support for the strike—have mostly stayed away from classes and participated in the rallies. Those sporting green squares want to get back to school. More-neutral students wear white.

Many "greens" have gone to court to win injunctions, forcing classes to reopen. But in recent skirmishes at several campuses, hordes of students wearing red squares have organized to block access to building entrances, or disrupt classes.

Sporting a green patch early Tuesday morning, Genevieve Maheu arrived at College de Rosemont in the hope of entering an institution whose doors had been forced open by an injunction. Blocking her and several other greens were around 70 red-square-wearing students.

After police cleared away protesters with batons and pepper spray, the college called off classes, citing safety concerns.

"All I want to do is get into my class and finish the course I paid for," said Ms. Maheu, a 25-year-old medical student.

I don't see how the bill can stand. It so clearly attacks Charter rights to assembly, association, freedom of speech -  some unions or lawyers need to go to court and take it down asap.

It might take some time to resolve it, but they could possibly get an injunction quicker than that, no? That proposed law in incredibly invasive.

NDPP wrote:

I don't see how the bill can stand. It so clearly attacks Charter rights to assembly, association, freedom of speech -  some unions or lawyers need to go to court and take it down asap.

Sorry NDPP that is just naive.  The HEU and the Teachers in BC had their Charter rights destroyed by the BC Liberals.  It took 6 years to get to the Supreme Court where they "won." The Judges told the government it had overstepped its boundaries and breached the Charter and it had to sit down and negotiate the items that had been illegally stripped out in breach of the Charter.  As in FN's land claims the SCC has only ever ordered a government to consult and negotiate when it has breached the Charter rights of unions.

It would be nice if a Judge would rule that the law cannot take effect until the Charter arguments are heard but I am not going to hold my breath waiting. However in my experience it is a lot easier to convince a Judge to grant an injunction against protestors than it is to get one against a corporation or government.

Yes, all true, one tries to be hopeful in such matters..

Not being able to protest does not meet any of the tests of harm to the parties seeking the injunctive relief. Closing Insite had the potential to cause death. How does being told not to demonstrate compare to that?

The Charter challenges will come when the law is enforced and then a Judge might strike it down like they did with medical marijuana.

@ kropotkin 

True. I guess my real point is that I don't think every judge will be swayed by the fact this involves reining in the government.

(edit)

and @ Baerlueer

I guess Insite wasn't an injunction, but it was a court decision to extend Insite's exemption from the law which, as became clear as soon it was announced, the feds would most certainly removed when the deadline passed. It amounts to a pre-emptive version of  the same thing - government being stopped by the courts.

And you're right about the wheat board. My mistake.

And I agree it may be hard to overcome. But harsh restrictions on freedom of assembly might just do it.

Unionist wrote:

Too much is happening. People aren't paying attention. It's not easy when you're under attack from every single quarter.

Not easy but essential...

Petition: www.loi78.com