Student strike - nightmare of the 1% (#14)

cco wrote:

When do we get the Law 78 injunction ruling?

Nobody knows... Should be soon.

You trust what you read in the NatPost?

146 Greek Academics Shows Solidarity With Quebec Students (from Coop Média de Montréal)

excerpt:

We, academics in the Greek universities, express our solidarity to the extraordinary student mobilization in Quebec: the longest and largest student strike in the history of North America, which is now evolving into one of the most powerful anti-austerity campaigns in the world.

Today's rulings were on the motions to suspend the operation of the law (Bill 78) & by-law (P-6). As I've posted in an earlier thread (or perhaps in another section...), it's extremely hard to get those, in large part because of a jurisprudential "presumption" that validly enected laws are in the public interest.

The hearings to address the actual challenges to the law & by-law will take place later (not before the fall).

Thanks - I had forgotten about those demos.  Considering the support Quebec students are getting from around the world, if we aren't already doing so, what are the best ways to support the students in Chile?  (I'm not a student...)

I saw a post from Casseroles on Facebook noting there's a mass demonstration  July 22 - but no further information, nothing. Is this a student demonstration or something else? General Strike? (we can only hope...)

Oh - okay.

I'm not going to excerpt this. Just read the whole thing.

[url=http://www.stopthehike.ca/2012/07/share-our-future-the-classe-manifesto/... Our Future – The CLASSE Manifesto[/url]

[url=http://www.bloquonslarentree.com/node/12]Back to Class Means Back on Strike[/url]

Quote:

We know that capitalist austerity touches all of you in your own contexts, as governments the world over seek to whitewash their corruption and greed through the false rhetoric of cutbacks and privatization. We honour your local resistance but also seek your support as comrades in the struggle. The week of August 13-17 in the Montreal-area (where most of the striking Cégeps are located) is a crucial moment for the student strike. Either the strike will be crushed by Charest's "special law", or the strike will continue, with the support of individuals from all over Quebec, Ontario, the Maritimes and the USA converging onto Montreal between August 13-17. Join us in the streets and on the picket lines at CÉGEPs throughout this week. Consult http://bloquonslarentree.com for more details about housing and other useful information for anyone considering coming to Montreal to re-inforce the student strike.

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere else on babble, it's summer and I haven't been following all threads as closely.

I quite liked this piece, although it comes off as slightly dry at first ;)

http://societyandspace.com/2012/07/06/jean-michaud-the-return-of-darkness/

JEAN MICHAUD ‘The return of Darkness'

"This brief history of the logic behind low tuition fees for higher education in Québec helps to realise that: 1) universal access to tertiary education in Québec is not a new fad germinating in the unripe brains of young leftist agitators, and that: 2) it was the state's very own idea on the recommendation of a Royal Commission, a choice that was respected and prized for four decades."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/in-quebec-election-three-wa...

a good run-down of the battle grounds, that.

A class action lawsuit has been launched against the city of Montreal on behalf of protesters who were arrested May 23 during a mass demonstration of student tuition fees.

Lawyer Marc Chetrit has filed the case in Quebec Superior Court alleging that the city and its police department violated Charter Rights during the arrest and detention of more than 500 people.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/07/31/class-action-lawsuit-student-protest.html

Apparently some of us require no schooling in neoliberalism.

Quebec students seek to broaden strike, but CLASSE leaders capitulate to union opposition

Quote:

Its attempt to pressure the government into withdrawing the tuition fee hikes having clearly failed, CLASSE is increasingly adapting to the union-led campaign to divert the student strike and the broader opposition movement that erupted in response to the Liberals’ draconian Bill 78 behind a campaign to elect the big business Parti Quebecois (PQ). In recent weeks, CLASSE spokesmen have repeatedly indicated that they would view the defeat of Charest’s Liberals at the hands of the PQ—a party which when at last held office imposed the greatest social spending cuts in Quebec history—as a positive outcome for students and working people.

I feel badly for them. The big business-friendly PQ will likely betray them, again.

United we stand. 

Unionist wrote:

Fidel wrote:

I think all students need a concerted effort for protesting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa where the federal purse minders are at.

Surely you mean the White House, where they phone Harper and tell him how much he can give Charest in transfer payments for education?

I'm just gobsmacked that all the provinces have such vastly different tuition fee schedules, given that Parliament Hill runs the show.

The fact that all the provinces have such vastly different tuition fee schedules seems, on the face of it, evidence that Parliament, though a sponsor, does not run the show.

In other words, there really is a point to students acting at the provincial level.  They don't need to truck off to Parliament Hill, as Fidel suggests, or truck off to the White House, as you would (tongue-in-cheek, I'm sure ) would have them do, eh?!

Unionist wrote:

Fidel wrote:

I think all students need a concerted effort for protesting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa where the federal purse minders are at.

Surely you mean the White House, where they phone Harper and tell him how much he can give Charest in transfer payments for education?

I'm just gobsmacked that all the provinces have such vastly different tuition fee schedules, given that Parliament Hill runs the show.

 

That's so 90's Unionist, since Obama got elected Comrade Harper takes his orders from Beijing now, Washington is a has been.

And Diefenbaker wasn't a sellout, either. Old Dief stood up to the Mericans when Tories of the day sent thousands of jobs and an entire aircraft industry to the states. And what a bargain those dud Bomarc missiles were. F35's are just today's version of the Bomarc lemons.

And today Canadian taxpayers, Quebecers, too, continue subsidizing U.S.-based manufacturing and energy companies. And today's Tories are no different when allowing Canadian flagship companies to break up and be pawned-off to the four winds same as Avro, and same as Newbridge Networks and Nortel. And it looks like RIM will be the next target for predatory foreign takeover. Come take us over and hollow out the country some more, is what our two old line parties might as well say to the rest of the world.

We export Canadian based tech and innovation and jobs so that the country does not become so prosperous as to climb out of national indebtedness to private banks and foreign lenders and other superrich friends of the party. What does Ottawa's ability to pay the bills have to do with funding PSE? Plenty.

In fact, neoliberalism and defunding higher education to the tune of billions of dollars since the 1990's is part of the grand central plan to undermine Canada's economy and make us even more reliant on old world colonial-extractive resource intensive economies. Our two oldest political parties in Ottawa have made special efforts to defund basic research and home-grown innovation in order that Canada's remains a hewer and drawer economy. That's Uncle Sam's and the corporatocracies central planning not our dougheads in Lib-Tory federal government. Our corrupt stooges haven't had an original thought in their empty heads for a very long time.

Tories are not shrewd business types. In fact, they shouldn't be trusted to manage a lemonade stand. It's time to clear do-nothing lemons from the halls of powerlessness and political impotence in Ottawa.

Divided we fall.

Just saw this: Protesters disperse after Montreal police fire projectile

excerpt:

Moments later, police issued a dispersal order saying projectiles had been thrown.

The riot squad moved in, firing at least one gas projectile.

Concordia University student David Rankin said he was disappointed the police responded with such force when students were totally non-violent.

"They came in from all sides, intimidating the students and banging their batons on their shields," he said. "We weren't doing anything violent. The police just want to silence students."

Boom Boom wrote:

I think police in Quebec are itching to exercise the power that Law 78 (and other laws) gives them.

I'm sure some of them do...

But there was this interesting tidbit in a recent piece by Vincent Marissal in La Presse:

Quote:

Quant à la police, elle refuse, me disent des sources, d'appliquer la loi spéciale parce qu'elle menace l'ordre public en provoquant des débordements.

Translation:

Quote:

As for the police, sources tell me that it refuses to apply the special legislation because it threatens public order by provoking outbursts.

Furthermore, a little-known fact is that the sections of Bill 78 that aim to "maintain peace, order and public security" (the law's words, not mine), that is, sections 16 and 17, actually only apply to

a) persons, bodies or groups that organize a demonstration and

b) student associations or federations of associations taking part in a demonstration without being their organizer

that fail to "employ appropriate means to ensure that the demonstration takes place in compliance" with the new notification requirements (date, time, duration, venue and route of the demonstration and means of transportation).

This means that the police cannot rely on sections 16 and 17 of Bill 78 to arrest mere participants who are not organizers of a demonstration. On top of that, I believe there is even a question as to whether sections 16 and 17 could be used as a basis upon which police could arrest these targeted groups of people. I believe these provisions are essentially ones that establish liability in case of violations.

Awesome photo!