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The ASSE, parent organization to the Maple Spring's CLASSE, had been remarkably quiet of late, staying largely out of the media spotlight and explaining that they were preoccupied with preparations for the Quebec government's summit on the future of higher education. On Monday morning the other shoe dropped, as spokesperson Jérémie Bédard-Wien delivered an incendiary message to media assembled at an ASSE organized press conference.

Bédard-Wien took the mic to deliver an ultimatum to the Parti Québécois government which the radically democratic student group had voted to throw down during their weekend congress.

"The times, they are a changin'" sang Bob Dylan, and nowhere is that more true than in the Quebec student movement.

Lost amid the celebration of the victories of this year's Maple Spring is a different consequence of the longest strike in Quebec history, one which has gone largely unnoticed outside student circles.

There is a fundamental realignment going on within the student movement in this province, one which promises to have far reaching repercussions. CLASSE, the temporary coalition formed to fight the tuition hike, may have dissolved, but its mother organization, the ASSE (Association for Syndical Solidarity among Students) is ascendent.