I wrote earlier in the week about the Quebec-Ontario Student Solidarity Tour, which will see representatives of CLASSE, Quebec’s largest student federation, and other grassroots activists touring ten cities in nine days across the province.
Well tonight that tour kicks off with a bang in Ottawa, a city which has seen large solidarity demonstrations with the Quebec student movement all summer long.
Tonight’s panel will feature Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the movement’s charismatic hearthrob and co-spokesperson for CLASSE. He will be joined by Jérémie Bédard-Wien, a CLASSE executive and financial secretary, Audrey Deveault, Chairperson of the Dawson Student Union, and Marianne Breton Fontaine, a grassroots student activist and independent journalist.
They’ll be speaking at the Agora at the University of Ottawa at 7PM tonight. All are welcome and admission is free.
If I could make it to Ottawa, I’d be there. If you’re in the vicinity, don’t miss this opportunity to hear first hand reports of the student strike come social movement which has gripped Quebec, and engage in a dialogue about how the success in Quebec can be spread throughout the country.
You can get more information, and confirm your attendance, on the Facebook page. It has this to say about tonight’s event:
“With a quarter of a million people marching in the streets of Montreal for three months in a row, a broad and powerful united resistance has developed and is shaking Quebec. Despite over a thousand arrests, police violence, and disturbing anti-democratic laws brought in by the Charest Liberal government, the students have held strong.
As federal and provincial austerity budgets have had severe impacts in Ontario, how can we build solidarity as well as a broad, united and growing movement here?
Come listen to first-hand accounts and analysis explaining how the strike grew from a campaign calling for access to education into a people’s struggle for democracy and a better Québec.”
Please spread the word far and wide about tonight’s event and the whole tour. Building strong bonds of solidarity, and a united national movement, has neer been more important.
Follow me on twitter for the latest on the strike, and progressive politics in Quebec: @EthanCoxMTL
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