do we have a thread for Quebec protests?

[© tweed]

400k people took to the streets in Montreal a few days ago.  initially spurred on by tuition hikes, then the gov't passed a reactionary bill to try to shut down the student orgs behind protests and appear to have severely miscalculated, leading to a battle.

[politicus]

No. You could put it in Canada General. But I think its a big enough thing to deserve its own thread.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, this has made international news, has it?

One of my co-workers who goes to the university in Gatineau was complaining about not being able to go to school.

[MaxQue]

Strange. I saw that on TV and a big part of protesters aren't students.
I suppose it's a vent against Charest, with the support of the population, according to polls, despite doubts expressed about that by some poster.

Population has nothing to lose from protesting, as far as I know.

Yes, I saw French news covering it and there was a support demostration in Paris this week.

[Hatman 🍁]

Apparently there were protests in NYC in solidarity as well. Have you done any protesting, Max?

[MaxQue]

Have you done any protesting, Max?

I did the March 22 one and one in Sherbrooke with the FAÉCUM in Sherbrooke.

[Hatman 🍁]

Have you done any protesting, Max?

I did the March 22 one and one in Sherbrooke with the FAÉCUM in Sherbrooke.

The one with all the arrests? Good that you didn't get in trouble.

[MaxQue]

Have you done any protesting, Max?

I did the March 22 one and one in Sherbrooke with the FAÉCUM in Sherbrooke.

The one with all the arrests? Good that you didn't get in trouble.

No, Sherbrooke in early April.

[Yelnoc]

Apparently a bill was passed whereby protests of more than 80 members are supposed to inform the police before doing anything.

Talk about authoritarian laws.  Power to the People of Quebec.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Apparently a bill was passed whereby protests of more than 80 members are supposed to inform the police before doing anything.

Talk about authoritarian laws.  Power to the People of Quebec.

Unfortunate that Jean Charest would basically have to murder someone on Quebec television for the PLQ's support to consistently stay below 30%.

[MaxQue]

Apparently a bill was passed whereby protests of more than 80 members are supposed to inform the police before doing anything.

Talk about authoritarian laws.  Power to the People of Quebec.

Unfortunate that Jean Charest would basically have to murder someone on Quebec television for the PLQ's support to consistently stay below 30%.

Even then, Liberals would over 30%, they would just change leaders.

[Hatman 🍁]

If another federalist party came around, it would bring the PLQ under 30%. Perhaps if the PVQ had any credibility...

[Dereich]

Are there any polls of Quebec since the protests began?

[Hatman 🍁]

Are there any polls of Quebec since the protests began?

Yes, many. Averages:

PLQ: Low 30s
PQ: Low 30s (averaging maybe 1% behind the Liberals)
CAQ ~20%
QS: ~10%
PVQ ~5%

[Torie]

My initial reaction is that they are spoiled brats. The sense of entitlement these relatively privileged kids have is just nausiating to me. You charge them what it costs to educate them, and give subsidies/loans on a means tested basis if they keep their grades up. If they are preventing others from attending class, they should be suspended or expelled.

I remember my days at the University of Chicago. The year before I matriculated, some brats shut down the campus with a sit-in, over the War of something, and after a period of time, after names were gathered, they were forceably removed, and summoned for hearings before a faculty committee. Those that did not show up were expelled permanently, and those who did, were suspended for a year, and it involved a few hundred students. I really admire my university.

[Hatman 🍁]

My initial reaction is that they are spoiled brats.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I find the notion that students are spoiled brats for protesting in favor of lower tuition, frankly, disgusting. There is nothing entitled about wanting education to be cheaper and more accessible by all. There is, however, something deeply selfish and unfair in the notion of socking it to the students, the kids, the poor, for a cheap boost in national coffers. Somehow the students are the bad guys in that?

At what point in our society did we become so brainwashed by a corporate-bottom-line mentality that we started to look down on people who wanted things to be cheaper and more affordable and more accessible for all? Quebec isn't spoiled, they're just one of the last places on the continent that isn't going to just take it for no good reason.

An opinion piece from the Star summed up this idea fairly well:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1174591--quebec-students-send-a-message-against-austerity

I loathe the notion that you should never protest, you should never fight for things to be cheaper, you should never raise hell because you have an increasingly less and less affordable life through no fault of your own. That's so dirty. You're not doing things properly. You should be happy to spend more money and see education become less and less accessible. How could anyone possibly be so selfish as to not want to pay 75% more for your tuition and work more just because we have to have more money to give out in tax cuts or corruption gifts to favored industries?

There's a greater war going on here underneath the surface. On the surface, it's just about protesting higher tuition and authoritarian emergency laws. Underneath, it's about fighting a corrupt and scandal plagued government, resisting the tendency of society to be played against each other by the powers that be, and trying to break out of the neoliberal brainwashing that has somehow convinced society that we always have to sacrifice for no reason and be happy with it. Protestors are on the right side of a war we've been quietly losing for 30 years.

[Hatman 🍁]

As usual, Marokai hits the nail on the head.

And not only is it a protest of corruption in Quebec, but it's about a new global class structure that is beginning to develop.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

My initial reaction is that they are spoiled brats. The sense of entitlement these relatively privileged kids have is just nausiating to me. You charge them what it costs to educate them, and give subsidies/loans on a means tested basis if they keep their grades up. If they are preventing others from attending class, they should be suspended or expelled.

I remember my days at the University of Chicago. The year before I matriculated, some brats shut down the campus with a sit-in, over the War of something, and after a period of time, after names were gathered, they were forceably removed, and summoned for hearings before a faculty committee. Those that did not show up were expelled permanently, and those who did, were suspended for a year, and it involved a few hundred students. I really admire my university.

Quite on the contrary: you are the spoiled brat who's tuition was paid for in full by your father. Your lucky placement in the lottery of birth doesn't make it morally upright for you to curse others for seeking change that ensures that access to education isn't determined by birthright.

Any rich prat who wants to lecture lower middle class and working class kids about their place in life can feel free to die an early death as far as I am concerned. You know nothing of our financial dilemmas and our lack of access to bare necessities.

[Torie]

It doesn't bother anyone that these students so privileged to be at the university are protesting not being subsidized no matter what their circumstances, and how able their parents are to not put a further burden on the taxpayers?  I find this group to be the paradigm of the underserving, un-poor. Our milages just differ, and on this one I feel strongly, and have since well, I was in college.  The irony of course, is that the vast majority of the taxpayers paying for this,  are in circumstances below those of these kids, or what their circumstances will be. It's Robin Hood in reverse. It fosters inequality, rather than mitigate it. Help the kids that need it, and only the kids that need it.

I think I also responded to the j'accuse above, so I will leave it at that.

[Hatman 🍁]

There is so much wrong with the paragraph, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I won't.

But, it's our lack of understanding, our lack of empathy that will create the greater schisms over the next few decades. Instead of throwing the middle and working classes some bones, they are getting more and more nothing. And they're only going to get more angry.

[© tweed]

@Torie_$$: the view lurking behind your idea is that education is a product to be purchased like any other, in accordance with the market logic that has treated you so well.  many people do not believe this to be necessarily the case; still others of us would consider your attitude to be dystopian.  if it makes us "brats", we're done for.

[Leftbehind]

It doesn't bother anyone that these students so privileged to be at the university are protesting not being subsidized no matter what their circumstances, and how able their parents are to not put a further burden on the taxpayers?  I find this group to be the paradigm of the underserving, un-poor. Our milages just differ, and on this one I feel strongly, and have since well, I was in college.  The irony of course, is that the vast majority of the taxpayers paying for this,  are in circumstances below those of these kids, or what their circumstances will be. It's Robin Hood in reverse. It fosters inequality, rather than mitigate it. Help the kids that need it, and only the kids that need it.

I think I also responded to the j'accuse above, so I will leave it at that.

We had the same bullsh**t reasoning here recently, alongside the laughable "why should others pay for you education?" from politicians all from an earlier generation who all had free university. The idea that the working class would do better in a society where university wasn't free is plainly ridiculous. You'd just have a situation where kids with rich daddies will be the only ones going, alongside a few token poor via philanthropy. Those poor that you're disingenuously concerned for would get nowhere near. Then we can look forward to our public services having to import workers, and our economy be doomed to skills shortages. If there's inequality - and there is - and a concern that the average student is better off than average worker (and I know that here that assumption's came crumbling down) then higher taxation would be the logical route to solve that, with those students paying for the next generations, and if they're well-off then they'll reach the higher-rate tax band and be taxed accordingly.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

This thread is the reason why I'm not a fan of talking Canadian politics. Most Canadians, especially young Canadians, are so conditioned to want more, more, more from the government. That attitude really creates an unwelcoming environment for those of us with libertarian or free market views. There's not even a foundation for us to make our points because government is just so huge--the CPC, to me, is even a left-wing party.

Venting aside, I tend to be with Torie on this one. I have no sympathy for the students in Quebec. I'd like to see them pay for tuition in Ontario universities. Compared to us, their education is practically handed to them out of public coffers.

[Marokai Backbeat]

There's not even a foundation for us to make our points because government is just so huge--the CPC, to me, is even a left-wing party.

I'm always glad when a poster makes a statement that allows me to completely disregard their opinions for any topic ever.