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The Quebecois student movement is currently insane. And amazing! Actions in response to the provincial government’s attempt to increase tuition fees by 85% over 7 years have escalated and increased in frequency over the past few months. Marches have brought out hundreds of thousands of students, and are taking place across the province. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of students have been on strike, often wildcat strikes, for several months. The opposition to the fee hikes (“la hausse”) converges with and builds on other struggles of the past year, such as the strikes and pickets against stagnant wages and bad faith negotiations by the non-academic staff union at McGill, and the violently repressed student occupations of administrative buildings in defense of campus radical groups such as CKUT (an independent radio station) and QPIRG (not like PIRGs here, but a v. cool funding hub for community orgs funded by student levies). As negotiations among student unions and the provincial government prove fruitless, students have started to come out at night, and the spirit of the demonstrations has shifted from a concession to civility to a more defiant and pissed stance, particularly against the expected but still ghastly uptick in police brutality.
