The latest major, organized protest took place Saturday afternoon and attracted about 7,500 people to march and bang pots and pans in spite of rain. “It’s not a student strike,” the event’s Facebook invitation announced. “It’s a society waking up.”
Indeed, there seemed to be more average citizens than students among the marchers. The spokesperson for the organizers, the militant student group CLASSE, acknowledged the difficulties ahead.
“It’s going to be a challenge to keep the mobilization at the same level,” Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois conceded. “Many students have returned to their families in the regions, so we expect to see protests a bit smaller, but more of them around Quebec.”
The government clearly had the side of public opinion in the battle over planned tuition hikes, which prompted the student strikes last February.
However, after it adopted an emergency law, Bill 78, on May 18 to staunch the frequently violent protests and social chaos erupting on a nightly basis in Montreal, public support dropped. The protests took on a wider, more generalized dimension as people began expressing their displeasure not only with the law but with the government’s actions as a whole.
The students hope these citizens stay connected to the movement.
“This is exactly what we’re doing — we’re taking over where the students have left off,” said Marie-Helène Pelland, 49, adding she was proud to do so.
“You can see here in the crowd. There is more gray hair, more people from all walks of life.”
Danielle Lèger was primarily marching against Bill 78. She’s not necessarily against the tuition hikes, preferring a moratorium to deeply study the issue. “There are more older people now who are falling in behind the students,” said Lèger, 53.
She said it was unclear how the protests would turn out in the weeks ahead. Would there be fewer and fewer participants?
“That’s possible, but really, even if they do, the problems will remain. People will go on vacation, but they will come back in the fall and nothing will have been solved.”
The latest breakdown in negotiations followed the government’s offer of a couple of modest reductions or modifications to the tuition hike, which was planned to occur over seven years and amount to about $1,500 per year per student. The students rejected the offer.
Saturday’s protest was festive and loud, as they have been for about two weeks as demonstrators resorted to banging pots and pans and other objects to make themselves heard — a protest tradition imported from Latin America. There were colanders, drums, tin cups, even a cowbell. Some people in the march wore earplugs for the noise.
As Marie-Danielle Bussault, 22, saw it, the student protests weren’t losing steam. “On the contrary, they’re becoming more global, with more causes involved, and more places,” said the Université du Québec à Montréal communications student.
CLASSE is at the heart of the student strike. It now represents 70 per cent of the remaining students on strike, or, as they prefer to say since the arrival of Bill 78 — which postponed sessions at striking schools to the fall — “locked out.”
Unlike other student federations, CLASSE called for civil disobedience against the new law, which requires protesters to give their itineraries to police eight hours in advance or risk hefty fines.
CLASSE launched a fundraising campaign May 22 to counter any fines it might receive. So far, it has raised about $100,000, a spokesperson said, adding that so far no fines have been levied.
Saturday’s protest route was once again not given to police, who quickly declared it illegal. However, as with every march since the law was adopted, Montreal police allowed it to take place anyway.
Quebec Premier Jean Charest has expressed concern the protesters would try to disrupt the Canadian Grand Prix next weekend, a hugely profitable tourist weekend in Montreal.
Nadeau-Dubois said the CLASSE will only conduct an “information and visibility” campaign. He admitted his group is powerless, however, against certain individuals or groups who might go further.
Another protest was scheduled in Montreal for Saturday night, for the 40th night in a row.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Andrew Chung
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