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Québec Student Strike

November 17, 2016 Stefan Christoff, www.beautifultrouble.org , ,
By Stefan Christoff for Beautiful Trouble - In 2012, Québec students managed to reverse a major tuition hike and a draconian anti-protest law through direct democracy, creative tactics, and mass demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people. In 2012, Québec students managed to reverse a major tuition hike and a draconian anti-protest law through the practice of direct democracy, creative tactics, and mass demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people.

Quebec Mayors Unite Against Bill They Say Poses Threat To Drinking Water

August 29, 2016 Staff, www.montreal.ctvnews.ca ,
By Staff of CTV News - Several Quebec mayors are vowing to fight a new law that they say would take away their power to protect their communities’ drinking water. Bill 106 is meant to provide a framework for energy exploration in the province but the mayors said it gives too much power to oil companies to push ahead even in regions that oppose them. “Right now, we have oil companies that have claims on territory,” said Anticosti Mayor John Pineault. “Those claims are going to change categories. They’re going to become a property if they wish.”

Quebec’s Strike Wave Rolls Toward A Showdown

November 12, 2015 Ashley Smith, www.socialistworker.org ,
Workers in the Canadian province of Quebec are mobilizing the largest struggle against austerity in North America. Public-sector workers across Quebec have hit the picket lines for a wave of strikes to defend jobs, wages, working conditions and public services. In the first round of rotating regional strikes from October 26-29, more than 400,000 unionists organized in the Common Front shut down schools, hospitals and government offices in and around Montreal. Independently, the Fédération autonome de l'eseignement (FAE) led its 34,000 French language teachers in three days of rotating strikes on October 26-28.

The “Longue Durée” Of The Québec Spring

April 30, 2015 Pierre Beaudet, www.socialistproject.ca , ,
This new “Québec spring” is neither a marginal nor a momentary reaction to any particular government's policy. In 2012, there certainly was the specific trigger of the tuition hike prompting a major student strike. But a closer look at what happened shows that several steps in the prior decade allowed for the movement to gain strength. In 2000 for instance, the Québec women's federation (Fédération des femmes du Québec, FFQ) organized a very important movement for advancing the condition of women. In 2001, the “Americas People's Summit” in Québec City and the protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) promoted by the Canadian and U.S. governments led to the renewed wave of protest across the hemisphere, and the eventual defeat of the FTAA.

Montreal Students Now Fighting Austerity With ‘Occupy’ Reboot

April 25, 2015 Brigitte Noel and Simon Coutu, www.vice.com , , ,
In an effort to breathe new life into the somewhat dwindling anti-austerity movement, nearly 100 students have set up a makeshift campsite outside a Montreal CÉGEP school. In Quebec, protests against the provincial Liberal government's austerity measures have been becoming smaller yet increasingly creative, with events like a non-mixed feminist march, the UQAM occupation—which led to violent mayhem and the arrest of more than a dozen students—and a "die-in" in opposition to health-care cuts that would threaten access to abortion. But CÉGEP de Saint Laurent students—most between 16 and 20 years old—claim these methods are no longer cutting it, and have opted to build a more "permanent" symbol of their dissent. As of Thursday, more than 60 tents lined the school grounds.

Anonymous Shuts Down Montreal Police Site Against Brutality

April 13, 2015 Waqas, www.hackread.com , , ,
The infamous online hacker group Anonymous’ Quebec branch has taken the credit for penetrating the Montreal Police department website and the officers’ union. On Friday, at 10:30PM, the Montreal police website went down and minutes later the Montreal police brotherhood also was shut down. The Police department website remained off until Saturday. According to a tweet from Anonymous, the group targeted police because of the brutality accusations when thousands of students took to the streets to protest against the recent austerity measures. The hacker collective also identified that it will “ruin the life” of an officer who was seen pepper spraying protesters in Montreal.

Protesters Stage Night Occupation Of UQAM Building

April 9, 2015 Rene Bruemmer and Monique Muise, www.montrealgazette.com , ,
More than 250 students at the Université du Québec à Montréal occupied a building Wednesday night where, during the afternoon, police arrested 21 protesters. Shortly before midnight, 150 remaining students said they intended to stay the night. Police had massed discreetly outside, but said they had no intention of intervening. School administrators called for police aid twice during the day to dispel demonstrators who were attempting to disrupt classes. On their second visit of the day, police arrested 11 women and 10 men at around 3 p.m. During a tense standoff between students and police officers in the basement of the J.-A.-DeSève building on Ste-Catherine St. near St-Denis St., professors stepped in between lines of police officers and students, and managed to defuse the situation.

Protests Shut Down Austerity At Point Of Production

April 7, 2015 Jonathan Leavitt, www.truth-out.org , , ,
On March 21st, the first day of spring, Quebec students went on strike over the Liberal Couillard government’s austerity policies; those numbers swelled to over 60,000 striking students by Monday the 23rd. Approximately 140,000 total Cegep (pre-university vocational college), college and university students will hold strike votes with renewable mandates this spring. As the constituent power and momentum of the strike builds one general assembly at a time, at least 105,000 students have voted to shut it down at the point of production on April 2nd.Printemp 2015 is attempting to unite striking student unions with 400,000 public sector workers in contract negotiations in a province-wide “social strike” May 1st.

Quebec’s Long Struggle To Build A Democratic Left Party

April 6, 2015 Pierre Beaudet and Richard Fidler, www.rabble.ca , , , ,
In 1971, I worked at the Montréal Central Council of the CSN, where my mentor Michel Chartrand was president. Maligned as an anarcho-syndicalist, he embodied the left opposition in the CSN. He enraged the right wing in the central, which split in 1972 to found the Centrale des syndicats démocratiques (CSD). Chartrand was even beaten up by some thugs during a meeting of the CSN Confederal Council. His relations with Pepin were not cordial. Pepin never indicated any support for him during his lengthy imprisonment under the War Measures Act. Chartrand criticized him above all for not really believing in the "second front." Notwithstanding his outspoken personality in public, the private Chartrand was a humanist, an assiduous reader with a great love of art and a fine taste for good food and wine.

Four Reasons Québec Is On The Streets Fighting Austerity

April 1, 2015 David Gray-Donald, www.rabble.ca , , ,
Night demonstrations -- a fixture in the 2012 Quebec student movement -- were held on Tuesday in Montreal and Quebec City, and again on Friday in Montreal, with thousands filling the streets as well as hundreds of armoured police. The mobilization against austerity measures was met by strong police reaction. On Thursday of the same week, the Quebec Liberal government tabled a budget "balanced" by large cuts to education, health care and other social services spending. A Popular Protest Against Austerity and the Petro-Economy was held on Saturday March 21 with between 5,000 - 10,000 taking to the streets of Montreal. The event was repeated with another large turnout on Saturday, March 28, with more protests held in Montreal and around Quebec.

Montreal Students Announce Strike

March 23, 2015 Jennifer Baker, www.revolution-news.com , , ,
The Montreal Gazette reported that organizers of the protest said this will be one of several demonstrations to be held over the next few months. “Today, we’re proud to launch a raucous spring,” said Fannie Poirier, spokesperson for the Spring 2015 protest committee. “Austerity measures have been presented as the lesser of evils to confront a deficient economy. But what we’re seeing … is a massive impoverishment of the population, full-frontal attacks on working conditions and a loss of security for society’s most vulnerable people.” The official spokesperson for student group ASSÉ, Camille Godbout, said more than 50,000 students will officially be on strike as of next Monday to protest against the provincial government’s austerity plan.

Non To Austerity In Quebec: Demonstrations Scheduled For Saturday

March 21, 2015 David Gray-Donald, www.rabble.ca , ,
Spring is being welcomed in Quebec with a Popular Protest (Manifestation populaire) against austerity and the petro-economy this Saturday, March 21, called by Printemps 2015organizers. Saturday's event in Montreal will be the biggest of the day, though others are planned around Quebec. Printemps 2015, named in reference to the "Maple Spring" student movement of spring 2012, pegs austerity and a fossil fuel economy as the forces to rally against. The current Quebec Liberal government, led by Philippe Couillard, is tabling an austerity-heavy budget on March 26 likely to detail deep cuts across the board to public services. The trend of government austerity is not new in Quebec, but the severity of the changes are alarming to many.

Quebec Protest Aims To Pressure Leaders On Climate Change

March 18, 2015 CTV Montreal, www.montreal.ctvnews.ca , ,
Representatives from environmental organizations, unions, student groups and First Nations Sunday announced plans for a rally to demand action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The groups say Canada and other countries need to respect targets for cutting emissions, and they say projects such the ones going on in Alberta’s tar sands are incompatible with meeting those targets. They want the governments of Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and New Brunswick to oppose the expansion of the tar sands and the transport of oil by pipeline and by train. Dubbed the “Act on climate” march, the groups want the march, set for April 11 in Quebec City, will remind leaders that Canadians want them to do more to protect the planet.

Quebec Students Plan One Of Largest Strikes In Canada History

March 16, 2015 Alan Jones, www.vice.com , ,
Three years after staging the largest student protest in Canadian history, students in Quebec are gearing up for another one. Various media outlets may have threatened the same thing last year, and the year before, but the protests planned for the upcoming weeks are larger in scale than anything the province has seen since 2012. As of writing, 24 student organizations in Quebec, representing over 30,000 students at six university and CÉGEP campuses, have voted to strike as part of a protest against the Liberal government's austerity measures. Student organizations representing another 110,000 students are scheduled to carry out strike votes.

Anti-Austerity Protesters Occupy Yves Bolduc’s Office

February 24, 2015 Andrew Brennan, www.cjad.com , , ,
Hundreds of protesters once again converged on the Montreal office of Premier Philippe Couillard to voice their opposition to government cuts in the public sector. "Austerity is irking me, definitely," Deanna Lombardi of the Réseau d’action des femmes en santé et services sociaux, a coalition of health and social services organizations that support marginalized women, told CJAD News. "I'm worried about those that are the most vulnerable in our society, those with the least agency," she continued. "We know the gap between richest and poorest is increasing and I'm worried that austerity measures will just worsen this." A short march to Place Montreal Trust involved a brief detour for a few dozen demonstrators, who occupied the offices of Education Minister Yves Bolduc and the headquarters of the Canadian Bankers Association on McGill College Ave.
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