Blazing Cat Fur has the latest on this, "Stupid Leftist protesters block students trying to get back to school." Following the link takes us to a report from Sun News discussing the months-long strike that has kept at least 300,000 students from attending classes. And the part that struck me is that despite court injunctions ordering college and universities to open their doors, administrators have defied the injunctions, citing the danger of violence from the mobs. Simply astonishing:
More than two-dozen Quebec colleges and universities have opted to defy court injunctions obtained by students this year.Yes, the protests have turned violent. It turns out protesters lobbed smoke bombs in the Quebec subway last week, shutting the place down and causing general outrage at the movement with the general public. Here's a report, from the National Post, "Four suspects in Montreal subway smoke-bomb case will remain detained for more than a week," and video from the Montreal Gazette:
The schools say they want to avoid confrontations with protesters, some of whom have ransacked colleges in the past.
Also on Monday, marching students blocked traffic in the streets of north-end Montreal. A second group of demonstrators blockaded an education department building in Longueuil, on Montreal's south shore.
Police used pepper spray to clear access to the building.
A general, unlimited student strike began on Feb. 14 to protest Premier Jean Charest's decision to increase annual tuition by $1,800 over the next seven years.
As many as 300,000 students have missed all or part of their semester.
Students have held nightly protests in Montreal for nearly a month.
Some of the demonstrations have turned violent, prompting the federal and municipal governments to introduce bans on masks at protests that could take effect later this year.
And it's no surprise, but here's video from Democracy Now! featuring an interview with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesperson for CLASSE (Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante). It turns out Nadeau-Dubois is under fire in some quarters for refusing to denounce the violence. See: "Quebec student leader: Gov't apathy worsened dispute."
It's clear that the tuition fee hikes are only the pretext from a massive anarcho-socialist mobilization to bring down the regime. The conservative government of Premier Jean Charest is in fact proposing only mild fee increases, which would be about $200 a year, or $100 a semester. That's hardly the "privatization" of public services that the protesters are decrying. CLASSE obviously doesn't want a deal and instead prefers more anarchy and violence in the streets:
Student leaders said this weekend there was still hope for a resolution, even after the resounding rejection by students last week to the agreement in principle reached between the government and the student federations on May 5.Disgusting.
Nadeau-Dubois said the ball was now in Charest’s court, and they were waiting for a new offer from the government.
He did not think the recent wave of court injunctions giving students the legal right to return to class would be effective, as many protesters are against having the courts being used to break the strike movement.
CLASSE is organizing a mass protest for Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., starting at the corner of Viger Ave. and Bleury St., labelled a “disruption ... aimed at reminding the rich of this world they are rich because they’re keeping us poor.”
Nadeau-Dubois said CLASSE prefers to keep the exact nature of the “disruption” secret until the protest.
See also Graeme Hamilton, at the National Post, "Hard to claim Montreal violence isn’t tied into wider protest movement."
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