Category Archives: Free speech

Quebec Students Marathon Protest, Confrontation at Concordia

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students Marathon Protest, Confrontation at Concordia

Photo by John Kennedy, The Gazette

Breaking rules and records two months into a strike and protest against rising tuition costs, students marched on Montreal for 12 hours on Wednesday 11 April. Smaller groups of students extended the march to 15 hours on the city streets and landmarks.  Gridlock and blocked streets have become routine in downtown Montreal while strikes and protests have brought campuses to near standstill.  Today  at Concordia University police rolled in to break up a student blockade.

Photo by Jan Ravensbergen, The Gazette

“I was astonished by how quickly everything happened,” an eyewitness said Thursday morning after Montreal police broke up a brief student blockade downtown of the main Concordia University campus building. “The students appeared from nowhere. Then these police just started flooding in. “The whole thing happened in just a matter of minutes, the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.” About two dozen Montreal police officers equipped with helmets and shields had pushed a crowd of protesting students away from the front of the Henry F. Hall Building westward along de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. on Thursday at 8:55 a.m., after which the crowd dissolved.

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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Posted in Free speech, Government, Organizing, Student Movement, Students

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Quebec Student Strike Intensifies, Longest in Province History

Posted on April 10, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Student Strike Intensifies, Longest in Province History

Photo by Peter McCabe, The Gazette

The Quebec student strike is now in its eighth week and has gathered nearly half the higher education population in the province.  There are about 185,000 students on strike out of 400,000. “About 90,000 of them have agreed to an unlimited strike that won’t end until the government rescinds its plan for a $1,625 tuition increase over five years.” The students have sustained a series of demonstrations, protests, and strikes against the tuition hike.  Monday April 9 saw mass demonstrations and “Wednesday will be another big day for protesting students as they launch a 12-hour-long demonstration that will begin at 7 a.m. at Victoria Square. The “unlimited protest” is supposed to show the students’ unlimited resolve in the face of tuition increases and the Quebec government’s unwavering stance on the issue. A continual loop of students will take turns marching for an hour at a time throughout the day.”

Today, the resolve of striking students at the Université de Montréal was tested, “as the university sent out an email last week saying if students aren’t back in class by then, they can’t guarantee that all courses can be completed by June 15, the end of the extended semester. That means some classes could simply be suspended, as the university asserts there will be “no compromise” on the quality of the education.”

Read more: Montreal Gazette Story 1 and Story 2

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Posted in Free speech, Government, Protests, Student Movement, Students

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UQAM Resorts to Intimidation Against Striking Montreal students

Posted on April 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on UQAM Resorts to Intimidation Against Striking Montreal students

Photo by Anne Sutherland, The Gazette

The Montreal Gazette reported that the Université du Québec à Montréal obtained a temporary injunction Wednesday ordering the strikers to allow employees and other workers to enter the university’s buildings and residences unimpeded.  The UQAM is “fed up with striking students blocking access and harassing staff.”

Strikes and protests continue to escalate across the province and 71 students were arrested today in Montreal for storming the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. “Two security guards at the hotel were injured in the melee. A buffet table was overturned and dishes were smashed.  A crowd of fleet-footed students estimated at 100 or more later roved through downtown Montreal, tieing up traffic and chanting their opposition to the planned university-tuition hikes.”

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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Posted in Free speech, Organizing, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Student Movement, Students

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Quebec Students escalate Boycott and Protests

Posted on March 29, 2012 by | Comments Off on Quebec Students escalate Boycott and Protests

Photo by Phil Carpenter, The Gazette

Students stormed the Quebec Liberal party office in Montreal this morning and again a large mass  marched down Pie IX Blvd. to the intersection with Notre Dame St. and blocked the entrance to the Port. Demonstrations are now nearly daily and at Concordia alone, about 10,000 students out of 30,000 undergraduates are boycotting classes. “Education Minister Line Beauchamp stated that students will need to choose between boycotting and their diplomas, saying they ‘can’t have it all’.”

The students have re-adopted the red square to symbolize their protest and remind the government of the force and successes of the 2005 strike and raise spectres of socialism and Marxism.  The government’s plans to raise costs of education, students said, “would leave them ‘carrément dans le rouge’ or squarely in the red, the colour of debt.”

Photo by John Kenney, The Gazette

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Posted in Free speech, Government, Student Movement, Students

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150 Arrested in Montreal Student Movement

Posted on March 15, 2012 by | Comments Off on 150 Arrested in Montreal Student Movement

Montreal Gazette — More than 100 people were arrested and two were injured after a protest by Montreal students turned ugly on Thursday evening, with police firing tear gas into the crowd. The protest, a joint demonstration against rising tuition fees and police brutality began at about rush hour, but was confronted by Montreal police outfitted in riot gear. About 2,000 protesters headed north through the city, then west along Sherbrooke Street, but no police were visible along the route, although they were positioned on adjacent streets and in the city’s subway system. When about six officers did appear, a few protesters started throwing rocks at them. At one intersection, police fired off two loud stun grenades, sending a panic through the crowd. Protesters ran in all directions, but riot police formed a line, and banging on their shields with their batons, marched forward, shoving demonstrators north…. A young woman, who didn’t want to give her name, held a bag of ice to her right eye after a police officer whacked her with his baton. “(Riot police) were coming towards us and my friend dropped his cellphone so I bent down to pick it up with my arms raised in the air, so one hit me in the face and my back,” she said. Police made the majority of the evening’s arrests in front of a downtown library…. those arrested were just standing still, arms locked, in front of the library chanting. “They were the least provocative of the whole march.”

Photo by Graham Hughes, Montreal Gazette

Read more: Montreal Gazette

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Posted in Free speech, Protests, Solidarity, Strikes, Student Movement

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Students 1-day Occupy Montreal Street and University

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | Comments Off on Students 1-day Occupy Montreal Street and University

Last week ended in violence as police clamped down on students in Montreal.  The student movement in Quebec is in full career, now three weeks in, as protests escalate against rising tuition and other costs to education.

Image from The Link

This week began with L’Université du Québec à Montréal students occupying a campus building and street. “When the administration caught wind of the students’ idea, they closed the building that the demonstrators planned on using.  They responded by breaking into the building, taking back their art supplies for the “creativity night” and moving the event to the DS building on Ste. Catherine and Sanguinet St.”  More at The Link.

 

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Posted in Free speech, Government, Organizing, Protests, Student Movement, Students

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ICES Appeal to Boost Support BCTF Petition to 500+

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | Comments Off on ICES Appeal to Boost Support BCTF Petition to 500+

Post-secondary Support of Teachers / BCTF Petition

We want to forward this petition to the Ministry at the 500+ mark today or tomorrow morning.  Please circulate and let’s boost this to 500+!  We are currently at 399 signatures…

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Posted in BC Education, Employment rights, Free speech, Government, Organizing, Protests, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions

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This is What Solidarity Looks Like

Posted on March 6, 2012 by | 1 comment

15,000-20,000 rallied across the province while about 6,000 marched on BC legislature in Victoria to support BC teachers and stand up for BC.  The BC Federation of Labour organized the rally and with short notice the BCTF and peer unions in the BCFed summoned the show of force.  Parents and their children showed up by the thousands at today’s rally.  The halls of legislature shook, with the government nervously hearing BIll 22 while thousands joined in unison to drown out the oppressive measures, including outrageous fines for doing exactly what the BCTF and its widespread public support was doing. “Shame” on the BC Liberals the crowd chanted as speaker after speaker described the debilitating conditions under which the teachers and the BCTF are now placed.

“This is what solidarity looks like” announced BCFed President Jim Sinclair moments before bringing on BCTF President Susan Lambert.  Past BCTF President Irene Lanzinger, now secretary-treasurer of the BCFed emceed the rally.  More to follow from ICES…

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Posted in BC Education, Employment rights, Free speech, K-12 issues, Labor Programs, Organizing, Solidarity, Strikes, Strikes & Labor Disputes, Unions, Working conditions

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