QUEBEC CITY – Thousands of students protested in downtown Quebec City on Dec. 6,
as government officials, including Quebec’s ministers of education and finance, met with
student leaders, university administrators and professors.
Despite the large protest and walkouts by student and labour groups, the government has
said they will be carrying out a planned tuition increase in 2012.
“We announced it in the budget,” Finance Minister Raymond Bachand told reporters. “It
was very clear.”
However the amount of the increase is still to be determined.
Student and labour groups criticized the government for coming into the consultation
with their minds already made up on the issue.
While both of Quebec’s main student lobby groups were invited to participate in the
meeting of “education partners,” representatives of the Fédération étudiante universitaire
du Québec, the largest student group in Quebec, walked out of the meeting early in the
day, saying that they saw no reason to stay, since the government seemed to have already
made a decision.
The sentiment was echoed by several union groups, who also walked out of the meeting.
The Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, Quebec’s second-largest student
group, announced they would be boycotting the meeting in October.
Both groups organized large protests, with several hundred attending a protest organized
by FEUQ and well over 1,000 attending ASSE’s protest. Both groups bussed in large
numbers of students from across the province to attend.
At least one student was arrested early in the day.
Despite the presence of riot squads from both the Quebec City Police and Quebec
Provincial Police, protesters managed to gain access to the hotel where the meeting was
taking place on multiple occasions. The Montreal Gazette reported that protesters clashed
with riot police inside the building in the morning, while a large number of protesters
entered the building through a side door around 3 p.m., there did not appear to be any
violence or arrests in that incident, with protesters leaving the building peacefully.
While the mood of the protest remained festive, tensions began to rise as evening
approached, with protesters throwing snowballs at the large number of riot police outside
the building and police aiming less-lethal weapons at protests, though none were fired.
Even with the disruptions, the government described the meeting as a success.
“While we did not reach a consensus on many points, this does not change the fact that
the workshop discussions, in which all the participants took part, have provided us with
possible solutions that we will be carefully examining over the next few weeks,” said
Education Minister Line Beauchamp. According to Beauchamp, the government will
look at ways to improve financial aid programs to offset some of the effects of the tuition
increase.
Bachand echoed a recent study released by the Conference of Rectors and Principals of
Quebec Universities, which claimed that, due to the effects of inflation, students are now
paying less than they were in 1968.
CREPUQ has called for tuition to increase by $500 a year for three years, beginning in
2012.
But the government stressed that tuition increases were not the only place universities
should be looking for money.
“I intend to call upon the business community to contribute more toward the funding of
our universities by, among other things, increasing their philanthropic endeavours,” said
Beauchamp.
Tuition fees in Quebec are currently the lowest in the country.
