A group of students interrupted a joint meeting of Concordia’s Board of Governors and Senate on Tuesday meant to introduce university presidential candidate Dr. Alan Shepard.
The chants of approximately 20 students drowned out the congregation gathered in the D.B. Clarke Theatre at 12 p.m.
Led by geography student and Mob Squad member Alex Matak on a megaphone, the students, who say they are frustrated with the university’s response to the student strike against provincial tuition hikes, called on the administration to hear their demands.
The disruption prompted Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill and CSU councillor and student governor Cameron Monagle to try to calm students in order to proceed with the meeting. As a last effort, Gill stood at the podium to speak but was impossible to hear over the noise.
University spokesperson Chris Mota confirmed that Shepard, who currently serves as provost and VP academic at Ryerson University, would not be returning for another public meeting at Concordia.
“On behalf of the university community I think it’s unfortunate that the opportunity was taken away from us,” said Mota.
Alex MacPherson, president of the technicians’ union, said that while he supports the student movement, it was “disappointing” that others could not speak and express their views.
Gill was also visibly frustrated that the meeting did not take place. In an informal gathering of students that took place shortly after the failed meeting, Gill emphasized that individual professors or members of administration that do support the students fight against the increase “left the meeting embarrassed.”
“There was an opportunity here to make this meeting what we wanted it to be,” said Gill. “Instead the meeting didn’t happen.”
The judicial board of the Concordia Student Union unanimously voted to reinstate six formerly disqualified councillors elect following a public hearing on Monday, April 23.
The councillors were there to appeal the decision made by the CSU’s Chief Electoral Officer, Ismail Holoubi, which disqualified them for not filing their election expense reports on time.
The councillors present at the meeting were Rami Khoriaty, Charles Brenchley, Bella Giancotta and Ali Talhouni. Holoubi was absent from the hearing, as were formerly disqualified councillors Veryan Goodship and Johnny Alexandar.
Khoriaty insisted that the CEO was late to file the motion to disqualify the councillors and that communication between the councillors and Holoubi had been unclear.
“We didn’t have any receipts because we didn’t have any expenses,” said Khoriaty. “We had nothing to send to the CEO.”
After Holoubi disqualified the councillors on April 5 for failing to hand in their paperwork on time, the councillors requested to appeal his decision on April 11.
According to Khoriaty, some councillors did not receive emails from Holoubi regarding the expense reports, and those that did said each one was different.
“For seven people to make a mistake, it wasn’t us, it’s a mistake done by the CEO,” said Khoriaty.
Before the meeting was adjourned, councillors emphasized that they had all been acting in good faith.
“We did not commit electoral fraud,” said Brenchley.
Following the hearing, the board released a preliminary statement reversing the decision made by the CEO and reinstating all six councillors for the 2012 – 2013 academic year.
JB Chair Ceejay Desfosses resigned unexpectedly from her position the day before the hearing in an email sent to CSU Chair Nicolas Cuillerier.
Desfosses wrote that she would be unable to fulfill her obligations to the JB due to a lack of time since she will be “embarking on other endeavors.”
On April 22, the Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale etudiante unanimously voted to denounce deliberate acts of violence by student protesters and was allowed to enter negotiations.
However, tentative talks between student groups and the province fell apart after Education Minister Line Beauchamp banned the CLASSE once again from joining the discussion.
The minister’s decision came on April 25 in response to a violent student demonstration that took place the previous night. Though the CLASSE stated they did not organize the protest, Beauchamp said they were responsible in part for announcing the demonstration on their website.
As a result, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Fédération étudiante collègiale du Québec have abandoned negotiations with the government unless the CLASSE is re-admitted.
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On Tuesday, the Concordia Student Union voted on a symbolic motion to support the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec’s decision to stand in solidarity with another student group, during a special CSU meeting regarding negotiations with the government.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp offered to speak with the FEUQ and the Fédération étudiante collègiale du Québec on Sunday, after the FEUQ requested an independent government commission to investigate university management.
Beauchamp made it clear that there would be no discussion of the incoming tuition hike at the meeting, and that the Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale etudiante would not be invited.
The CSU decided in a unanimous motion that it will only support negotiations between the provincial government and the student leaders if all student associations are invited.
Following a presentation by CSU President Lex Gill, the special council meeting was quickly voted into a committee of the whole, allowing for more informal dialogue and an open discussion for those present at the meeting.
Gill emphasized that at the last FEUQ meeting it was clear they were not willing to engage in negotiations without the CLASSE, who has been very active throughout the year in the fight against tuition increases.
“There is a consensus at the CSU that the CLASSE should be at that table as well,” said Gill.
Beauchamp stated earlier in the week that she would only extend an invitation to the CLASSE if the student association agreed to condemn acts of violence and vandalism as means of protest. CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said at a press conference held April 16 that while the association does not associate itself with these acts, it cannot condemn them. Nadeau-Dubois said the CLASSE would not change its position without consulting its members first.
“We find it unacceptable that our coalition, which represents 47 per cent of the people on strike right now, is being rejected from the negotiation process,” said Nadeau-Dubois on Monday. “If our coalition is not part of the solution, there won’t be any actual solution to the student strike.”
More protests are underway this week. On April 19, a morning demonstration is planned for the downtown core. That same day in Gatineau, students will be protesting the injunctions ordered against striking students at L’Université du Québec en Outaouais. On Sunday April 22, students will join in what is expected to be a large march coinciding with Earth Day.
With files from Sarah Deshaies and Marilla Steuter-Martin.
At the April 11 Concordia Student Union council meeting, the resignation of former VP advocacy and outreach, Morgan Pudwell, was addressed. Council went into closed session for the reading of a statement issued by Pudwell, who was not present at the meeting.
President Lex Gill said when asked about Pudwell’s student status, that she could not discuss academic or health issues of her former colleague but that “[Pudwell] is working to resolve the situation.”
The issue was not discussed more at council following the closed session, in part because Pudwell was in transit and unable to attend the meeting.
According to an email sent to councillors from CSU chairperson Nick Cuillerier, the Dean of Students office confirmed that Pudwell and Arts and Science councillor Amero Muiny are not registered as students at the university.
At the Wednesday meeting, it was stated by Cuillerier that Muiny would be submitting an official resignation to council in the near future.
CSU council mandated an investigation into the status of its executive, council and judicial board members at a council meeting in March. Pudwell walked out of the last regular CSU council meeting after former CSU councillor Tomer Shavit accused her of not being a registered student. Pudwell stated illness as her reason for leaving.
With only six weeks left in her term, Pudwell informed her fellow CSU executives in a formal letter sent on Tuesday that her last day in office will be April 17. The news of her resignation surfaced mid-day Wednesday.
According to Pudwell, she is no longer able to maintain her position because she has been dealing with health concerns.
During the last two weeks of her term, Pudwell wrote in her letter that she would “tie up loose ends with on-going projects and produce documentation for the incoming executive.”
Over 5,000 students and citizens attended a demonstration on Wednesday in Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s home riding of Sherbrooke.
Students bused in from across the province representing high schools, CEGEPs and universities which have been protesting the province’s tuition increases.
The Concordia contingent, which was organized by student union VP external Chad Walcott, lost a large number of supporters before the bus even left the Hall building.
Earlier in the day, about 60 students were arrested during a protest which occurred at the Eaton Centre shopping mall as well as the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Police say that those arrested were involved in “mischief” though it is not completely clear what the students have been charged with.
Walcott confirmed that a number of those arrested were Concordia students who were supposed to be on the bus, which departed at 11 a.m. Ultimately the group leaving from campus was quite small, with only six people travelling to Sherbrooke for the march.
The protesters congregated at the University of Sherbrooke and met up with an even larger group before walking all the way to the premier’s local office. Once there, students continued to cheer and chant as leaders of the movement made speeches.
Students wait to register at the March 26 general assembly. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Students wait to register at the March 26 general assembly. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Unlike its March 7 predecessor, the second general assembly held on Monday by the Concordia Student Union to vote on continuing the strike was met with little success.
While about 2,000 students were present at the first GA, less than 300 showed up on the Reggie’s terrace for the outdoor GA organized by the CSU. After more than an hour of waiting in the cold and windy afternoon, the CSU still had not met the minimum of 450 registrations in order to carry out the vote. Around 3:30 p.m., CSU Chair Nick Cuillerier announced only 12 students had registered in the past hour and declared the GA adjourned.
“It’s a disappointing turnout, unfortunately, and it wasn’t meant to be,” said Cuillerier. “There was a very small amount of time between the calling of the general assembly and the general assembly itself compared to the previous assembly which had six weeks of notice and preparation.”
Shortly after the GA, about 100 students organized a sit-in on the 7th floor of the Hall building and started passing around a new petition to call for a third GA. While undergraduates as a whole are no longer on strike, individual faculty departments are still holding strike GAs and are organizing mobilization movements on their own.
Yesterday’s adjournment struck some motions off the agenda specifically for that GA. Notably, the motion to pass the minimum agreement, which would prevent the CSU from denouncing the actions of other student associations, as well as requiring that all student associations be present when negotiating with the government.
“It’s difficult to do any kind of advertising in this kind of climate of continuous strike,” said CSU VP external Chad Walcott. “If you look at the CSU elections, we barely made quorum. But this campaign isn’t over yet. It will end when the year is over and next year we’ll pick it up if that’s what needs to happen.”
Walcott said he was confident the movement was not losing momentum.
“One thing that we all know is that when people are connected to the movement, they are going to keep going until they run out of steam, and it seems like there’s a couple hundred students here who aren’t running out of steam anytime soon,” he said. “And they’re going to continue mobilizing and I’m going to continue providing them with the resources they need.”
Some students, including those who organized the petition for this second GA, blamed the CSU for the failure to meet quorum, emphasizing a lack of organization and advertising.
“This GA was a disappointment,” said geography student Alex Matak. “I do feel like it was largely an organizational problem why it didn’t happen. The CSU was really busy and it has a lot of other things to do, at the same time I think there is a certain time where if you can’t do something, you need to make that clear. […] I wouldn’t blame them but I would say that they should not have tried to take that on themselves if they did not have the capacity to do it.”
Several students also said that the GA would have attracted more students if it was held indoors. The CSU said it was forced to hold it on the Reggie’s terrace because of a double-booking of the Hall auditorium.
The sit-in of the CSU lounge that came after the GA was a direct reaction to a recent email from the administration warning picketers that they could face formal charges.
The original plan to occupy the GM building was cancelled when a student reminded the group that such action could not be carried out without a plan. Instead, the 100 students headed for the 7th floor of the Hall building to prepare an agenda for Concordia’s future actions in the movement against tuition hikes.
Just like the provincial student associations, Concordia students talked about a radicalization of the movement, notably by increasing the number of acts of disturbance.
Students staged the largest protest in Quebec history March 22. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Over 200,000 people took to the streets in the historic March 22 protest against tuition increases, but as far as the provincial government is concerned, the hikes are here to stay.
The march began officially at Place du Canada, where buses full of students from outside the city started arriving earlier in the day. The approximate length of the route was five kilometres, with protesters marching down both Sherbrooke and Ste-Catherine Streets to their ultimate destination, Place Jacques-Cartier in the Old Port.
Protesters held signs denouncing Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government, the leadership of Education Minister Line Beauchamp, and the idea that accessible education is not a priority.
Despite the massive turnout, the protest was extremely peaceful and the SPVM reported no major incidents during or after the march. Police presence was very light in comparison with other demonstrations that have taken place over the past few weeks.
On the morning of March 22, Charest told reporters at the National Assembly in Quebec City that his government would “never stop listening to students.”
The next day, his education minister told the Canadian Press that students needed to get back to class or risk facing consequences. Beauchamp reiterated that the government would not back down from its decision, and said that should students continue to boycott classes, they risk having their classes scheduled at night and semesters extended. Concordia already indicated in a previous statement that it has no intention of prolonging the winter term.
“We called for a peaceful, but loud demonstration. It was the biggest demonstration in the history of Quebec,” said Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec.
She went on to say that “Beauchamp has no choice now but to answer to 200,000 people speaking with one voice demanding accessible education.”
“The mobilization exceeded all our expectations,” said Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec President Léo Bureau-Blouin. “This is a precedent in student mobilization and I’m sure it’s going to have a huge impact on the Liberal government.”
The Concordia delegation lead the way for the better part of the three-hour demonstration.
“This sends an incredibly strong message to the government,” said Concordia Student Union President Lex Gill of the protest. “If anything else, the Liberal party has lost 200,000 voters for life.”
The participation far exceeded the predictions made earlier in the day, proving that there is more public support for the student movement than estimated. Despite the success of the demonstration, Gill explained that protesters still have much work to do.
“The fight is not over,” she said. “There will be massive actions in the coming weeks until the government backs down.”
Participants in the March 22 protest represented every age demographic, from toddlers with their parents to cheering grandparents. Grade 10 student Terra Leger-Goodes of Paul-Gerin-Lajoie School in Outremont was at the march with a large group of students from her class.
“We heard that the cost of going to university is going up by a large amount, so we’re here to protest that. Society can only advance if people can go to school and gain knowledge,” she said, mentioning that by the time she enters university four to five years from now, the government’s tuition hikes will have almost reached their maximum. The Charest Liberals are planning to increase tuition by $325 a year between 2012 and 2017.
For grandmother Danielle Genereux, accessible education is an issue that affects everyone in Quebec, and should be at the top of the government’s priority list.
“Major investments in education should be an absolute priority. There should be no further discussion on that,” said Genereux, a grandmother of seven. “[The government] says opposition against tuition increases is not representative of the whole population. But today, they will see that it is representative.”
At the end of the march, Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois told students to return to their schools and to keep the student movement going. By 6 p.m., most of the protesters had dispersed, crowding into the nearest metro stations.
CLASSE, one of the main organizers of the day’s march, is planning a series of protests next week in an effort to cause an “economic disturbance” in the city, which they say will only end when the government retracts its decision to up tuition.
Opposition parties lend their support
Earlier in the morning of March 22, a press conference was held at Palais des Congrès by the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec, and included representatives from groups such as the Centrale des syndicats du Quebec and the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, as well as opposition political parties, the Parti Québécois, Québec Solidaire and Option nationale.
At the conference, PQ leader Pauline Marois reiterated that a PQ-elected government would not proceed with the tuition hikes, and would call for a provincial summit on post-secondary education. “The Charest government must stop considering students as enemies of the state,” she said.
QS spokesperson Françoise David, for her part, emphasized that the government could increase taxes on larger corporations in order to bring in more revenue, rather than asking for more money from students.
After the conference, PQ post-secondary education critic Marie Malavoy spoke to The Concordian about the issue of mismanagement of public funds in Quebec universities that has often been brought up in the debate on tuition increases.
Referring to Education Minister Line Beauchamp’s recent decision to fine Concordia with $2 million for handing out six severance packages totalling $3.1 million, Malavoy said “there is no reason to have targeted one university. We must look at the salaries, the benefits and the severance packages at all universities. It’s foolish to think it’s just Concordia,” she said.
Malavoy mentioned that an idea has been floating among PQ ranks to institute a “commission” to look more closely at the management of public funds in Quebec universities.
Extra security presence on campus causes tension with students. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Extra security presence on campus causes tension with students. Photo by Navneet Pall.
The first major altercations between university security and students happened on Monday, March 26, following the reaffirmation of Concordia’s strong stance against hard picketing tactics.
While some students were participating in a sit-in on the 7th floor, another group of students were facing half a dozen security guards on the 4th floor.
The conflict began when a group of geography students used hard-picketing tactics by blocking the entrance to their classroom. Protesters were met by security who showed up to make sure “there would be no incident.” Several students felt intimidated by the guards, who were also filming the picketers.
“I think 30 years ago we would have never seen this kind of pressure from the administration to force a union [security] to cross another union’s picket line,” said geography student Jess Glavina.
“What happened at the classrooms so far was very calm and very peaceful. The presence of security guards is creating a really uncomfortable environment on campus. It’s really unnecessary and it feels like students are being prosecuted.”
Last week the university sent an email warning about consequences for students who choose to continue blocking access to classes, which could include formal charges.
Eventually, the geography professor who was supposed to teach the class cancelled it, telling security there were not enough students in attendance.
“I just think that I’m in a really difficult position because I respect what the students have democratically chosen to do,” said the professor, Julie Podmore. “But the picket wouldn’t permit me to pass through anyway and there weren’t enough students that were in the classroom to hold the class.”
Earlier that day, a similar altercation resulted in an incident that drew attention on the Internet after it was posted by CUTV. A student who was filming an argument between security and students in the Faubourg was struck in the face by one of the security guards, throwing the camera out of her hands and onto the ground.
“Get that guy’s name because he just hit me in the face,” the student was quoted as saying in the video.
The security agent eventually left the premises without identifying himself. Following this initial incident, the student persisted that she wanted to file a formal complaint against the guard.
In the university’s March 23 email to all students, it stated that it was “no longer possible to tolerate further disruption of university activities by a minority of protesters who refuse to respect the rights of others.” The email went on to say that the university will from now on lay charges against those who choose to block access to classrooms.
The university said it also encourages students to report any incidents that prevent them from getting to their classes. Students who are found hard-picketing will be asked by the university security to provide IDs and will be reported to a panel to face the appropriate charges. Those who refuse to identify themselves will have their pictures taken in order to be identified.
“The charges will depend on the severity of the case but it could go from a written reprimand to expulsion,” said Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota. “The university will only target students who are physically blocking access to classrooms and offices. We received complaints and we need to make sure our community has the liberty of movement. Blocking the Guy Metro building [last Wednesday] for example was unacceptable.”
The CSU and the Graduate Students’ Association responded to the university’s email by issuing a statement titled: “Students will not be intimidated.”
Both associations called the university’s email “dangerous” and “irresponsible,” saying the university painted picketing students as aggressive when “in reality [their actions] have been consistently characterized by a lighthearted, peaceful, and creative nature, with very few incidents.”
“The last communication the administration sent out was perceived by the CSU as extremely aggressive,” said CSU VP external Chad Walcott. “Their message is calling for a profiling of students and a general discrimination against protesters and picketers. We think that it is highly unacceptable.”
Walcott believes that the university’s decision to come out with a heavy-handed stance proves that the student movement’s tactics are working.
“We actually sat with the university administration to tell them that this email would only create conflictual relations between students and the university,” said Walcott. “We were basically told that the university did not care if things went out of hands.”
The Concordia Student Union has taken a lot of heat recently, and rightly so. They failed to properly promote two general assemblies to vote on a strike and their recent elections were an utter disaster with a seriously low voter turnout.
Nonetheless, it’s important to give credit where credit is due. The CSU proved to be a fine leader last Thursday during the massive protest against tuition hikes, when over 200,000 people, many of them students, took to the streets to tell the Charest government to take their planned increases and shove it.
Early Thursday morning, hundreds crowded around the Hall building, where they designed protest signs and discussed their strategies for the day. By noon, over 500 students were heading down to the march’s main meeting point, being lead by CSU President Lex Gill and vice-president external Chad Walcott.
Considering the controversy that has surrounded the CSU in recent weeks and the criticism the executive has faced with regards to a lack of organization, it was pleasing to see the CSU hype up the crowds and lead the massive march for the better part of the three-hour event.
The fact that it was the CSU, the student union of an English Quebec university, playing such a pivotal role in the demonstration sent a strong message, one that said that anglophone students in this province — at least a large part of them — have no intention of being left out of this fierce battle against tuition hikes. While francophone student associations continue to receive most of the praise for their efforts in mobilizing students and keeping the movement alive, the CSU showed us last Thursday that anglophone post-secondary institutions can be just as feisty in this fight with the Charest Liberals.
The demonstration as a whole was a huge success. While it may not have succeeded in swaying the government’s position on tuition, it proved how serious students and their supporters are when it comes to accessible education. The fact that so many people poured into the streets to take part in one of the largest demonstrations in Quebec’s history is very telling of the public mood in this province.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp may do her best to sleep at night by telling herself that the march was simply comprised of “the usual players,” but what the minister has failed to realize — among other things — is that it wasn’t just students or big unions out in the streets on March 22; there were countless parents, grandparents and students from other provinces (Ontario, notably) marching that day as well.
Solidarity between people of different generations and of different backgrounds has not been this evident in Quebec for many years. So it’s important to not let the power of solidarity diminish. The CSU may have taken another hit this past Monday with its failed general assembly — only about 300 students showed up — but this in no way means that the student movement at Concordia is slowly fading away.
The CSU must harness the frustration and anger Concordia students are expressing with regards to tuition increases and the administration’s mismanagement of public funds. Mobilizing students on a large scale is still very much a possibility. The CSU proved to be a powerful leader last Thursday; there’s no reason to believe they can’t do it again.
Quebec has been holding its breath since the three major student associations promised to push things further following the massive demonstration against tuition hikes last Thursday.
After the March 22 protest that saw 200,000 students marching the streets of Montreal, student leaders warned the Liberal government they were now taking the movement further.
Organizations like the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec and the Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante announced increasing actions of occupation and “economic disturbance” in order to hit the Charest government where it hurts—in its pockets. One of the leaders even showed signs of support to actions like blocking traffic on bridges.
“We are now going to speak the only language [the Charest government] understands, and that is the language of money,” said CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. “We have tried with symbolic actions but now it’s time to take it to the next step.”
Reacting last Friday to the march, Education Minister Line Beauchamp refused to call it historic, as most of the province’s media did, and declared that her position had not changed.
In the plans announced by FEUQ, FECQ and CLASSE, the associations’ leaders promised they would increase the number of protests, hold regular sit-ins and occupation-type demonstrations in government offices and ministers’ press conferences. They also aim to launch awareness campaigns to influence future voters, particularly in the regions where Liberal candidates were elected by slim margins in the last provincial election.
“We’re now switching to a pre-electoral mode,” said FEUQ President Martine Desjardins. “We’re going to target the 10 Liberal MPs who won with the lowest majority in the last elections and we are going to campaign in their districts telling people that their MPs are against accessible education.”
When it comes to actions of economic disturbance, however, the different organizations don’t all agree on the methods to use. While CLASSE praised actions like blocking bridges and commended the participants in these actions for their “bravery,” the FEUQ and the FECQ questioned such methods and said they wished to avoid losing public support for their cause.
“Our belief is that we should target those who are responsible and in that case it’s the government,” explained Desjardins. “Public opinion is very fragile and it doesn’t take much to turn people against us. We need to make sure the general population supports us and we need to keep those families and professors who marched with us on March 22 supporting us.”
The Concordia Student Union sided with the FEUQ, and said they would not follow other students organizations in any actions that would put Concordia students at risk.
“The CSU’s position is that we endorse positions that are peaceful,” said VP external Chad Walcott. “We will only advertise actions that we feel our students can go to and come back from without being arrested or getting fined.”
However, CLASSE, FEUQ and FECQ admitted that if the Liberal government maintains its refusal to negotiate with students, these types of extreme actions would continue to happen. The associations are informally respecting an agreement of non-denunciation and non-negotiation, where associations cannot question the legitimacy of other student groups’ actions, nor can they initiate negotiations with the government without the presence of all the major associations.
“Blocking bridges is not the type of actions we support since we don’t think it targets the right people,” said FECQ President Léo Bureau-Blouin. “But we have showed good faith in organizing peaceful demonstrations so far and at some point, if the government still doesn’t listen, we have to take it to the next step.”
This is not the first time the FEUQ and the FECQ have disagreed with the CLASSE over strategies of mobilization. The three student organizations have been continuously quarreling since 2005 over campaigning methods.
During the speeches at the end of the March 22 demonstration, CLASSE leaders refused to also let FEUQ and FECQ representatives speak, claiming their congress mandate kept them from sharing the stage. The leaders of the two associations had to climb on the roof of their sound truck to speak to the thousands of protesters.
“We found it unfortunate considering our movement is supposed to be a unified movement but it’s not the time to show signs of division,” said Desjardins. “Our cause goes beyond the associations that we represent.”
It remains to be seen if the student organizations will agree on the strategies to adopt in pushing the student movement further, but all have assured they aspire for unity in their message and in potential negotiations with the government.
“It’s important for us to stay unified because the enemy is not among us, it’s the government. Having a unified movement with different and complementary strategies is the best way to go for now,” said Desjardins.
The next major protests are set to take place on March 27 in Montreal, and then on April 4 in Premier Jean Charest’s home riding of Sherbrooke. The CSU has announced it will be sending a bus full of students to the demonstration.
Students kick off strike with March. Photo by Navneet Pall.
Students kick off strike with March. Photo by Navneet Pall.
The last day of the week-long strike voted on at the Concordia Student Union’s March 7 general assembly will coincide with the massive province-wide protest against tuition hikes set to take place on Thursday, March 22. On that day, Concordia University will shut down both of its campuses.
An email sent by Provost David Graham and vice-president institutional relations Bram Freedman on Monday to all students and staff stated that, considering 15,000 protesters are expected to gather around Concordia before heading for the march towards Canada Place on Thursday, the university had to ensure the safety and security of the university community and members of the public by closing down and stopping all university activities for one day.
The university, however, will reopen on Friday, March 23.
“The area is going to be congested with people,” said Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota. “There is not enough space in and around campus to allow people to gather and facilitate access in the same time. [Closing the university] was the right call to make.”
The March 22 protest will see tens of thousands of students gathering in the streets of Montreal, according to organizers at the Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante.
A Concordia delegation will be meeting in front of the Hall building at 12.30 p.m. and will be led by the CSU to meet with the rest of the protesters at Canada Place.
The Concordia week-long strike already kicked off last Thursday with a march of more than 200 ConU students through the streets of downtown Montreal.
Some of them gathered early in the morning in front of the Hall building, chanting, dancing and peacefully blocking the front entrance of the building with tape and balloons. At 11.30 a.m., about 100 students started marching around the downtown campus, eventually joined by at least 100 more protesters along the way.
“At the beginning, we were supposed to stay around the Hall building, but then a bunch of people said ‘let’s go to Charest’s office [on McGill College Avenue],’ so we did,” said CSU VP external Chad Walcott. “It went amazingly well and our numbers more than doubled during the march. I think we proved loud and clear that English students are not that apathetic and we definitely gave Montreal a little wake-up call saying that Concordia University is still alive and well.”
After a couple of circles around the Hall building, the protesters — accompanied by a giant bookworm made out of a dozen students hiding under sewed sheets — started walking on Ste-Catherine Street, escorted by police cars and attracting drivers’ and pedestrians’ attention with vuvuzelas. The students then went up McGill College Avenue for a quick stop in front of Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s office, before heading back towards Concordia.
“I am extremely proud of Concordia students today,” said School of Community and Public Affairs professor Anna Kruzynski, while dancing with the students after taking part in the march. “It’s the first time in Concordia’s history that students go on strike for more than one day. We have to take the tuition hikes issue to the street in order to be visible and gain the most support before the provincial government passes the budget on March 20.”
Kruzynski added that even though the decision to strike was not an easy or a unanimous one, it was a necessary sacrifice for the future of the education system in Quebec.
“There’s a lot of students who probably don’t understand why we need to strike,” she said. “But if you look at the history of student movements, the many strikes we had made it possible to stop tuition hikes or improve the loans and bursaries programs. If it weren’t for those strikes, people here would be in the same situation as students in other provinces where they have to pay $5,000 in tuition fees every year.”
When Tuesday’s march ended around 1 p.m., students remained in front of the Hall building, enjoying free food and partially blocking traffic by chanting and dancing in the street to the sound of drums.
“It’s just day one so people are still trying to figure out what is going on,” said psychology student Kathleen Khall about the turnout at the march. “The strike went really well and there was a lot of support from people who weren’t Concordia students as we were marching. As the days go on, people will probably participate more and I hope the movement grows and that we don’t let the French schools do all the work for us.”
As for the CSU’s strategy in preparing the March 22 protest, Walcott said he aimed to move away from the picketing “inside,” as such action was more in the hands of faculty associations, and “bring everybody to a festive atmosphere outside in the streets.”
“We’re going to keep people active, motivated and marching,” Walcott said. “If we continue like this, we will hopefully get a positive momentum and make all students join us without even having to picket.”
