Quebec government trashes democratic rights in order to crush the student movement

Over the past two weeks, the student
strike in Quebec has entered a new stage. What originally began as a
strike against a 75% increase in tuition fees has rapidly progressed
into a movement against the Liberal government itself. Premier Jean
Charest’s government has clumsily fallen over itself, trying to suppress
or divide the movement, with little success. Instead of killing the
movement, every action by the government has only given the movement new
life.

Montreal, 1 May. Photo: Through My CameraLast
week, Quebec education minister Line Beauchamp was compelled to resign
after the students rejected the government’s offer by a massive margin.
The strike has moved beyond being simply about money — it has now
fundamentally become a movement centred on power, and who wields it.

On Thursday (17th May), the Charest government tabled Bill 78, and
forced an overnight session in Quebec’s National Assembly in order to
have it passed into law by the following day. Bill 78 effectively
eliminates the right of protest in Quebec. The law prohibits groups of
more than 50 people from congregating without police approval, and makes
student union fees non-compulsory — a clear attempt to destroy the
student unions. It also places restrictions upon the right of education
employees to strike.

The government has also imposed draconian fines in order to enforce
this law; individual strikers can be fined $5,000, “leaders” can be
fined $35,000, and labour and student unions can be fined $125,000 if
they are deemed to be “in charge” of a demonstration. Furthermore, this
law would be on the books until July 1, 2013. This is very clearly one
of the greatest suppression of democratic rights in Canadian history.

The student strike is now entering its 14th week and shows no sign of
weakening in the immediate future, despite the Quebec state’s vicious
repression. As of the time of this article’s writing, we have witnessed
28 consecutive nightly mass marches in Montreal, which have drawn out
thousands of demonstrators on each occasion. The students have
successfully disrupted the daily running of Quebec society and beaten
back the government’s injunctions against striking students throughout
the province’s colleges and universities. The US State Department has
even been forced to issue a travel advisory, warning US tourists to
avoid travelling to Montreal! The students scored a significant victory
with Line Beauchamp’s resignation;
a visibly drained Beauchamp not only resigned her ministerial post, but
resigned from politics completely, thereby reducing the Liberals’
majority in the National Assembly to just one seat.

Despite the movement’s militancy and determination, the Quebec
government has demonstrated unprecedented stubbornness. Aside from
legislative manoeuvres such as Bill 78, the Quebec state has taken the
adage of “cracking skulls” to a literal new level. At least four
students have already lost their vision from police attacks. Students,
teachers, and workers are routinely pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, and
CS-gassed. Scores of people have been seriously injured by repeatedly
being fired upon with plastic bullets from the police. After Bill 78
brought out tens of thousands this past weekend, the police caused a
scene of chaos in Montreal’s trendy St-Denis neighbourhood, attacking
not just strikers but standers-by as well. One cop pepper-sprayed diners
on a terrace, while another threw a tear gas canister into a packed
restaurant.

This brutal attack on democratic rights is having the effect of
radicalizing an entire sector of Quebec society. Quebec today has more
in common with Egypt than the traditional notion of “sleepy Canada”.

Montreal, 1 May. Photo: ThienThe
outrage is clearly spreading to the rest of the population as the
workers are starting to realize that the state’s repression is going to
apply to them, as well as students. There has been unanimous
denouncement of this law from the trade union and student union leaders.
CSN [Confédération des syndicats nationaux] leader Louis Roy called
this law a “completely pitiful law, written by impotent uncles.” At
their most recent congress, public-sector workers in the CSN (which
number around 55,000) voted for unlimited strike action, commencing on
22nd May. The CSN is also organizing to come out for the mass protest
planned on 22nd May, the 100th day of the Quebec student strike. Lawyers
and law experts have also been unanimous in their denunciation of Bill
78. The law is a clear affront to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
enshrined in the Canadian constitution. The fact that the law has an
expiry date is certainly because there is no chance that it will ever
hold up in court.

The amount of money spent on policing during this conflict has now
far surpassed the amount of money the government would have received
from the tuition increase. Furthermore, by suspending the school
semester at 34 colleges and 11 universities, these schools have an added
financial pressure as their semesters are scheduled to resume
immediately before the next semester is to begin. It is very clear that
the strike is no longer about money, but about power. The government
feels that it has to win this struggle, regardless of the financial
cost.

The tuition hikes are only one part of the general austerity that the
Quebec government needs to force upon the Quebec working class. If the
students beat back the tuition increases, this would send a very
dangerous message (in the government’s eyes) to the rest of Quebec
society — that capitalist austerity can be fought. Even the brutality of
the police repression has its own rationale — this is what Quebeckers
(particularly unionized workers) can expect if they dare to defy the
government and bosses.

On the other hand, there is a more far-sighted and intelligent
segment of the ruling class which actually wants to see the Charest
government reach a deal with the student movement and have the movement
end. This is especially the case with the ruling class outside of
Quebec, in the rest of Canada, who realize that the movement has moved
beyond being one simply opposed to tuition fee hikes, and is now
questioning the entire austerity program that the bosses and bankers
have in store. Furthermore, they are passionately afraid of this
movement spreading beyond Quebec’s borders. They ask themselves, “Is it
worth jeopardizing everything for a $1,625-increase in tuition fees?”
This contradiction is very much at the heart of the capitalist austerity
worldwide, and shows the real weakness of the ruling class.

The Charest government is in actuality in a very weak position. Bill
78 is extremely unpopular and is causing the student outrage to spread
further into the working class. The Quebec nurses’ union recently issued
a press release which linked Bill 78 to Bill 72, the law passed by the
PQ government of Lucien Bouchard which took away the right-to-strike
from 60,000 Quebec nurses in 1999. (Ironically, Jean Charest was then
the leader of the Opposition and had claimed that Bouchard was “out of
touch with reality”!) Other workers will realize the similarities
between Charest’s attacks on students, and his attacks on public-sector
workers in 2007, when the Liberals passed legislation that essentially
banned public-sector strikes in the province. There are also the more
recent examples, federally, with Canada Post and Air Canada workers having their labour rights taken away by the federal government.

The Quebec student strike is no longer simply about tuition fees; it
is now a question of who wields real power in society. The working class
must exercise their power on the side of the students in order to sweep
this draconian law aside, and beat back the austerity of the Quebec
government. The initiative of the public sector workers of the CSN is
one that other unions must follow. More than ever, the students need to
organize delegations to go to the workplaces and enter into discussion
with the workers and explain the need for student-worker solidarity.
This law is an attack on us all.