50,000 protest austerity budget in Quebec

Students in Montreal get the message across with protests/Les étudiants à Montréal font passer le message en protestant

Lisa Mayor
Th’Argus

This past week, a mighty uproar shook Montreal. About 50,000 people took to the streets to protest austerity measures in the provincial budget proposed by Quebec’s Minister of Finance Raymond Bachand, including significant tuition increases. The protest comes after over 1,000 students took to the streets of Quebec City in December.

The provincial government’s plan to raise tuition by 75% was not taken lightly by the province’s student population. Students across Quebec were warning the government that the increase will result in a faceoff between their unions and the province. Despite the protests, Bachand’s budget was successfully tabled March 17th.

Students took to the streets on Saturday, March 12th to voice their opinions over the $325 increase slotted for each of the next 5 years. This adds up to an extra $1,625 by 2016 – which will leave the province’s tuition still 30% lower than the national average. The increase will generate $850 million in revenue for the schools, claims Bachland. The Principal and Vice Chancellor of McGill University, Heather Munroe-Blum, calls it a “one-size-fits-all approach to funding.”

Tuition is currently hovering around $2,000 a year in Quebec, less than half the national average of around $5,000. Out-of-province students studying in Quebec pay, on average, $5,600 a year, slightly less than the Ontario average.

The case for tuition increases in Quebec revolves around beating down the province’s soaring debt. But professors and university officials are worried that this will reduce the number of students able to afford university. In the past, rebellious student unions have been able to nix tuition increases, and that was the hope this time around. This was evident in the turnout to the rally shortly before the budget was proposed last weekend – students are thought to have made up a large part of the 50,000-strong crowd.

The leader of Quebec’s provincial union of college students, Leo Bureau-Blouin, says that students will be protesting until tuition fees stop increasing. He added that whenever Bachand and the Premier Jean Charest come to Montreal, they should expect a welcoming party, of sorts.

The protest on Friday scrambled traffic outside the hotel where Bachand was to submit his budget proposal, and protestors were even able to block the path of Montreal Mayor Gérald Termblay’s car, forcing him to attend to the speech on foot.

Bachand justified the increases in his speech, arguing that students will make “hundreds of thousands of dollars more than if [they] had a high-school education.” He also pledged that 35% of the increase would be dedicated to student aid. “The competition for brains in this planet is quite high,” he concluded.

Article photo courtesy of The Link (Erin Sparks)

Tags: tuition hikes

Category: News