Montreal march: A celebration that demands more!
2012Barry Weisleder 2012-10Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 9 →
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About 2000 people braved persistent rainfall and cool temperatures on Sept. 22 to celebrate the recent partial victory of the Quebec students’ movement. They rallied at Parc Lafontaine and marched through the streets of downtown Montreal, flanked by riot po lice armed with shields, truncheons, and rifles. The cops arrested two people for “launching projectiles,” and used pepper spray on some demonstrators.
Speakers at the opening rally, organized by the larg est students’ federation, CLASSE, emphasized that the struggle for free post-secondary education continues. This was in the wake of the Parti Quebecois minority government decision to annul the five-year 75 per cent fee hike imposed by the Jean Charest Liberal Party re gime defeated in the Sept. 4 provincial election. Pre mier-elect Pauline Marois said her government would substitute inflation-indexed fee increases—counter to the demand to eliminate fees.
The PQ voted in Cabinet to rescind Law 12, with its heavy fines for demonstrations without police per mission, for picketing near colleges and universities, and its threats to decertify students’ unions that fail to comply.
Sadly, two student federations did not endorse the Sept. 22 demonstration. Union banners were scarce too. But Professors Against the Hikes, along with sev eral civil rights, feminist, environmentalist and po litical organizations, were highly visible. They were joined by a troupe of drummers, who enlivened the somewhat soggy procession.
Seven members of Toronto Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste travelled to Montreal to partici pate in the action. They distributed hundreds of leaf lets in French urging a continuation of the campaign for free education. Socialists also demand that charges be dropped against the over 3000 people arrested in the spring and summer student protests.
The LAS stresses the need to mobilize against the bosses’ agenda at all levels. This was clearly expressed on its bright yellow banner bearing the slogan, “A bas l’austerité capitaliste. Pouvoir aux travailleurs / tra vailleuses !”
The LAS held a public forum, conducted mostly in French, on the Saturday evening. A number of Que becois activists attended and signed up to learn more about the Pan-Canadian revolutionary organization.
The PQ moved quickly in its first days in office to announce the closure of Quebec’s only nuclear pow er facility, to end shale gas development, to cancel a loan to reopen the province’s last asbestos mine, and Ryan Remiorz / The Canadian Press / AP (Above) May 15 student protest at Lionel Grouix College in Ste. Therese, Quebec.
to remove a health-care premium. But the PQ budget, expected in early 2013, will show how the bourgeois nationalist government actually chooses to relate to the interests of students and workers. Pundits predict major cuts to social expenditures and more subsidies to business. Thus, the struggle for a just, equal, demo cratic, and sovereign Quebec continues. n