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Quebec's 'truncheon law' rebounds as student strike spreads
Quebec's 'truncheon law' rebounds as student strike spreads A draconian law to quell demonstrations has only galvanised public support for young Quebecois protesting tuition fee hikes
Martin Lukacs
24 May 2012
At a tiny church tucked away in a working-class neighbourhood in
Montreal's east end, Quebec's new outlaws gathered on Sunday for a day
of deliberations. Aged mostly between 18 and 22, their membership in a progressive student union
has made them a target of government scorn and scrutiny. And they have
been branded a menace to society because of their weapons: ideas of
social justice and equal opportunity in education, alongside the ability
to persuade hundreds of thousands to join them in the streets.
Under
a draconian law passed by the Quebec government on Friday, their very
meeting could be considered a criminal act. Law 78 – unprecedented in
recent Canadian history – is the latest, most desperate manoeuvre of a
provincial government that is afraid it has lost control over a conflict
that began as a student strike against tuition hikes but has since spread into a protest movement with wide-ranging social and environmental demands.
Labelled a "truncheon law" by its critics, it imposes severe restrictions on the right to protest.
Any group of 50 or more protesters must submit plans to police eight
hours ahead of time; they can be denied the right to proceed. Picket
lines at universities and colleges are forbidden, and illegal protests
are punishable by fines from $5,000 to $125,000 for individuals and
unions – as well as by the seizure of union dues and the dissolution of
their associations.
In other words, the government has decided to smash the student movement by force.
The
government quickly launched a public relations offensive to defend
itself. Full-page ads in local newspapers ran with the headline: "For
the sake of democracy and citizenship." Quebec's minister of public security, Robert Dutil, prattled about the many countries that have passed similar laws:
"Other societies with rights and freedoms to protect have found it reasonable to impose certain constraints – first of all to protect protesters, and also to protect the public."
Such language is
designed to make violence sound benevolent and infamy honourable. But it
did nothing to mask reality for those who have flooded the streets
since the weekend and encountered police emboldened by the new
legislation. Riot squads beat and tear-gassed people indiscriminately,
targeted journalists, pepper-sprayed bystanders in restaurants, and mass-arrested hundreds, including more than 500 Wednesday night – bringing the tally from the last three months of protest to a record Canadian high of more than 2,500. The endless night-time drone of helicopters has become the serenade song of a police state.
In its contempt for students
and citizens, the government has riled a population with strong, bitter
memories of harsh measures against social unrest – whether the dark
days of the iron-fisted Duplessis era, the martial law enforced
by the Canadian army in 1970, or years of labour battles marred by the
jailing of union leaders. These and other occasions have shown Québécois
how the political elite has no qualms about trampling human rights to
maintain a grip on power.
Which is why those with experience of
struggle fresh and old have answered Premier Jean Charest with unanimity
and collective power. There are now legal challenges in the works,
broad appeals for civil disobedience, and a brilliant website created by the progressive CLASSE
student union, on which thousands have posted photos of themselves
opposing the law. (The website's title is "Somebody arrest me" but also
puns on a phrase to shake a person out of a crazed mental spell.)
And Wednesday, on the 100th day of the student strike,
Québécois from every walk of life offered a rejoinder to the claim that
"marginals" were directing and dominating the protests: an estimated
300,000-400,000 people marched in the streets, another Canadian record,
and in full violation of the new law. They brandished the iconic red
squares that have now transformed into a symbol not just of accessible
education but the defence of basic freedoms of assembly and protest.
Late into the night, a spirit of jubilant defiance spread through the
city. On balconies along entire streets, and on intersections occupied
by young and old, the sound of banging pots and pans rang out, a practice used under Latin American regimes.
The clarity that has fired the students' protest has, until now, conspicuously eluded most of English-speaking Canada. This is because the image of the movement has been skewed and distorted by the establishment media. Sent into paroxysms of bafflement and contempt
by the striking students, they have painted them as spoiled kids or
crazed radicals out of touch with society, who should give up their
supposed entitlements and accept the stark economic realities of the
age.
All this is said with a straight face. But young people in
Quebec, followed now by many others, have not been fooled. They know the
global economic crisis of 2008 exposed as never before the abuses of
corporate finance, and that those responsible were bailed out rather
than held to account. They know that meetings of international leaders
at the G20 end by dispatching ministers home to pay the bills on the
backs of the poorest and most vulnerable, with tuition hikes and a toxic
combination of neoliberal economic policies. And with every baton blow
and tear-gas blast, they perceive with ever greater lucidity that their
government will turn ultimately to brute violence to impose such
programs and frighten those who dissent.
To those who marched
Wednesday, and the great numbers who cheered them on, the fault-lines of
justice are evident. This is a government that has refused to sit down
and negotiate with student leaders in good faith, but invites an organised crime boss to a fundraising breakfast;
a government that has claimed free education is an idea not even worth
dreaming about, when it would cost only 1% of Quebec's budget and could be paid for simply
by reversing the regressive tax reforms, corporate give-aways, or
capital tax phase-outs of the last decade; a government whose turn to
authoritarian tactics has now triggered a sharp decline in support, and
which has clumsily accelerated a social crisis that may now only begin
to be resolved by meeting the students' demands.
As the debate
went on at the CLASSE meeting in the church last Sunday, the students'
foresight proved wise beyond their years. "History doesn't get made in a
day," one argued into the microphone. Not in a day, no doubt, but in
Quebec, over this spring and the summer, history is indeed being made.
La Presse
22 mai 2012
...
La CLASSE estime que 250 000 personnes ont
participé à l'événement. Des sources policières ont plutôt avancé le
chiffre de 100 000 manifestants. Peu importe, la circulation routière a
été perturbée dans le centre-ville de Montréal.
La plupart des regroupements avait fourni un itinéraire de la marche. «Il est essentiel de ne pas exposer inutilement nos militants et nos organisations aux mesures répressives [du] projet de loi. Les autorités municipales seront informées [de notre itinéraire] comme nous le faisons à chacune de nos manifestations. De plus, nous aurons notre service d'ordre », explique le Syndicat de la fonction publique (SCFP) sur son site web.
La CLASSE, instigatrice de ce rassemblement, avait pour sa part choisi de ne pas divulguer son trajet. On s'attendait à ce que ses membres empruntent le même chemin que les autres participants.
Avant le départ, le porte-parole Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois a déclaré que
le rassemblement pacifique prouvait que désobéissance civile n'est pas
synonyme de vandalisme. Il croit que le succès de la manifestation est
un geste «collectif, massif de désobéissance civile».
«Ce sont des dizaines de milliers de personnes qui sont dans les rues,
dit-il. Si le ministre de la Justice est conséquent avec sa loi, il
devra mettre à l'amende des dizaines de milliers de personnes.»
Ian Lafrenière, le porte-parole du SPVM, croit que les casseurs auraient
pu être mieux contrôlés si les trois groupes avaient dévoilé et
respecté leur itinéraire. «Quand tu dis : «nous autre, on va faire une
marche, mais on va défier les autorité», en partant, tu invites des pas
gentils à venir avec toi. La preuve, c'est que les deux grandes marches
du 22 mars et du 22 avril derniers, les itinéraires étaient connus et il
n'y a eu zéro problème», a-t-il dit.
Des militants tous azimuts
Une foule bigarrée, composée d'étudiants certes, mais aussi de militants
tous azimuts, de sympathisants, de familles, de poussettes, et d'ainés,
s'était réunie vers 14h pour le départ à la place des Festivals. Le
thème de l'événement est: «100 jours de grève. 100 jours de mépris. 100
jours de résistance.»
Les associations étudiantes sont au rendez-vous, tout comme plusieurs
grands syndicats et des politiciens, dont Amir Khadir, habitué des
manifs étudiantes. Gilles Duceppe, venu assister à la manifestation avec
un carré blanc épinglé à sa veste, croit que le gouvernement n'a plus
qu'une porte de sortie: retourner aux négociations avec la FECQ et la
FEUQ.
Plusieurs manifestants ont des mots durs pour le gouvernement. «Ce ne
sont pas les étudiants qui sont violents, c'est le gouvernement qui est
violent», rage Christine Coallier, professeure de philosophie au cégep.
Elle en veut particulièrement au gouvernement de Jean Charest d'avoir
fait la sourde oreille depuis 100 jours.
Lorraine Boutin et Marc Guénette, eux, manifestent avec leur fils
gréviste Antoine, étudiant au Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne. «Cette loi
spéciale est le constat d'échec d'un gouvernement qui n'a pas réussi à
dialoguer avec des jeunes très intelligents. Notre jeunesse est très
impressionnante», raconte Mme Boutin.
«L'éducation est le plus beau cadeau pour nos jeunes. La hausse des
frais n'est pas le débat, il y en a de l'argent. Mais la loi spéciale a
fait de moi un citoyen engagé. Je suis sur les réseaux sociaux comme
Twitter et je suis ce qui se passe», raconte Marc Guénette.
«La loi spéciale m'a fâché. Ça va me rendre plus militant. Au mieux,
cette loi ne changera rien. Au pire elle va empirer les choses», croit
Antoine.
Maxime, un étudiant de 24 ans, demande que les parties retournent à la
table des négociations. «En trois mois de grève, on a eu 22 heures de
discussion. Ça dit quelque chose».
...
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