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Quebec Student Protests: CLASSE Rejects Charest's Tuition Hike Offer

CP  |  Posted: 04/29/2012 1:26 pm Updated: 05/ 2/2012 8:24 am

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MONTREAL - One of Quebec's most powerful student groups has shot down Premier Jean Charest's revised offer on tuition fees.

The C.L.A.S.S.E. student federation voted this morning against Charest's proposal to stretch the tuition increase over seven years instead of five.

Two other major student groups are still debating the offer.

Meanwhile, the Quebec Liberals decided to move a party convention next weekend from Montreal to quieter Victoriaville to try to avoid protesting students.

Earlier this month protesters managed to get into a convention centre in Montreal, leading to a showdown with riot police.

They delayed Charest from giving a speech for about an hour.

More protests are scheduled in Montreal and across the province today.

Charest's offer made Friday hasn't done much to quell the unrest.

On Saturday evening, thousands again marched through Montreal to denounce the planned $1,625 increase in tuition, weaving through downtown streets and jamming up traffic.

The demonstration was smaller and tamer than a night earlier, though, with no arrests or major incidents.

As the dispute approaches its 12th week, about a third of Quebec students are still avoiding classes, but most have chosen to return to school.

In addition to drawing out the increases over seven years, Charest's offer would also bolster the loans-and-bursaries program, while tying future tuition increases to the rate of inflation.

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MONTREAL - One of Quebec's most powerful student groups has shot down Premier Jean Charest's revised offer on tuition fees.The C.L.A.S.S.E. student federation voted this morning against Charest's prop...
MONTREAL - One of Quebec's most powerful student groups has shot down Premier Jean Charest's revised offer on tuition fees.The C.L.A.S.S.E. student federation voted this morning against Charest's prop...
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Whatever we think of the student protesters in Quebec, the protests point to a real and true problem. Throughout the Western world, politicians are confronting the question: Who will bear how much of the burden of adjusting budgets to grim new post-2008 realities?

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Atim-moot Tugayak
Sun News is Dark and Hateful.
142 Fans
12:32 PM on 04/30/2012
Maybe its best if rates go up because the rest of Canada subsidizes Quebec anyway and may lessen the one way cash transfers to La Belle Province.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Atim-moot Tugayak
Sun News is Dark and Hateful.
142 Fans
12:28 PM on 04/30/2012
How, pray tell, can students reject Charest's offer? By moving to another Province with cheaper Post Secondary education costs? Wait, Quebec already has the cheapest rates....idiots they are and I'm centrist.
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Giuseppe Guida
26 Fans
 
12:09 PM on 04/30/2012
No mention of the pact that, with Charest and Beauchamp's proposal to spread the increase over seven years instead of five actually made the tuition hike go from $1,625 to $1,778? Shame on you, Huffington Post. If you were a protesting student, how would ANOTHER increase parading as a legitimate offer sound to you?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ethrop
micro-bio-tic
483 Fans
06:46 PM on 04/30/2012
The idea was to soften the year-to-year blow.. and the offer does precisely that. You mean we are going this whole charade now for 200$ ????

The striking students simply don't want a deal. Period.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Capital Ottawa
45 Fans
11:42 AM on 04/30/2012
To put things into perspective... $114-billion worth of guarantees and financial aid for Canada’s big banks.

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/04/30/did-canadian-banks-receive-a-secret-bailout/

This amount of money could fund free post-secondary tuition for 20 or more years... as a nation we sure have strange priorities. We get irate when our children want affordable tuition but don't bat an eye when our financial institutions cost us $114.
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CharlesBrown008
91 Fans
08:39 AM on 04/30/2012
Education is not just a commodity that benefit the consumer like foods and clothings. It benefits the community as well. The nation needs a skilled laboured force to prosper. People without education are a drain on society. It is in the interest of everyone to keep education accessible.

It is irrelevant that tuitions in Quebec is the lowest in the country, even after the proposed increase, because no one should be paying ANY tuition. The cost of education should be the tax burden of everyone because everyone benefit from the education of everyone else.

If we sheepishly accept incremental increases then after several increases, tuition would no longer be affordable to the poorer segment of the population, resulting not only the loss of productivity and tax revenue, but also increased welfare payout and health costs. Ontario has the highest tuition in the country because students there accept tuition increases year after year without complaint.

As citizens of this nation, everyone benefit from the skilled workforce and everyone owe a share of the training cost.
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Screenplay
17 Fans
08:58 AM on 04/30/2012
"no one should be paying any tuition' ???? you mean students shouldn't pay but the guy/gal working 40 hours a week needs to pay more taxes for this to happen right? Sure Quebec already is the most taxed province in Canada , a little more won't hurt right? How much more of a nanny state do you want? They the students already pay very little compared to basically to the rest of the world but now you want it also free ???...... Greece 2 here we come....
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Capital Ottawa
45 Fans
09:52 AM on 04/30/2012
The cost to fully fund post-secondary education in Canada would be $4 billion annually. Average tuition rates throughout Europe, $2500 CDN, many European countries like Germany and Sweden offer free post-secondary education. As a taxpayer would you rather buy F-35 fighter jets at $137 Million a pop or create an educated work force? The Guy/gal working 40 hours a week also would have access to the same free education system should they wish to retrain or change careers. It's a question of priorities, we are a wealthy nation and can afford to fully fund post-secondary education, it baffles me that we don't want to invest in our future generation. Instead we opt to reduce the corporate tax rate from 21% (2009) to 15%, buy expensive fighter jets, add 30 more MP's, fund Bev Oda's expense account... To me educating our future generation of leaders and innovators makes much more sense given the context.
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CharlesBrown008
91 Fans
10:31 AM on 04/30/2012
Would you rather fund welfare instead? Try thinking a little. I realize that you don't like paying taxes, but society isn't free to operate. One way or another, you are going to pay, but you have a choice on what to pay, education or welfare.

Capital Ottawa is right also that there are things you are paying now or about to pay that are much more costly than education tax that you are whining out, like the faulty F35 fleet and years of corporate tax cuts, and there is not a peep coming from the guys working 40 hours a week.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Owen Westmanthooth
Evaluate the facts
65 Fans
07:55 AM on 04/30/2012
Go back to class you fools. Your leaders pontificate about your exploitation like you were some marginalized cultural minority in sub-Saharan Africa. Better yet, you are screwing everything up for the students who are trying to get into university next year because of your outlandish moaning about a mediocre rate increase. Respect and patience for your overblown plight falls on deaf ears and you now have 0 respect thanks to your destructive tactics and self inflicted wounds. I hope they catch the people who have damaged property and make them pay for it by increasing their tuition by 1000%. Also, Quebec has the most accessible post-secondary with the least amount of people actually opting to attend university/college so that whole argument is also a straw man. Try getting a job kids. That's what most people do and you are not exempt from this reality.
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jocotbay
0 Fans
11:38 PM on 04/29/2012
Sorry, you students are in the wrong. You pay next to nothing. While it is going up $1600 over 7 years, everybody else in Canada will be facing at least double that increase. Don't be silly and get back to school. You students are like sheep following these dumbasss student leaders.
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curt99
8 Fans
08:44 PM on 04/29/2012
Quebec has the lowest tuition, and the lowest participation rate in post-secondary education. I don't see the relationship between lower tuition and greater accessibility, especially given that financial aid is available. Second, the best predictor of lifetime earnings is a post-secondary education, which means it should be worth something to those that choose to partake. Third, many countries where a university education is free often have university systems that are underfunded, of lower quality, and have even lower student participation rates because of tighter controls on admission because of underfunding. From my perspective the students that are walking out don't feel that their education is worth very much, otherwise they would be in class rather than on the street for months over a long overdue increase in tuition to try and help support a crumbling university system.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
nikki717
War...what is it good for?
1009 Fans
 
08:20 PM on 04/29/2012
I hope the students continue the fight. There is a lot at stake.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
elatas
50% French and 50% Italian mix
336 Fans
 
07:21 PM on 04/29/2012
Only 1/3 of Quebec students are on strike (about 180,000). Not surprisingly medical students are not on strike. They only pay about 10% of the cost of their studies and will make about 2 million dollars more compared to a Philosophy major student who pays about 40% of the cost of his studies. Students on strike come from the arts and social science programs and their job prospects are much more dire.
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brianmouland
25 Fans
 
06:47 PM on 04/29/2012
No Classe spoiled brats
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Jessen Joseph
86 Fans
06:44 PM on 04/29/2012
Maybe I'm envisioning a wierd utopian society up in my head.

But, if it were up to me, free education would be a basic human right all around the world.

And somewhat similar to what exists in places like Finland right now...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOfZL_J5fo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlYHWpRR4yc
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ethrop
micro-bio-tic
483 Fans
06:49 PM on 04/30/2012
No one can be against virtue.
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Elle Nicole
18 Fans
04:41 PM on 05/01/2012
I don't know about you, but the first 12 years of my education were free to me.
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Jessen Joseph
86 Fans
06:34 PM on 05/01/2012
Same here.

If only I required those 12 years of education to become a doctor or engineer...
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Shaowei Pu
0 Fans
05:42 PM on 04/29/2012
People keep saying"education is a right'! you are right. but does this so called tuition "hike" keep them away from their school? No, their tuition is the lowest in Canada, even after hike. the hike is actually much lower than what they spent on coffee or glasses they broke.and the most important thing is that NOTHING is free.if you don't wanna pay for it, taxpayers are gonna pay for it, which might lead to increasing tax rate or bankrupt gov't. this may explain why 60% Quebecois are on gov't side.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Kapjam
19 Fans
05:58 PM on 04/29/2012
Don't challenge the little snowflakes with facts. At least the only ones suffering here are the parents that raised these spoiled brats - who paid for all of their tuition in the first place.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Charles the Great
Canadian/Israeli Goy in Alert,Nunavut
137 Fans
05:37 PM on 04/29/2012
Why is the government of Quebec even doing this to these rich trust fund protesters? Also who is forcing them to even go to university in the first place?
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arkymorgan
Nobody knows the trouble I've been...
837 Fans
05:35 PM on 04/29/2012
For years, my generation bemoaned the apolitical, I'm-all-right-Jack attitudes of the young. We accused them of not caring about their own futures, for not rising up in anger at all that was being taken away from them. Where were the activist youth? We asked, and stopped our ears to any answers, content - no, determined! - to believe that we were the last of the fighters for truth and justice.

Judgmental to the last, when the internet overtook us, we ridiculed their on-line petitioning as ''slacktivism'', convinced (perhaps rightly) that it was even less than meaningless.

And now - when our self-centered voting and navel-gazing enthrallment with ''fiscal restraint'' has pushed their backs to the wall, and they have taken to the streets in rage, we unite in righteous condemnation of their tactics, their motives and their dress-code.

Kids: I'm just going to blanket-apologize for all of that and so much more. On behalf of my entire generation: Sorry. We failed you.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ethrop
micro-bio-tic
483 Fans
05:45 PM on 04/29/2012
While I sympathize with some of what you say, arky, I think you are missing an essential part of the puzzle in the broad assessment you are making. The problem here is that the cause they espoused is the wrong one. I only wish AMerican students had taken this fight to the streets. They are the ones who need to do it. In Quebec, the fees are and will STILL be the lowest in North American AFTER the proposed hikes take place. I am sorry, this is NOT a worthy cause. It has degenerated on the back of the students themselves who are poorly informed about the issues at large. The whole phenomenon would have been impossible only five years ago before half-baked ideological claptrap became the TRUTH because it was posted and shared on Facebook. You woudln't believe some of the naive discourse taking place.

Years from now, I am convinced that the Quebec student uprising will be studied in communicaiton seminars on how Orwell was so prescient when he wrote "Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength". A bigger hill of over-the-top whinning without knowing why has never been built.
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