QUEBEC – After another night of demonstrations and mass arrests in Montreal and Quebec City in support of student demands for a university tuition freeze and against a law Quebec’s human rights commission says raises “serious concerns about freedoms and fundamental rights,” Education Minister Michelle Courchesne appeared to be in solution mode Thursday.
Arriving at the regular morning caucus meeting of the provincial Liberals, Courchesne said she is in contact with student associations, and both sides are preparing for negotiations leading to “a definitive agreement” that will end Quebec’s social crisis and get students back to school after a boycott of classes that’s in its 102nd day.
Courchesne’s office has been in contact with the Federation etudiante collegiale du Quebec (FECQ) and the Federation etudiante universitaire du Quebec (FEUQ), and on Thursday will be in touch with the largest and most militant student group: CLASSE, the Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante.
“On each side, we have agreed that we will take the necessary time to prepare, because – you understand – it will be a very, very important meeting,” Courchesne told reporters.
“What both sides want is to get out of the crisis,” the minister added. “We will take the time needed to prepare, because on both sides we are very aware how serious the situation is.”
Student representatives and opposition parties have said Premier Jean Charest, who is also Quebec’s minister of youth, should be at the table, too.
Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois contends Charest has never spent “five minutes” talking to the student leaders.
In the Quebec National Assembly, Charest said, “The whole government is working to restore social peace. The whole government.”
Then, turning on Marois, he said the PQ position in favour of students’ demand to maintain the tuition freeze means that if, in a class of 15 students, 10 vote to boycott classes, Marois would favour “intimidation and violence” to stop the other five from entering class.
The students call their action a strike, using majority votes, as in a management-labour dispute, to justify picketing and measures to stop classes. Some teachers have also been accepting the “strike” interpretation.
Marois began the assembly question period by noting there had been 651 arrests in Montreal and Quebec City on Wednesday night, and asked Charest how far he would go.
Charest repeated the concessions the government has made, extending bursaries and loans so that less well-off students would not feel the tuition increase, and spreading the $1,778 tuition hike over seven years, rather than five, so students face increases of $254 a year, not $350 as originally planned.
“That is where we are,” Charest said, adding that Marois “is with the red cloth square,” referring to the symbol adopted by the protesting students and their supporters.
Bertrand St-Arnaud, the PQ public security critic, said police used “very, very brutal kettling” – confining protesters for a lengthy period. He noted that the use of kettling at G20 protests in Toronto two years ago was severely criticized this week.
Public Security Minister Robert Dutil replied: “Police were doing their job.”
“In our society, it is the law that decides, and if not it would be chaos,” Dutil said, suggesting the PQ would give in to “the law of the streets.”
By supporting the student cause, he added, the PQ position “is dictated by the street.”
Courchesne said that while Charest has not been physically present at talks with the students, “the premier is by our side. He is part of the discussions.”
She added there is “very, very close co-operation” with Charest and his key ministers, naming Dutil, Finance Minister Raymond Bachand, and Alain Paquet, Quebec’s junior finance minister, who participated in a 22-hour negotiating blitz overnight May 4-5, along with Courchesne and then-education minister Line Beauchamp.
Saying she was no longer part of the solution, Beauchamp resigned two days before the provincial government presented Bill 78, a special law restricting protests. Aimed at solving the crisis, Bill 78 has itself has been a target of protests.
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