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Protesters Storm Montreal University, Gang Up On Students In Class


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Gambling oddsmakers now taking bets on Quebec student strike

MONTREAL - A sports-gambling site has begun taking bets on potential outcomes of Quebec's student strike.

The site sets odds for when the strike will end; whether there will be a referendum on tuition hikes; how many fines will be levied against the most hardline student group; and whether the government will back down.

It even sets odds on whether martial law will be declared in Quebec by the end of 2012. Just for the record, those odds are pegged at 5.5 to 1.

The Quebec-based site predicts even chances of the strike ending by September, and also sets 50-50 odds on the Quebec government amending or repealing its controversial emergency legislation, Bill 78.

Setting odds over which celebrity might be next to wear the iconic red protest square, U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore comes in first at 7 to 1. There are slimmer odds of it being worn by famous hockey players, Star Trek legend William Shatner, singers Madonna and Leonard Cohen, and hockey pundit Don Cherry.

But the celebrity seen as least likely to wear the red square? In that last spot, just after Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, is Prime Minister Stephen Harper — at 201-to-1 odds.

The Sports Interaction site is based in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, near Montreal.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/gambling-oddsmakers-now-taking-bets-on-quebec-student-strike-153230075.html

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So if you're a school counsellor, how do you go about convincing Mr. and Mrs. Wong, Kim or Nakamura that their 15-year-old kid is better suited for blue collar trades instead of the doctor or lawyer that they're grooming him to be?

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Because Sally Sales also needs engineers and construction workers to design and build the home she lives in and the building that she works in, the roads to drive to work on and the car she drives to work, the organizational and financial managers to provide her a company to work for and the medical professionals to look after her health, to mention a few examples.

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‎"[...]make no mistake: the strike leaders’ aim is no longer merely to roll back the tuition fee increases, if it ever was. They, and their backers in the broader union movement, are intent on crippling the Charest government, to prevent it from taking any further steps to trim the size and scope of government in the continent’s most heavily taxed, heavily indebted jurisdiction.

If they succeed, the precedents set will be very clear: that a democratically elected government may be prevented by force and intimidation from enacting laws in the public interest; that the law itself may be broken or defied, openly and at length, without consequence; that the beneficiaries of public spending are entitled to veto legislation that would reduce it. It is not hard to imagine what others might make of this."

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/23/andrew-coyne-quebec-students-thrilling-attempt-to-cripple-democracy/

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I agree. Tuition can and should be free to the user and paid for via taxes. Government spending is so out of whack with what society really needs to progress. A small cut out of the defense budget would allow free tuition for every student in the country, but yet our leaders want to join forces with the US in the war on muslems/you've got our oil and don't believe in our god; all the while pumping in more and money to police services that arrest people who aren't hurting anyone so they can throw them into jails that we can't afford and aren't built yet. Sickening.

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Apparently there is a reason why the tuition fees are so cheap in Quebec. Us, the rest of Canada, are subsidizing the social programs of Quebec. Through equalization payments.

When the next Quebec referendum comes around maybe they will say yes and save us a ton of money.

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The problem with tuition being free is that almost ALL kids would sign up for a few years at the U of Party rather than go to work. You see it already with kids who have parents that foot the bill entirely. With no skin in the game, it becomes an all expense paid party for kids who aren't quite sure what they want to do (other than not work). "User pays" is the best way to weed out most of the ones that aren't really serious about it.

This sense of entitlement is very troubling to me.

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You mean they shoot themselves in the foot, and the rest of the country bails them out for it? (Yes, we've done the same during past NDP administrations.)

Question then becomes, what do WE get out of their existence? What do they bring to the table to make the exchange fair?

They're farther away from us than the Californians, and are as irrelevant to our personal lives.

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Your question implies you get something out of the existence of people geographically closer to you. Is that the case? Do you somehow feel more connected with someone from Nanaimo, 100 Mile House, or PG than someone from Ontario or Manitoba?

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Who knows what the future will hold? Just hope that further division leads to instability and a big blowup that'll bring about the evil empire's demise.

There was probably once a time when we thought the Iron Curtain will never come down.

Maybe, but I'm sure they'd rather be ruled by a seat of power that's only 1000 miles away than one that's 3000 miles away. Plus, you can't really have a country of only 200 people, can you?

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