Protesters Storm Montreal University, Gang Up On Students In Class

[Satan's Evil Twin]

1. Honest representative power is an oxymoron.

2. Those closer will more likely better relate to them and serve their interests than one much farther away and rules over a much greater land mass and larger population, with the bulk of the population and power on the other side of the continent.

It's up to them. If they think they can go it alone, go for it.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

I think Law 78 is worse than these students barging in on classes-in-session.

An Act to enable students to receive instruction from the postsecondary institutions they attend, commonly known as Bill 78, is an emergency law passed on 18 May 2012 by the National Assembly of Quebec, Canada. The law restricts freedom of assembly, protest, or picketing on or near university grounds, and anywhere in Quebec without prior police approval. The law also places restrictions upon education employees right to strike. Bill 78 was drafted by members of the Quebec Liberal Party, introduced by Education Minister Michelle Courchesne, and passed with the support of the Coalition Avenir Québec party in response to ongoing student protests over proposed tuition increases.^[1] The law is also identified as L.Q., 2012, c. 12 (Laws of Quebec, 2012, chapter 12).^[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_78

Ooooo, Wikipedia, that's dirty.

Bill 78 contravenes charter, lawyer says

Court challenge; Police haven't had to enforce laws yet

BY LINDA GYULAI, THE GAZETTE MAY 23, 2012

A constitutional expert predicts several sections of Bill 78, Quebec's new law restricting protests, will be struck down by a court challenge and says lawyers representing student associations that plan to contest the legislation as early as this week will have a field day.

"There's no doubt that this contravenes the charter on all kinds of grounds," Montreal constitutional lawyer Julius Grey said in an interview Tuesday. He cited the freedom of expression and of association among the fundamental freedoms violated by sections of the law.

The Quebec government passed the bill as emergency legislation Friday in the wake of ongoing student protests against the government's plan to hike university tuition fees.

"You could set that law as an exam question in a university and say: 'Discuss all the ways it could be contested,' and you could probably write for two hours on it," Grey said.

Tuesday marked the 100th day of the students' fight against the tuition fee hikes. As students marched in Montreal, Premier Jean Charest and Public Security Minister Robert Dutil tried to defend Bill 78 in Quebec City.

The law requires the police to be given a precise itinerary and eight hours' notice for any protest involving 50 people or more, at the risk of fines running as high as $125,000 in the case of a student association or a union.

Charest called it "a just law" given mounting violence by protesters at what have become nightly demonstrations.

Still, attacks against Bill 78 are coming from an array of groups, including the Quebec Bar Association and the Quebec Human Rights Commission, which announced it's prepared to investigate "all cases of discrimination" arising from the application of the law.

On Tuesday, four days after the controversial law came into effect, Montreal police said they've made no arrests under Bill 78 or under a new municipal bylaw passed by Montreal city council last week prohibiting protesters from concealing their faces and requiring protest organizers to submit to the police department their itineraries in advance of large gatherings.

However, Montreal police spokesperson Ian Lafrenière said so far there has been no need to apply the bylaw.

"It's a tool that we've got (and) we'll use it if we need it," he said of the bylaw. "But when people are getting there with Molotov cocktails, when they're getting there and trying to break windows (and) trying to take the weapons from police officers, we just apply the Criminal Code. We don't need the bylaw."

Lafrenière said that for now, the police department will exercise restraint when applying the provincial law and municipal bylaw.

"We'll use them with a lot of judgment," he said. "We don't want to create a bigger commotion."

Grey says he's not surprised the police are being cautious in applying Bill 78 and the bylaw.

"Any application of that law will be subject to a contestation that could wind up in the Supreme Court," he said.

The eight hours' notice provision of Bill 78 "makes it impossible to demonstrate spontaneously," Grey said.

As well, Section 9 of the law gives the education minister the power to unilaterally modify the law. Grey called that a delegation of power to legislate in the place of the government and "flagrantly unconstitutional."

Section 10 orders university and college employees to show up for work on a given day and Section 12 explicitly prohibits a union from participating in a concerted action, both of which Grey said are a violation of rights and cut off the right to freely associate.

Grey also called Sections 18 to 20, which call for cutting off funding and fees to student associations that are considered in violation of the law, an effective dissolution of the association.

The measures bring back memories of the period of Quebec's long-serving premier, Maurice Duplessis, a period known as la grandee noirceur, or the great darkness, he charged.

"Duplessis tried dissolving unions that went on strike, and that was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada even before the charter (of rights existed)," Grey said.

In the famous 1953 case of the Alliance des professeurs catholiques de Montréal, the Supreme Court invalidated the decertification of the teachers' union by the Quebec labour relations board after the union ordered its members to go on strike despite a provincial law that prohibited employees of schools to strike without prior warning. The labour relations board revoked the union's certification without notice of a hearing. The Supreme Court ruled the labour relations board had acted without jurisdiction.

"All these things make it (Bill 78) a law that perhaps parts of it would be upheld, but parts of it would not be," Grey said.

Normally, when a law is challenged on constitutional grounds it isn't the entire law that's declared valid or invalid, he noted. The courts go through the law section by section.

The question now is whether the Quebec government could succeed in defending the violation of rights in Bill 78 in court using the first section of the charter, which permits a violation of the charter if it's considered necessary, Grey said.

"My own view is that it isn't necessary," he said. "But some other people might have another view."

The education department did not return The Gazette's calls to defend the measures in Bill 78.

At a news conference, Dutil defended the two sections of Bill 78 that are under the jurisdiction of his public safety department, arguing that it's entirely reasonable for protesters to supply the authorities with their demonstration route in advance of a protest. He cited Toronto, New York, France, Spain and Geneva, Switzerland, as examples of places with similar regulations.

The non-profit Juripop Legal Clinic, which is providing lawyers to the student associations that plan to challenge Bill 78, told The Gazette the lawyers plan to file a motion in Quebec Superior Court by the end of this week.

http://www.montrealg...2877/story.html

Our Not-So-Friendly Northern Neighbor

By LAURENCE BHERER and PASCALE DUFOUR

Published: May 23, 2012

WHEN Vladimir V. Putin first came to power in Russia, Quebecers could not help but laugh. Poutine, as he is called in French, is also the name of a Québécois fast-food dish made of French fries, gravy and cheese. But these days the laughter is over, as Quebec gets a taste of Mr. Putin’s medicine.

For a change, Americans should take note of what is happening across the quiet northern border. Canada used to seem a progressive and just neighbor, but the picture today looks less rosy. One of its provinces has gone rogue, trampling basic democratic rights in an effort to end student protests against the Quebec provincial government’s plan to raise tuition fees by 75 percent.

On May 18, Quebec’s legislative assembly, under the authority of the provincial premier, Jean Charest, passed a draconian law in a move to break the 15-week-long student strike.Bill 78, adopted last week, is an attack on Quebecers’ freedom of speech, association and assembly. Mr. Charest has refused to use the traditional means of mediation in a representative democracy, leading to even more polarization. His administration, one of the most right-wing governments Quebec has had in 40 years, now wants to shut down opposition.

The bill threatens to impose steep fines of 25,000 to 125,000 Canadian dollars against student associations and unions — which derive their financing from tuition fees — in a direct move to break the movement. For example, student associations will be found guilty if they do not stop their members from protesting within university and college grounds.

During a street demonstration, the organization that plans the protest will be penalized if individual protesters stray from the police-approved route or exceed the time limit imposed by authorities. Student associations and unions are also liable for any damage caused by a third party during a demonstration.

These absurd regulations mean that student organizations and unions will be held responsible for behavior they cannot possibly control. They do not bear civil responsibility for their members as parents do for their children.

Freedom of speech is also under attack because of an ambiguous — and Orwellian — article in Bill 78 that says, “Anyone who helps or induces a person to commit an offense under this Act is guilty of the same offense.” Is a student leader, or an ordinary citizen, who sends a Twitter message about civil disobedience therefore guilty? Quebec’s education minister says it depends on the context. The legislation is purposefully vague and leaves the door open to arbitrary decisions.

Since the beginning of the student strike, leaders have told protesters to avoid violence.Protesters even condemned the small minority of troublemakers who had infiltrated the demonstrations. During the past four months of protests, there has never been the kind of rioting the city has seen when the local National Hockey League team, the Canadiens, wins or loses during the Stanley Cup playoffs. The biggest demonstration, whichorganizers estimate drew 250,000 people on May 22, was remarkably peaceful. Mr. Charest’s objective is not so much to restore security and order as to weaken student and union organizations. This law also creates a climate of fear and insecurity, as ordinary citizens can also face heavy fines.

Bill 78 has been fiercely denounced by three of four opposition parties in Quebec’s Legislature, the Quebec Bar Association, labor unions and Amnesty International. James L. Turk, the executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, called Bill 78 “a terrible act of mass repression” and “a weapon to suppress dissent.”

The law will remain in force only until July 1, 2013. The short duration says it all. It amounts to a temporary suspension of certain liberties and allows the government to avoid serious negotiations with student leaders. And it grants the authorities carte blanche for the abuse of power; just hours after it passed, police officers in Montreal began to increase the use of force against protesters.

Some critics have tried to portray the strike as a minority group’s wanting a free lunch. This is offensive to most Quebec students. Not only are they already in debt, despite paying low tuition fees, but 63 percent of them workin order to pay their university fees. The province has a very high rate of youth employment: about 57 percent of Quebecers between the ages of 15 and 24 work, compared with about 49 percent between the ages of 16 and 24 in the United States.

Both Quebec and Canada as a whole are pro-market. They also share a sense of solidarity embodied by their public health care systems and strong unions. Such institutions are a way to maintain cohesion in a vast, sparsely populated land. Now those values are under threat.

Americans traveling to Quebec this summer should know they are entering a province that rides roughshod over its citizens’ fundamental freedoms.https://www.nytimes....ghbor.html?_r=1

Where's the outrage about this?

[Kamero89]

Students in the class ALL said this was overblown. Why do you think there was no video of this on youtube?

It is SO scary to see how gullible people are. People who insult protesters are not well educated. 100% that they have never done anything important in their life to make things better for anyone else.

[Buggernut]

Oh they surely wouldn't mind joining you, my question is why you care. I was under the impression you don't want any equalization payments going to anyone you don't see serving your purpose.

1. I disagree. The fault is not with the power but the apathy that lets it run wild.

2. That's why we have "representative" government. If your nation is 30% the size of Canada, but the capital is still 70% of the nation's width away from you, are you as represented as the people closer (i.e. as those living in Ontario today)?

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Probably. Being 1 in 10 million gives you more weight in the greater scheme of things than being 1 in 30 million.

[Buggernut]

Being one in one million gives you more weight in the greater scheme of things that being in 10 million.

Democratic Nation of Vancouver.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

The 8 Myths of Tuition Hikes (Youtube)

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOLB3CWV-sA

Youtube Description: A video with 2 reserachers from IRIS (Intitute of Socio-Economic Research and Information), Simon Tremblay-Pépin and Éric Martin, who dispel several myths that are advanced to justify tuition increases.

Tuition Fees: Myth #1

Universities Are Underfinanced

One of the arguments we often here from people who support raising tuition fees is to tell us universities are underfinanced – that they lack resources.

But, universities have never received more money than they do today. The problem has more to do with what they do with that money, and how they divide it up. That’s what people are calling into question.

Underfinanced or Poorly Financed?

We get the impression that universities are underfinanced when we look at the numbers of students per class or the state of their libraries, and it’s true that there are problems there.

The problem isn’t the quantity of money; it’s in the way that the money is allocated.

There isn’t one single university; there are two. There’s the Teaching University that is getting poorer, and the Research University that is increasingly better funded.

Total research revenues in Quebec

When people talk about “research,” they’re not talking about fundamental research – the kind of research that develops into big discoveries over the long-term.

It’s more research with a commercial goal that aims to develop innovations that have positive, short-term economic benefits – that make money quickly. These research universities are well financed.

Total spending per student

Quebec is the province that spends the most per student on teaching and research.

The amount spent on research grants has doubled in ten years, by the way, passing the $1 billion mark.

These sums come with restrictions, however. They are dedicated to specific research and cannot be used to finance the regular operations of the institution.

Furthermore, that money is distributed very unequally. Research deemed to be “profitable” is favoured, to the detriment of other research judged to be “unprofitable.”

Distribution of research grants, by discipline

(Social Sciences - Health, pure and applied sciences - Other)

For example, in 2008 the health sciences, pure science and applied science alone benefited from 75% of all research grants. The social sciences received a tiny 7.8%.

So, instead of talking about “underfinancing” we would do better to talk about “poor financing.”

The universities tell us they’re going to raise tuitions to syphon $265 million from the students. But over here, there is already a billion dollars in research funds on the universities’ books.

So, it seems to me that we don’t have a problem with financial resources, but a problem with our sense of priorities.

Tuition Fees: Myth #2

Tuition Hikes Protect the Value of a Diploma

It is often said that if tuition rates don’t climb rapidly the value of a diploma will deflate. This implies that the value of a diploma depends upon its market value.

For example, McGill raised the cost of its MBA to $30,000 per year. From one day to the next, you have more or less the same program in terms of content, but now its worth more because yesterday they hiked the price.

It’s clear to see that this makes no sense.

In England, there are mediocre colleges that did this: they hiked their prices to give the impression that they had become colleges of a better quality.

And, it worked. Many people took the bait, because they think that when the price of something goes up, it must be of a higher quality – in this case, that the quality of education offered had also improved.

In reality, increased tuition fees mean that people are going to increasingly chose shorter diploma programs, so they take on less debt and find a job quickly.

What gets lost in the process is a solid general education, in favour of ultra-specialized training.

Increasingly Specialized* Training

(*or, applied/useful)

When people talk about “specialized diplomas,” they’re talking about programs that are very short, where graduates will have to return to school frequently to recycle and adapt their knowledge to the needs of an evolving job market.

That’s why continuing education has become so important today.

Under this argument, we’re asked to measure the value of a diploma not by its price but by its capacity to transmit a package of knowledge, to improve understanding, etc.

You’ll notice this runs counter to the earlier arguments offered to support tuition increases.

If diplomas are currently losing value in terms of their content, it is precisely because we’ve given universities an economic development role with a “just in time” ethos that rapidly reaches its expiry date as the market evolves.

More Market Value, Less Academic Value

By over-evaluating a diploma’s economic value, we are decreasing its actual value, in terms of content.

Counterintuitively, the more we want a diploma to be worth more on the job market, the more we undercut its real academic and intellectual worth.

Tuition Fees: Myth #3

The Hike is Necessary to Rescue Universities

People often tell us that if we raise tuition rates, university coffers will swell and the universities will be rescued, financially.

But, when we look at the numbers, investment by the government has consistently decreased from year to year, while investment by the student body continues to grow.

That means that, by percentage, the government is not maintaining its share of university financing.

Source of University Funding

(Public – Students – Private)

The objective of tuition hikes, therefore, is to shift an increasing share of the burden of university funding on to individuals.

Through this process of substitution, universities’ culture of public service will be progressively replaced by the logic of “client-ism.”

Under this logic, the university is increasingly a place where an individual invests in his/her personal human capital… “Me Inc.” as if each individual is a micro-business, his/her own personal incorporated enterprise.

Far from refinancing universities, in reality tuition fee hikes contribute to individualization and privatization of university funding.

A Strictly Personal Investment

It’s completely reasonable that after all this people would expect more for their money, that they would expect high-paying jobs and demand programs that show good returns.

So, the more we hike tuition rates, the more universities are under increasing pressure to plug directly into economic development needs.

This means that they have to drastically modify the content of their courses, and de-emphasize the social function that they play in society.

So, far from being the economic salvation of universities, tuition hikes result in universities that are increasingly swallowed up by the pressures of the overall economy, and more and more subject to objectives of immediate productivity, which leads to distortion.

Tuition Fees: Myth #4

The Hike Will Pay for Professors

It is often said that if we increase tuition, universities will be able to increase the number of professors, or to offer better material for students.

But in the new university with its economic development vocation, we perceive that a large portion of funds is monopolized by the ever-growing cost of management personnel and other bureaucratic expenses.

Distribution of employees at Université de Montréal

(Executives – Professors – Other)

For example, at the Université de Montréal administrative personnel (i.e. the senior executives and professional staff) increased considerably between 2000 and 2008.

Meanwhile, the proportion of professors decreased.

So, obviously education is not the goal here.

Furthermore, we know that universities are hiring more and more sessional instructors on limited-term contracts to avoid the payroll impact of hiring them as salaried professors.

And, we haven’t even considered the fact that the “new university” of the “knowledge economy” expends incredible resources on marketing to attract clients, and steal them away from other universities in an environment of highly elevated competition.

They also spend a great deal on lawyers, legal fees for all the briefs they produce, and other legal expenses.

The more we invest in the commercialized “new university” the more these problems will be accentuated… the more the contradictions – between an increasingly precarious teaching vocation and an increasingly over-financed commercial research vocation – will become radicalized.

What is the Role of Universities?

The whole problem comes from this confrontation between two visions, two functions for the university, and the fact that one of these functions is in the process of supplanting the other.

So long as this debate is not resolved, the more money we’re going to invest, and the more this money will be spent on concrete, management, advertising, and legal costs, rather than funding access to education.

So, once again, we have a problem of priorities, what is the purpose of a university?

To educate? Or to outsource corporate research and development?

Tuition fees: Myth #5

Financial aid will offset increased costs

It is argued that student financial aid will ensure that everyone can go to university anyway. However, that aid will only affect about 20% of students. For the other 80% it means pay more or go further into debt.

And it’s not only students who will have to take on more debt. It’s also their parents.

Household debt in Canada & Quebec

But, household debt currently stands at historic 40-year high.

Is it really a good time to be asking people, especially our youth, to go further into debt?

The message we’re sending to students is to to pay for their education by working more during their studies, even though all research on the subject suggests that this has adverse effects.

In England, for example, the 2005 tuition hikes meant students had to augment their work hours by 54%.

University enrollment in Great Britain

When those increases were brought in, the British government also instated a loans & bursaries program, hailed by the OECD as one of the most generous in the world. But, it didn’t prevent a severe drop in university enrollment following the hike, from 37% down to 17%.

In the end, hiking tuition fees, what does that mean?

It means more students who work during their studies, higher debts, and fewer students in university classrooms.

Tuition Fees: Myth #6

Students have to pay their fair share

People say that students have to do their fair share and pay more of the cost of their education.

First, let’s admit that a “fair share” is a pretty vague concept. At what point does a share become fair? And, who decides whether a share is fair or not fair?

Our Finance Minister Raymond Bachand has set the fair share, arbitrarily, at the share of education costs he paid in 1968.

Is that really fair? In 1968, the Quebec university system was very different from what it is today. It was miniscule and reserved to a well-to-do elite.

Number of weeks at minimum wage to pay cost of tuition.

If we compare ourselves instead to 1978, when we built the Université du Quebec network, and we look not only at tuition but also the work hours at minimum wage required to pay for tuition, we see that students will have to work twice as long after these hikes than they did in 1978.

Is that what it means to pay their fair share? To expect students to work for 9 weeks to pay their tuition?

Furthermore, it is difficult to say who pays a fair share of tuition costs because tuition is the same for everybody, no matter what their income is or how much money they’ll make after finishing their studies.

We could however use a different system which is much more fair, which is based on each individual’s capacity to pay. It’s called income tax.

Effective tax rate by income

Thanks to income taxes, the wealthier we are, the more we pay. So, contrary to what Minister Bachand says, we already have a system where everyone pays a fair share at the moment when he/she has the money to pay it.

By lowering taxes as it has done, and by increasing tuition as it plans to do, the government is making the less well-to-do contribute too much, while the more well-to-do continue to come out ahead.

Tuition fees: Myth #7

The Hike Will Not Affect Enrollment

We’re told that increasing tuition will have no affect on university enrollment. If this is true, we could increase tuition fees as much as we like, and there would always be the same number of people going to university.

There are many numbers circulating that deal with this question, which is confusing.

It’s time to set the record straight.

Typically, those who defend tuition increases talk about enrollment rates across Canada, they say, “Yes, the enrollment rates are a bit higher in Quebec. But Nova Scotia, where tuition rates are very high, has even higher enrollment than Quebec. Therefore, there is no link between tuition and enrollment.”

Well, comparing the enrollment rates across the Canadian provinces is comparing apples and oranges.

Not only is much of the training done at the university level in other provinces done at CEGEPs in Quebec, in Quebec bachelors degrees have a shorter duration than in other provinces. This completely biases all data in favour of the other provinces. Even still, our rate is higher than the Canadian average.

It’s more accurate to look at enrollment in all post-secondary programs, adding in CEGEPs and colleges.

University and post-secondary enrollment in Canada

(Can. – NS – QC – ON – BC)

Here, we can clearly see the success of Quebec’s education policies. Our enrollment rate is 9 points higher than the Canadian average. We’re higher than all the other provinces.

That’s not all. We also have historical proof of the adverse effects of tuition increases on enrollment rates.

Rate of access to first university cycle in Quebec

In the early nineties, the Quebec government increased tuition rates radically. What happened to enrollment? It automatically dropped, and it took us ten years to recover.

In short, by looking at our past experience or by comparing ourselves to other Canadian provinces, we know that the tuition increase will have an impact on university enrollment.

Tuition fees: Myth #8

Frozen or Free Tuition Is Unrealistic

We’re told that freezing tuition rates is impossible, and that free tuition is a delusional utopia.

But, we know that the tuition freeze has contributed to maintaining better accessibility in Quebec than in all the rest of Canada. Furthermore, a tuition freeze is not costly. As a matter of fact, it costs precisely nothing. It’s quite simply maintaining the status quo.

On the other hand, free tuition – which would make it so anyone in Quebec could go to university without a single thought for the thickness of his/her wallet – well, to achieve free tuition would cost $700 million a year.

That may sound like a lot, $700 million. But, is it really so costly for the Quebec state?

Examples of Recent Governmental Measures

(Measures – Party in Power – Cost)

(Indexation of Tax Brackets – Reduction of Tax Rates – Tax Reduction – Progressive elimination of Capital Tax)

(PQ = Parti Québécois, PLQ = Liberals)

In reality, when we look at measures adopted by the various parties that held government over the past ten years, we see that it’s not rare for the state to deprive itself of revenues or increase spending by sums considerably larger than $700 million.

Furthermore, we can look to several countries – with some of the world’s most prized education systems – that have put free tuition in place. As a result, they have gained considerable benefits, both social and economic.

On the other hand, states that have opted for high tuition fees have the worlds most unequal education systems. In those countries, it is most often children of wealthy parents who have access to higher learning.

Family income of medical students in Ontario.

(Before the increase – After the increase)

(Annual family income above $80K – Annual family income less than $80K)

In this respect, Ontario conducted a rather painful experiment. They hiked tuition rates for medical studies, and saw a large reduction in the rate of medical students from homes that earn less than $80,000.

Obviously, that decrease was offset by an equivalent increase from wealthier households.

In short, frozen or free tuition are far from being unrealistic utopian ideas. The public finances of Quebec would permit putting them in place. In fact, they are the only measures that would allow us to avoid an unequal, two-tiered education system.

[END OF FIRST VIDEO)

Link to conclusion: La conclusion sur la hausse des frais de scolarité

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOLB3CWV-sA

Education: What is it for?

Often, the tuition hike is presented as inevitable. We’re told that we have to quickly adapt to the knowledge economy.

But the first question you have to ask yourself when you hear that is, what is this new vision of education as some sort of market? We used to think of it as a public service. We had a different vision of the role a university plays.

Traditionally, the role of a university was to transmit our cultural heritage, both sciences and humanities – to train autonomous individuals capable of judgment, critical thinking, reflection.

Now we’re told that this is no longer a university’s primary role. Its role is to stimulate economic development. People need to think of it as an investment in their human capital, as if it were merchandise.

We have passed from a system of distribution – one where knowledge is considered a common good transmitted from one generation to the next, financed by a mechanism that redistributes wealth – to another system. One we could describe as capitalization.

Education has become little more than an investment, a privatization, a bet on me.

This will supposedly produce innovations that allow our corporations to be tough and competitive in a stagnant market and permit individuals to find their niche in the job market. If there were a debate between these two fundamental visions of education, tuition increases are little more than a symptom.

If you accept that a university is first and foremost a commercial venue, then you’re accepting to pay the ultimate price to play for your life on the academic market.

Otherwise, if you agree that university is a public service that aims to develop reasoning and transmit knowledge, you cannot subscribe to the idea of tuition hikes.

On the contrary, a truly accessible university service assumes that tuition costs be reduced– what’s more, that they should be abolished… which brings us to free tuition.

University as a Public Service = Free Tuition

Commercial University = Tuition Increases

It’s not a decision to be taken lightly. This is more than an accounting choice. At its core, this is question of what type of society we went to live in.

Do we want to live in a society of entrepreneurs who are here to manage risks and catastrophes, and somehow make money along the way?

Or, do we want to live in a society that trains individuals capable of independence, of reflexivity, and up to the challenging of tackling the considerable social problems that lie ahead, and the terrible environmental crises that confront us today.

Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

*Translating the printemps érable is a volunteer collective attempting to balance the English media’s extremely poor coverage of the student conflict in Québec by translating media that has been published in French into English. These are amateur translations; we have done our best to translate these pieces fairly and coherently, but the final texts may still leave something to be desired. If you find any important errors in any of these texts, we would be very grateful if you would share them with us at translatingtheprintempsderable@gmail.com. Please read and distribute these texts in the spirit in which they were intended; that of solidarity and the sharing of information.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

[The Situation]

The oil sands in Alberta have driven up the Canadian dollar. This has messed up the manufacturing in the east (not counting Atlantic Canada). Equalization is evening things out a little bit to make up for this. Back when the west was in the economic gutter, it was Ontario paying equalization when they had a strong manufacturing industry.

I would bet if BC were to separate, there would still be people complaining about the regional disparity in the wealth of the province. Likewise, if Vancouver were to become a city state, the richer suburbs would be complaining about the poorer ones.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Students can’t win in Canada’s gerontocracy

BY LAURA PENNY, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN JUNE 3, 2012

Every generation eventually starts talking like the four Yorkshiremen in the Monty Python sketch, exaggerating their hardscrabble beginnings and insisting kids today are soft and spoiled. This has certainly been the most popular response to the Quebec student strike in English Canada.

Those whippersnappers already have cheap school! They’re brats, they’re thugs, they’re our Greeks. Charest ought to grow a pair and put those uppity puppies down before they ruin JazzFest.

Some critics have also noted that this protest is not really about tuition any more. But this just goes to show how deaf Canada’s ruling gerontocracy really is to youth concerns. Tuition protests are never just about tuition. Cheap tuition and low student debt are symbols. They represent the public services and economic opportunities older Canadians enjoyed, profited from and now conveniently claim we cannot afford.

Many boomers like to argue that they paid their own way and then some, but our national debt belies such self-justifications. It is an indisputable fact that education was a primarily public obligation when older Canadians availed themselves of it.

Now, to be fair, Quebec students do have a better deal in this regard than their coevals in other provinces. But they got that deal by protesting and lobbying the Quebec public, so it’s hardly surprising that they continue to protest in defence of it.

Moreover, it is not just the cost of education that is at issue. Students are also justifiably anxious about the value of their degrees. Curmudgeons love to blame high youth unemployment on our national surplus of post-modern basket-weaving majors, but this again shows how little attention older Canadians pay to post-secondary issues. The most popular majors in Canada, according to StatsCan, are not in the dreaded liberal arts. They are social sciences, law, business, health and education.

Boomers were able to find good, secure work with allegedly unmarketable degrees, or without any university, CEGEP or community college at all. This is emphatically not the case for most young people entering the workforce. Boomers did not have to compete in a globalized labour market, nor did they have to accumulate sufficient buzzwords to get past a moat of persnickety human resources personnel.

This is simply to say that “Get a job!” is an unhelpful phrase to yell at a young person who is likely worried about that very thing. And telling them all to rush into whatever industry happens to be lucrative now only demonstrates the same short-sighted expediency that got Canada into this mess in the first place.

They should all just go into the trades? Great idea! Plenty of them should be completing their training and apprenticeship periods just in time for the housing bubble to blow up in their faces. They should all just move to Fort Mac? Sure, until foreign companies can bring their own cheap labour and drive wages down.

The insufficiency of such solutions, and the condescension with which they are proclaimed, demonstrates how little serious attention Canada devotes to integrating young people into our economy and political system.

Frankly, it is a canard to simply tell young people to vote. I wish more of them would, but even if they did, they’d still be demographically overwhelmed by self-serving boomers and seniors. Politicians are well aware of these numbers and pander and prioritize accordingly.

If you would really like to hear some “entitled whining,” float the heretical idea of means-testing for OAS or new hips. Why, it would be positively un-Canadian and ageist to dare suggest that older, more affluent Canadians adopt some of the austerity measures they consistently prescribe for the young.

Whichever way young people choose to deal with their precarious economic conditions, they can rest assured that Old Canada will be there to tell them that they are wrong. If the kids work solely in their own self-interest, and ignore the political process that does such a swell job of ignoring them, Old Canada says that they’re apathetic and clueless.

If kids participate in politics proper, like the Quebec NDP members of Parliament, they are mocked and dismissed as under-qualified utopians. And if kids practice politics dans la rue, it’s just a tantrum or excuse to party, even though it’s impossible to maintain a protest this long without considerable organizational, promotional and viral marketing skills. (Any Canadian snack product would kill to have its logo prominently displayed by Arcade Fire on Saturday Night Live.)

All Old Canada really seems to want from young people is for them to shut up, pay up and go fetch their oil, their lattes and their health care. And then they scratch their greying or balding heads and wonder why Canada lags behind the rest of the developed world in innovation.

Laura Penny is the author of More Money Than Brains.

Read more:http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Students+Canada+gerontocracy/6722938/story.html#ixzz1xACE9DMf

[Kass9]

Shut up, Quebec.

[Common sense]

Students in the class ALL said this was overblown. Why do you think there was no video of this on youtube?

It is SO scary to see how gullible people are. People who insult protesters are not well educated. 100% that they have never done anything important in their life to make things better for anyone else.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

VILLENEUVE SPEAKS OUT ON QUEBEC STUDENT PROTESTERS

MONTREAL - Quebec's student protesters have a new celebrity critic -- and he's firing away on all cylinders.

Jacques Villeneuve, the Quebec-born car-racing champion, is upset at a protest movement that has gone on for months and is now promising to turn up at Formula One Grand Prix events in Montreal all weekend.

In a five-minute exchange with reporters Thursday, Villeneuve urged the protesters to go back to school.

He suggested they were lazy. He called them an embarrassment to Canada -- especially to Quebec. He suggested they were badly raised, by parents who never learned to say, 'No.'

And he said they risked scaring away tourists and wealthy taxpayers, who would just pick up and invest elsewhere in a more stable climate.

The student protest movement has received the enthusiastic endorsement of many Quebec celebrities and near-unanimous support from the artistic community. But the Quebec-born, Monaco-raised driver just might have become the most famous, most virulent new critic of the movement.

"It's time for people to wake up and stop loafing about. It's lasted long enough," Villeneuve told reporters at a cocktail benefit that kicked off the four-day Grand Prix festivities.

"We heard them. We listened. They should stop. It's costing the city a fortune. It makes no sense."

As for their parents, Villeneuve said: "I think these people grew up without ever hearing their parents ever tell them, 'No.' So that's what you see in the streets now. People spending their time complaining. It's becoming a little bit ridiculous. They spoke, we heard, and now it's time to go back to school."

He said that in a democracy, people can vote to turf governments, and speak their mind between elections to make themselves heard -- but they have to know when to give it a rest.

"That's what democracy is. We vote for people -- and if you're not happy, then you vote for other people the next time around. And if you're not happy you complain, they listen, and that's it," he said.

"Same with your parents: 'Daddy, mommy, I don't like this.' Well, go back to bed now." Villeneuve said he was raised to believe in hard work, and not imagine money will fall from the sky.

He also compared the students to the London rioters last year and said they were "rebels without a cause."

In the end, he said, the students are hurting themselves because they're pushing for things that aren't fiscally sustainable -- and they'll end up paying one day. Unfortunately, he said, if they keep it up there will be less taxpayers around to help foot the bill.

"And where does the government get the money? From taxes, from selling stuff. The next thing they will say is, 'Well, take it from the rich,"' he said.

"And that's when you have the rich moving to another country."

The student protesters dismiss the idea that taxes would need to be raised to freeze or eliminate tuition -- which represents only a tiny fraction of the provincial budget and pales in comparison to the money spent on corporate subsidies.

Scores of protesters demonstrated outside the cocktail event Villeneuve was attending, in the company of other racing figures and celebrities. It was a glitzy $1,000-a-plate fundraiser, with proceeds going to a local children's hospital. Some protesters have promised to disrupt events throughout the Grand Prix weekend and even jam the metro leading to the race track on Sunday.

Villeneuve, 41, won the 1997 Formula One world championship and received the adulation of local sports fans who feted his success with a roaring celebration before a Montreal Canadiens game. After several difficult seasons he left Formula One in 2005 and has since raced on other circuits.

He said he's heard from people outside the country commenting on the student protests in Quebec -- but he said the opinion is ill-informed and based almost entirely on the one-sided take of protesters.

-With files by Alexander Panetta

http://www.tsn.ca/au...tory/?id=397906

Talk about ill-informed and one-sided.

[DonLever]

The oil sands in Alberta have driven up the Canadian dollar. This has messed up the manufacturing in the east (not counting Atlantic Canada). Equalization is evening things out a little bit to make up for this. Back when the west was in the economic gutter, it was Ontario paying equalization when they had a strong manufacturing industry.

I would bet if BC were to separate, there would still be people complaining about the regional disparity in the wealth of the province. Likewise, if Vancouver were to become a city state, the richer suburbs would be complaining about the poorer ones.

[Common sense]

Good on Villeneuve. As someone formerly in the auto racing industry, he understands the dollar amount attached to an event like this and how some stupid kids could cause harm.

The kids already threw rocks and smoke bombs onto the MTL subway system, disrupting service for hours. An event on this level only serves as the next platform for getting their moronic ideas into the press.

[taxi]

That is not true. The strong Canadian dollar is due to the weak USD dollar. The US dollar has dropped in value relative to most currenices in the world.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

Good on Villeneuve. As someone formerly in the auto racing industry, he understands the dollar amount attached to an event like this and how some stupid kids could cause harm.

The kids already threw rocks and smoke bombs onto the MTL subway system, disrupting service for hours. An event on this level only serves as the next platform for getting their moronic ideas into the press.

[Dittohead]

VILLENEUVE SPEAKS OUT ON QUEBEC STUDENT PROTESTERS

MONTREAL - Quebec's student protesters have a new celebrity critic -- and he's firing away on all cylinders.

Jacques Villeneuve, the Quebec-born car-racing champion, is upset at a protest movement that has gone on for months and is now promising to turn up at Formula One Grand Prix events in Montreal all weekend.

In a five-minute exchange with reporters Thursday, Villeneuve urged the protesters to go back to school.

He suggested they were lazy. He called them an embarrassment to Canada -- especially to Quebec. He suggested they were badly raised, by parents who never learned to say, 'No.'

And he said they risked scaring away tourists and wealthy taxpayers, who would just pick up and invest elsewhere in a more stable climate.

The student protest movement has received the enthusiastic endorsement of many Quebec celebrities and near-unanimous support from the artistic community. But the Quebec-born, Monaco-raised driver just might have become the most famous, most virulent new critic of the movement.

"It's time for people to wake up and stop loafing about. It's lasted long enough," Villeneuve told reporters at a cocktail benefit that kicked off the four-day Grand Prix festivities.

"We heard them. We listened. They should stop. It's costing the city a fortune. It makes no sense."

As for their parents, Villeneuve said: "I think these people grew up without ever hearing their parents ever tell them, 'No.' So that's what you see in the streets now. People spending their time complaining. It's becoming a little bit ridiculous. They spoke, we heard, and now it's time to go back to school."

He said that in a democracy, people can vote to turf governments, and speak their mind between elections to make themselves heard -- but they have to know when to give it a rest.

"That's what democracy is. We vote for people -- and if you're not happy, then you vote for other people the next time around. And if you're not happy you complain, they listen, and that's it," he said.

"Same with your parents: 'Daddy, mommy, I don't like this.' Well, go back to bed now." Villeneuve said he was raised to believe in hard work, and not imagine money will fall from the sky.

He also compared the students to the London rioters last year and said they were "rebels without a cause."

In the end, he said, the students are hurting themselves because they're pushing for things that aren't fiscally sustainable -- and they'll end up paying one day. Unfortunately, he said, if they keep it up there will be less taxpayers around to help foot the bill.

"And where does the government get the money? From taxes, from selling stuff. The next thing they will say is, 'Well, take it from the rich,"' he said.

"And that's when you have the rich moving to another country."

The student protesters dismiss the idea that taxes would need to be raised to freeze or eliminate tuition -- which represents only a tiny fraction of the provincial budget and pales in comparison to the money spent on corporate subsidies.

Scores of protesters demonstrated outside the cocktail event Villeneuve was attending, in the company of other racing figures and celebrities. It was a glitzy $1,000-a-plate fundraiser, with proceeds going to a local children's hospital. Some protesters have promised to disrupt events throughout the Grand Prix weekend and even jam the metro leading to the race track on Sunday.

Villeneuve, 41, won the 1997 Formula One world championship and received the adulation of local sports fans who feted his success with a roaring celebration before a Montreal Canadiens game. After several difficult seasons he left Formula One in 2005 and has since raced on other circuits.

He said he's heard from people outside the country commenting on the student protests in Quebec -- but he said the opinion is ill-informed and based almost entirely on the one-sided take of protesters.

-With files by Alexander Panetta

http://www.tsn.ca/au...tory/?id=397906

Talk about ill-informed and one-sided.

[Satan's Evil Twin]

I don't think he's Ill informed. the protesters are Ill informed on reality. I'd like to see water cannons and tazers used on these dolts.

[Navyblue]

I would like to know which ideas are so moronic too. Hopefully one would know the whole story before using that kind of language.