Round Two

Last year it was the Quebec Liberal Party that formed the government of the province and it was Premier Jean Charest who was the target of the college and university student unions who sent their members out on numerous vociferous protests against the outrage of raised tuition fees. The very idea that Quebec's university and college student population might be expected to pay a bit more of what it costs to attain higher education was offensive and unsupportable.

So, though there were court-ordered restraining orders, nothing sufficed to restrain the fury of the students. By no means all the students; the vast majority made a considered choice to continue their classes, only to discover that the militant belligerents among them sought to deny them that opportunity, despite court orders. The protesting union members chanted their disgust at the government, behaving in so undemocratic a manner.

They themselves, democratically engaged in civil disorder by disrupting classes, destroying furniture and electronics and threatening students determined not to lose their academic year, behaved impeccably. They marched on bridges and blocked their access, tied up traffic on major arteries, and insisted that the population that pays the taxes, honour their prerogative as students to chafe under the heavy hand of government, and support the protests.

The Parti Quebecois was more than empathetic. Their leader, Pauline Marois, joined the rampaging students, herself banging pots to draw attention to their plight. It was a dreadful imposition; the lowest tuition fees in the entire country, a modest increase in the offing, and middle-class students who lavish more of their money on updating their electronics scandalized that they be expected to aid the provincial deficit in this unfair manner.

This disaffection and public disorder helped unseat the Liberals from power in the following provincial election and hand it over to the Parti Quebecois whose leader had promised the students that she, personally, would support their cause. Accordingly, upon assuming the premiership, the tuition increase was reversed. And the universities discovered that funding allocated to them for operations was markedly decreased.

And Ms. Marois set about soothing the gulf that had resulted between the young and their elders through that "brutal" imposition of higher tuition fees embarked upon by her predecessors. Time marches on and in government one learns one must occasionally make hard decisions. "The universities are forced to make an impossible choice; either cut services significantly or mortgage their future by borrowing", lamented university administrators.

And oops, once again, my goodness, the Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante plans to take its members to Montreal streets in protest. Government is failing to entertain the possibility of eliminating tuition fees altogether. "Our vision of education is an education that is accessible to all, without private-sector influence and above all free", it posts on its website.

Quebec premier Pauline Marois who once praised student groups she so wholeheartedly supported in their rage against tuition fees, calling them audacious and intelligent, now faces those same student groups issuing ultimatums to her new government, and to her, personally, their staunch ally.