In this anniversary period of the father of Bill 101 and its linguistic revolution, I allow myself to relate another innovative revolution little known to Quebec society. Everyone remembers the “maple spring of 2012” and the demonstrations for the tuition freeze, but no one remembers the pro-student revolution or the student spring of Camille Laurin, in 1982, 30 years earlier. Let us recall the main lines of this historical upheaval.
Posted yesterday at 5:00 p.m.
As Minister of Education, Camille Laurin forever changed the balance of power within our educational institutions. At the time, students were taken hostage by repeated strikes or by arbitrary decisions, as much on the part of far-left groups as teachers’ unions or CEGEP and university directors, who denied year after year the representativeness of student associations. This pro-student revolution allowed the recognition in a law (Law 32) of student democracy, as well as an official status for student associations in universities and CEGEPs, while ensuring funding at source (automatic dues- non-mandatory), but also representation in the decision-making bodies of post-secondary institutions in Quebec.
Without this revolution, could the student associations have mobilized so many students over such a long period during the “maple spring” of 2012? I don’t have an answer, but the financial and democratic stability of the student associations was a key to their mobilization success.
Of course, Law 32 on the accreditation and financing of student associations is not perfect. At the time, as secretary general of the Regroupement des associations étudiantes universitaires du Québec (RAEU), I would have liked this law to provide more of a framework for students’ right to strike with a minimum quorum, for us to be able to assess professors and for this evaluation is made public, that the involvement of students in their living environment is recognized by the recognition of credits for participation, that student internships are remunerated. All of this, framed by a Student Community Services Center (CESC) and the establishment of non-compulsory community service (civil service) which would have been very useful, incidentally, during the first two years of the COVID-19.
I hope that the other law 32 to “protect university academic freedom” which has just been tabled by the Minister of Higher Education will be adopted in order to prevent small groups from terrorizing and infiltrating, as in my time, student associations, thus taking students hostage through intimidation tactics, as was recently the case for the Political Science Student Association of UQAM.
I thank Camille Laurin, who was able to resist in 1982 the opposition lobbies of the teachers’ unions and the administration of CEGEPs and universities, the extreme left groups that controlled the National Association of Quebec Students (ANEQ) and the Liberal Party at the time. This visionary of Bill 101 has also allowed student associations to become essential partners in our educational institutions for 40 years. A big step for student democracy and the democratic process, guarantor of our individual and collective rights. I have never been so proud to be from Quebec! To meditate in memory of a visionary who restored the pride of Quebecers as a nation!