Hundreds of people demonstrated Monday in Montreal against the increase in tuition fees which will be imposed next fall on students from outside Quebec. Other actions are to come to try to push back the Legault government, promise the student associations.
“It’s a first demonstration, but it won’t be the last, it’s just the beginning,” assures Alexandrah Cardona, coordinator of academic affairs and support services at the Concordia Students’ Union (CSU). We are going to put pressure on the government, it’s an injustice.”
The demonstrators met at the beginning of the afternoon at Dorchester Square in downtown Montreal. Signs in English and French flocked to denounce the measure announced by Quebec a few weeks ago. A police officer on site estimated the number of demonstrators at nearly 600.
Canadian students who reside outside Quebec will have to pay $17,000 per year to study at a university in the province, rather than the $8,992 they currently pay. A floor rate of $20,000 per year will also be imposed on foreign students. This announcement sparked an outcry, particularly from English-speaking universities.
At a ” town hall » organized at Concordia University to take the pulse of the students, several mentioned wanting to go as far as going on strike to force the Legault government to back down, specifies Alexandrah Cardona. “We have several small associations and they are going to start talking with their members,” says the woman who speaks perfectly bilingual. We represent 37,000 students, but we want to support them as much as possible so that we can have a collective strike, which includes everyone.”
A petition was also posted online on the website of the National Assembly of Quebec on Friday, specifies Liam Gaither, vice-president of external affairs of the McGill University Student Association. He accuses the CAQ of trying to divide anglophones and francophones. “It’s an important issue, it will be a big barrier to the accessibility of education,” he emphasizes, in perfect French. We will see for the next steps, there could be more demonstrations, more actions and strikes.”
With the money recovered by the increase in tuition fees, Quebec wishes to reinvest in the French-speaking university network by recovering $100 million. Marwah Rizqy, member of Parliament for Saint-Laurent for the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) and opposition spokesperson for higher education, present at the demonstration, believes that this measure does not add “anything new” in the university network. “There is a shortage of $1.4 billion in funding,” she says. “It’s the mission of the State, they are the ones who have to finance it,” she adds.
The one who sponsors the petition in support of students accuses the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, of having pulled the figure of $17,000 “out of her hat”, while the Canadian average for programs is $9,000 per year , and for not having analyzed the impacts of the measure. “Mme Déry didn’t even do an impact analysis, she says. I find it ridiculous that she is the head of higher education when she did no research before announcing something. »
Quebec’s decision is particularly worrying at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke, which expects to lose the majority of its students from the rest of Canada even though they represent a third of its student population. There are fears for the survival of the establishment and a contingent of students, visible with their purple clothes and signs in the university colors, traveled on buses Monday morning to come and demonstrate.
“If I had wanted to apply next year, when the new measure on tuition fees will be in force, it would never have been possible for me to come and study here, it would have been too expensive,” says Sophia Stacey , president of the university’s Student Representative Council. The young woman, who comes from Alberta, is currently completing a double degree in political studies and preclinical psychology. She also took advantage of her time in Quebec to learn French. However, she questions her future in the province.
Lily Charette, who arrived from British Columbia to study at Concordia University, already had a link with Quebec because of her grandfather, originally from Quebec. “One of the reasons I came here is that there is a cost of living crisis in British Columbia. I couldn’t afford to pay rent and college there,” she says. Her sister was also planning to come study here, but that is no longer an option she is considering.