Even though it was cooler than March 22, 2012 in Montreal on Tuesday, a few thousand demonstrators still took to the streets to demand free schooling from kindergarten to university, exactly ten years after the big demonstration that marked the beginning of student spring.
A decade ago, on this date, nearly 200,000 people marched through the city to oppose the hike in tuition fees announced by the Liberal government of Jean Charest. Over 300,000 college and university students were already on strike by then, and it was becoming clear that the government’s ambitions would come up against a watertight roadblock.
This week, evoking the memory of spring 2012, some fifty student associations representing more than 80,000 students from across the province held strike days to denounce student precariousness and demand a clear commitment to the fight for climate justice. At the same time, in Quebec, the government unveiled its last budget before the election.
Budget omissions
It has been said a lot, already, that the most recent budget presented by the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, was electoral and without much vision. Distribution of small tax gifts in equal shares to all taxpayers except a fraction of the wealthiest, absence of a coherent plan to help citizens absorb the increase in the cost of living, glaring lack of ambition in the fight against climate change… After all, is it so surprising, six months before the elections? Criticism is heard. Still, the omissions of this budget curiously echo the demands made this week by the students.
The government prided itself on having wanted to give pride of place to higher education in this budget, by investing 1.3 billion to alleviate the shortage of labor and train more people in the key sectors of the economy. ‘economy. The direction was already clear in last November’s budget update, which announced a program to promote training in essential and “strategic” sectors. However, it is all the more so today: studies, it is confirmed, serve above all to meet the needs of the market. For the rest, the students can row well.
The student condition has deteriorated
We promised this year to limit the indexation of tuition fees, so that exceptional inflation does not have an unreasonable impact on student bills. Still, ten years after the 2012 strike, the student condition has indeed deteriorated.
The indexation of tuition fees, adopted as a “compromise” at the end of the spring of 2012, now brings the annual bill of an undergraduate university student to $4,310. Ten years ago it was more like $3238. Not only have tuition fees increased proportionally faster than the average income, according to the calculation made by the activist site Free education, but it is now much more expensive to eat and, above all, to find accommodation, at home. time of the housing crisis.
Added to this is the hassle of student parents, who have a terrible time finding a place in daycare for their little one, often forcing them to slow down the pursuit of their studies or to abandon them. It has been said a lot lately that this is a clear setback for the parents of my generation, and especially for young mothers, who can no longer count on the undeniable benefits of the subsidized daycare network.
Free education
It is therefore perhaps no coincidence that the idea of free education is now resurfacing in student demands, albeit timidly. In 2012, it should be remembered, a significant proportion of student strikers were not only opposed to the announced increase in tuition fees. It was also a question of moving towards free education, in order to break with the commodification of higher education and to affirm the central role of education in the democratic life of a community.
If we are putting free education back on the table today, it is not only a nod to the mobilizations of ten years ago. This idea is part of a broader vision of promoting education and combating precariousness; precisely the kind of vision we are sorely lacking in a time of inflation, housing crisis, dilapidated public services and, of course, climate catastrophe looming on the horizon.
Obviously, the student strikes organized this week are far from having the breath that carried the mobilization of 2012. Still, observing them at the same time as the start of this last fiscal year before the elections, we notice following the political standstill that marks the last decade.
Like a bad record playing over and over again, we are still dreaming of a balanced budget and tax cuts, while vulnerable populations are more hard hit than ever, and we must urgently prepare to face the most great challenge of our time.
How much longer can we replay this decade on a loop before a dike breaks?