


The students of Quebec made history back in the 2005 student strike... Can they possibly do it again? Or are they being delusional?
Many interesting arguements were raised by Carson Jerema, in hi article, speculating the recent interest by Quebec student organizations to hold a second "strike". I believe and agree with Carson that the movement may be dishonest, in their efforts to hold a 3-day event and call it a protest. But at the same time, I think that their efforts are not necessarily "delusional", because of the major impact they serve, and the power theyeactually hold in society.
There are suspions that the Quebec student strike may be dishonest for several reasons outlined in the article, that I agree with. In comparison to other Universities across Canada, and even in the United States, the Quebec tutition has substantially less. Even as a McMaster undergrad, paying a minimum of $5000 per year, which is about the cost of grad school in B.C, Quebec students have had the luxury of having substantially less debt, and the addition of bursaries for support, than your average Canadian undergraduate student. By adding $100 per year over the course of a 5 year term, would still be only HALF of what many students pay. In a sense, I think that they are trying to abuse their power and "bully" the government into doing whatever they want, which makes people wonder if their intentions are actually genuine.
On the flip side of the coin, I think that Carson may over-estimate the power and influence of the students. When running for power, the premiers look to the post-secondary students for support. Mnay of these up-and-coming working class people can either make-or-break a politicians campagin. Yes, it's true that in the end that students would be only putting their education in jeporday, but at the end of the day, Univeristy does not only benefit the student, it's benefits the entire economy, having a vast majority of well-educated people. Also, the government is under pressure to give into the demands of this group of people, because in 4 years when they want to be re-elected, their chances will be next to none, because of the fact that this vast growing group holds much influence at the voting polls.
So who really loses? The students or government? I think that the students are just relying on the success of their past attempts to fight for what they strongly believed in. They were able to gather a group, something that is not only challenging, but difficult when there is much adversity being faced (i.e. police patrol); but people only joined the cause because it was genuine. This 3-day strike won't pose much influence in affecting the government, but truth be told, post-secondary students have much more say than they believe: it's about solidarity and collition for a cause, and the Quebec students have figured that out, which is why they control their governemnt, and won't let the government control them. Or else risk ending up like every other student in Canada: broke, rising tutition fees, and in debt.























