Students in Quebec have been on strike for almost 12 weeks. My college has joined it almost 2 months and 5 weeks ago, we have voted so that the strike lasts at least until the government accept to negotiate with the movement's representatives. All this time, we have increasingly seen acts of vandalism and economic disruption from students, as we would expect from students who are tired because they have been on strike for months and the government doesn't even speak to us. There has also been more frequent cases of police brutality particularly when it's not warranted, culminating in the current, Russia-like situation at the Université du Québec en Outaouais(UQO).
2 weeks ago, the education minister formally accepted to negotiate with us, but not on the tuition hike, she's was only gonna negotiate on "better university manage", and only of all the parties involved officially release a statement "denouncing the violence". Never mind the sheer stupidity of that, 2 of the three main associations (the FECQ and the FEUQ) immediately made their statement, while the third (the CLASSE) only voted on it last weekend, denouncing violence against people but not civil disobedience. And so the Minister "accepted" to negotiate from Monday to Wednesday, except not really. While our representatives spent about 40 hours talking with a layer with no power whatsoever, the Minister only gave us an hour of her time.
Yesterday, she decided to exclude the CLASSE after she found that people were organized economic disruption on their site's forum. The FECQ and the FEUQ also quit the negotiation table by solidarity.
I'm so mad at this point. I wish that Line Beauchamp (Minister of Education), Raymond Bachand(Minister of Finance) and particularly Jean Charest(Premier) will choke on their food and die. Where's my fucking Death Note when I need it?
