8 Features
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STUDENTS UNITED USU tudent associations representing over 130,000 students are now on strike across Quebec, calling on the Liberal government to stop a five-year, $1,625 tuition hike set to go into effect in September. McGill Arts students are voting Tuesday on whether to join them. As the AUS strike mobilization committee told The
Daily’s editorial board recently, one of the main reasons for striking is that strikes have worked like gangbusters in the past. “Students united will never be defeated,” as the slogan goes. To see if this was true, I dug through The Daily’s archives and spoke to some of the leading scholars of the Quebec student movement. I learned that there have been suc-
1968: WIN GOALS Following the opening of the first CEGEPs in the fall of 1967, Rendez-vous ’68, as the movement was called, was more ambitious than any strike since: • Abolition of tuition fees. • Expanded university facilities: 4000 students were denied admission to university in 1968 due to lack of space. • Greater student control of university and CEGEP governance. HOW IT WENT DOWN • College Lionel Groulx was the first school to go on strike. • 15 of the 23 CEGEPs eventually joined them. • Soon after, students occupied the now-defunct Écoles des beaux arts, which became a major counter-cultural hub. • The strike lasted for a month. RESULTS • The government didn’t formally concede it at the time, but UQAM opened in September 1969, marking the beginning of the Université de Québec system. • Mandatory class attendance was abolished at CEGEPs, establishing students’ right to strike. Although in retrospect the strike may look like an enormous success, at the time more radical students were disappointed that tuition wasn’t made free, and that wholesale governance reform wasn’t undertaken. “Paradoxically, members of the student movement saw it as a defeat,” said Benôit Lacoursière, author of Le mouvement étudiant au Québec de 1983 à 2006, in an interview.
1974: LOSS
1978: TIE
1986: WIN
GOALS • More investment in loans and bursaries. • Elimination of the “independence” clause, which tied the amount a student could receive in aid to their parents’ income, unless the student had completed a first degree, had worked for two years, or was married. (In the early eighties, student groups even mounted a campaign to get their members to marry so they could qualify for greater student aid.)
GOALS • Abolition of the “independence” clause (again). • Free tuition. • Greater investment in loans and bursaries.
GOALS • Despite being elected with a promise to keep tuition frozen, the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa began making noises about reversing course. Students were determined to keep tuition levels frozen.
HOW IT WENT DOWN • Widespread discontent with the student aid regime, spurred in part by a 30 per cent jump in the number of rejected applicants, brought students back to the picket lines for the second time in a semester. • 55,000 CEGEP students went on strike for about two weeks. • Minister of Education Francois Cloutier “threatened striking students with [the] loss of their first term credits,” according to a Daily report on December 12.
HOW IT WENT DOWN • Rural and smalltown CEGEPs like Rimouski, Alma, and Ahuntsic began the charge, going on strike in early November. • SSMU VP External Ted Claxton called the CEGEP movements “unrealistic” and “Marxist.” McGill didn’t go on strike. • ANEQ’s strategy included getting teachers and unions involved, to neutralize the criticism of students as a “privileged minority.” The Quebec Teachers Union and the Union of Quebec Government Workers jumped on board. • At the strike’s peak, schools representing 100,000 students were on strike. • ANEQ finally called off the strike in early February
HOW IT WENT DOWN • On day one, 19 CEGEPs and the main student union at UQAM were on strike. • Thirty student associations, mostly from CEGEPs, eventually joined. • For students, it was a cakewalk. Renaud, who helped organize the strike at Collège Lionel Groulx, said, “It was a bit of a boring strike. For most students it was just blocking the door to your CEGEPs.”
RESULTS • The government promised to abolish the parental contribution provision for loans and reduce it for bursaries. However, it didn’t follow on its promise – there remains a version of the “independence” clause to this day. • In February of the following year, the Daily’s Larry Black wrote “it appears today that despite that demonstration’s pledge of solidarity, Cloutier’s move to quell student unrest by dividing the CEGEPs has been successful.” • The province-wide student union L’association des étudiants du Québec (ANEQ) was created following the strike. “During the strike itself, there was an ad hoc organization of the student unions, and a decision was made to make it permanent,” said Benoit Renaud, a former student organizer now working for Québec Solidaire, a leftist provincial party. • ANEQ continued to dominate the student movement for the next decade and a half.
RESULTS • Though it was an election promise in 1976, Morin balked at free tuition, saying it would cost $200 million to implement. • The parental income requirements for getting student aid were altered to make it easier for students to get loans and bursaries. • The government promised to gradually increase the amount of money available for loans and bursaries.
RESULTS • After just two weeks, the government caved, and promised to keep tuition frozen. “There were some students who thought we should have continued, because the government gave in so fast,” said Renaud. • According to Benôit Lacoursière, the government’s acquiescence was a “tactical retreat,” in order to save up political capital for the eventual tuition hikes of 1990.