"Fuck it all": Review of the Spring 2015 Quebec student strike

Marianne Breton Fontaine

We need to be careful not to underestimate the importance of ideology in shaping our strategies and our daily struggles. This is demonstrated by the latest attempted general strike, which the Quebec student movement initiated last spring. This strike was conducted primarily based on anarchist principles. It was also the result of dissatisfaction among activists from the Maple Spring which ended in 2012, a dissatisfaction that comes from an incorrect analysis of the transformative potential of a student strike.

Tuition fees: How students are getting it handed to them and what we can learn

Drew Garvie

We hear a lot about skyrocketing tuition fees, but one of the challenges in the student movement is high turnover and a lack of historical memory. Which government did what when? And the most important question, which governments are never truthful about; why did they do it? Here Rebel Youth examines some short histories of tuition fee increases in five provinces in order to help understand the attack we are facing and what we can do about it.

Interview with Marianne Breton Fontaine on Quebec's Anti-Austerity movement

Jane Bouey of "Media Mornings" in Vancouver interviews Marianne Breton Fontaine on the 2015 Quebec student strike and the movement against austerity. Interview is from April 8th, 2015.

Marianne Breton Fontaine is a writer for Jeunesse Militant and Rebel Youth magazines, a longtime member of the YCL-LJC, a leader of the Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Quebec and a student at UQAM in Montreal.

Quebec Anti-Austerity Battle Heating Up

Johan Boyden

Reprinted from People's Voice Newspaper

Mobilizations to stop the austerity measures of Philippe Couillard’s Quebec Liberal government got a boost in late March, after a meeting of the Front Commun, the Common Front of Quebec public sector trade unions. Then the student movement brought over 70,000 protesters into the streets on April 2, its largest mobilization since the 2012 strike.

In late March, the Liberal budget presented by Couillard’s finance minister Carlos Leitao ended any illusions that negotiations could lead to a victory for public sector unions. Calling the budget “austerity at light speed,” and a gift to big business, the labour movement condemned the proposals including a two-year wage freeze. On March 31 the Front Commun concluded further negotiations would be a dead-end and began mobilizing for a strike.