ingar solty: canada's "maple spring". from the quebec student strike to the movement against...

7/27/2019 Ingar Solty: Canada's "Maple Spring". From the Quebec Student Strike to the Movement Against Neoliberalism

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The 2012 student s trike in Quebec is a lesson in successf ul struggle against austerity policies.

The st rike was sparked by the announcement by the governing Parti libral du Qubec(PLQ) of Premier

Jean Charest that tuition f ees would increase 75 percent, f rom CND $2168 per year to $3793 by 2017. Thiswas not the first time a liberal government decided on such an increase. During the neoliberal high point of1994, the PLQ pushed through a drast ic increase. Tuition f ees had been f rozen at $540 since 1968. Now ata st roke they rose to $1668. Subsequent attempts to raise tuition f ees in 1996 and 2005 f ailed in the f aceof resistance f rom students, but there were nevertheless smaller increases in tuition, most recently by theCharest government in 2007.

In the latest attempt, the government argued universities were underf inanced and that Quebecs globalcompetit iveness required increased f unding through a tuition increase. This argument set t he studentsagainst the government. The fact that the government justif ied the increase by referring to a budget

shortf all added a new quality to the matter. This made it clear that the governments actual aim was to shif tthe costs of the economic crisis onto the students.

Resistance emerged mainly out o f two groups. The f irst group consists of the students who saw a long-term neoliberal agenda at work in the tuition increase. This agendas aim is the last ing transf ormation o feducation into a commodif ied service and the reorientation of universities and colleges to wards the

interests of the private capitalist economy.1 However, these students argued that education is a social rightand that democracy requires f ree access to education. They counterposed a humanist ic education to a

commercialized one.2 In doing so, the students could point out that Canada had ratif ied the 1976 UnitedNations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in which the right to tuition-f ree

education is anchored.This f irst group does not accept that f uture wage earners should indebt t hemselves to cover the cost s o fqualifying their labor power as a commodity. They represent an anti-neoliberal, indeed, an anti-capitalistperspective.

Yet even f or the students f rom the second group, who are not f undamentally opposed to neoliberalism, thegovernments argument was not valid. For if education, as neoliberals gladly emphasize, is the key to socialmobility in the knowledge society, then it should not be dependent on the pocketbooks of parents , andeven under the logic of the neoliberals, investment by labor power entrepreneurs in their education is nolonger worthwhile. Years of stagnation in the incomes of post- secondary graduates has cont ributed

signif icantly to the emergence of an academic precariat. In the f ace of declining opportunities f or well-paying jobs, even these students see no po int in paying more f or an education just to indebt themselves.

The relationship between student debt and precarisation

This relationship is particularly dramatic in the United States. In the U.S., tuition fees increased by 1120

percent between 1978 and 2011; since 2000 in particular, the curve shoots steeply upwards.3 At the sametime, real wages f or 25-34 year o lds with a bachelor s degree f ell dramatically: f or men by 19 percent since

2000, for women by 16 percent since 2003.4 This is also related to t he fact that only 21 percent of those

obs lost in the crisis, but 58 percent of newly created jobs, are found in the low-wage secto r.5 In themeantime, the student debt bubble has grown to a to tal level of more than one trillion US dollars and isalready being treated by economists as po tentially the next mortgage crisis.
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Even in Canada, where tuition is not nearly as high, almost sixty percent of graduates leave college or

university with debt. The average level of debt is about $28,000, and repayment requires 14 years.6 Giventhe immense cos t of education, half of all students under thirty st ill live with their parents. In Germany, incontrast, the share is still only about a quarter.

That conservatives also see an urgent need fo r action in view of student debt is related to its ef f ects onthe economy and to the crisis o f social reproduction. According to Canadas most prominent conservativenewspaper, The Globe and Mail:

A mix of a weak economy, changing tastes and shifting demographics has been cited in the U.S. to explain a

decline in home and car buying by twenty- and thirtysomethings. Student debt is likely to ensure this trend

continues. You cant become a fully functioning player in the economy if a big piece of every paycheck goes

toward student debts. We need todays students to become tomorrows big earners, and its not just to support

the housing market, keep the retail sector afloat and supply customers to the financial services industry.

Someone has to pay the taxes that fund social programs for the aging baby boom generation.7

The government has constantly pointed out that tuition f ees in Quebec are the lowest in North America,and in point of f act, as the media never tires o f emphasizing, tuition fees and debt levels here are onlyhalf the national average.

Evidently the government in Quebec City nevertheless f ailed to realize that the population considers thesecircumstances to be the basis of a more democratic access to higher education. Indeed, in every agecohort, the number of degree holders is ten percent higher in Quebec than in Canada overall. The CGEPs(community and vocational colleges) are particularly important with regard to the t raining of skilled workers.

As a result, the governments argument f ailed to catch oneither in Quebec or in the other Canadianprovinces. In an opinion po ll, 62 percent o f Canadian students indicated that they would also likely

participate in a st udent st rike in their respective provinces.8

The organizations behind the student strike

Against this backdrop, pro tests against the governments measure began short ly af ter its announcement.On February 13, 2012 the student organizat ions went on strike. The students f ormed strike committees,held general assemblies, organized alternative education events, and built alliances with organizations andsocial movements outside of the post-secondary institutions. By the middle of March, out of an entirestudent body of 400,000 in Quebec, 300,000 were on s trike.

Of particular importance was the f act that s trike participation did not remain pass ive. Massivedemonstrations took place regularly. The biggest occurred on March 22 when over 200,000 people marched

through the streets of Montreal, the largest ever in Quebecs history.9

Nevertheless, the dynamic of the student s trike did not represent a spontaneous outbreak of protest .Without the support o f democratic student associations it would have never come into existence. Thecrucial organizat ion was the Coalition large de lAssociation pour une solidarit syndicale tudiante (CLASSE),whose local organizations initiated the strike. The three other student organizationsFdration tudiantecollgiale du Qubec(FECQ), Fdration tudiante universitaire du Qubec(FEUQ), and Table deconcertation tudiante du Qubec(TaCEQ)only decided to participate in the strike three weeks later.

CLASSE emerged out of the anti-globalization movement in 2001 (under the name of ASSE) andrepresents, within the self-management structures of the eighteen post-secondary institutions, about44,000 students, or eleven percent o f all students in Quebec. The Coalition is not only the most active but

also the most democratic s tudent association. While FECQ and FEUQ function according to the principlesof representative democracy and ascribe comparatively little importance to local plenary assemblies,CLASSE operates on the principle of grassroots democracy. Decisions are taken in local plenaryassemblies and then coordinated through the national delegate assembly as an imperative mandate. Thest rategic approach of the organizat ion can be characterized as such:


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CLASSE rejects lobbying, as it perceives the interests of the state as irreconcilable with those of the students;

it believes in creating leverage against the government through grassroots mobilization and various means of

escalating pressure.10

Behind this approach lies the realistic understanding that the state under capitalism does not represent thecommon good. In the name of global competitiveness, the neoliberal state cuts taxes f or capital and f irms,privatizes the services necessary f or social reproduction (education, child-care, health and senior- care,etc.), and shif ts them onto (working-class) f amiliesin particular onto women. From this perspective, the

goodwill of the government is no t t o be expected, and only resistance and countervailing power can beused to oppose t hese policies.

The success of the Quebec student s trike resulted not least f rom the lessons of previous conf licts, aboveall f rom the failure of the 2007 attempt to o rganize a general strike against tuition fee increases. Themovement drew two conclusions f rom that time: First , f or success t o be achieved a unif ied movement wasneeded, and second, broader alliances would have to be organized. In order t o f acilitate the collaborat ionof smaller local student associations, the main association reorganized itself as a coalition.

In addition, the success o f the 2012 student strike rested upon the Red-Hand-Coalition. This coalitionwas formed in 2009 after finance minister Raymond Bachand announced an austerity budget, whichin thewords o f student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Duboiswas the f irst budget that clearly attacked publicservices, to t errify and privatize. The Red-Hand-Coalition f unctioned as an alliance to resist the crisis andst ruggled against not only the specif ic measures but also t he vision of society and state that is inside this

budget and remained the main coordination place for the social movements.11

Altogether 125 o rganizationstrade unions f rom the healt hcare and educat ion sectors, municipal policycampaigns, anti-poverty initiatives, and environmental o rganizat ionsaf f iliated with the Red-Hand-Coalition. This alliance also benef itted f rom a new willingness on the part of the trade unions to f ight back.

At the convention of the CSN, the second larges t trade union in Quebec with 300,000 members in the public

and private sectors,12 a clearly militant position emerged and was accompanied by demands for a social

st rike against the neoliberal Charest government. In Montreal, the CSN regional organization also supportsthe lef t-wing Qubec Solidaire party, founded in 2006. The alliance which ASSE sought with the t rade unionsand the cooperation it invested f or years prior to the st rikefinally paid of f .

The National Teachers Union (FNEEQ), as well as the CSN, CSQ, and FTQ came out against the tuitionincrease right f rom the start, though the trade unions were legally rest ricted in terms of what t hey couldof f er beyond symbolic support. As part of the new strategies f or st ruggle, post- secondary teachersorganized themselves into the alliance Profs contre la hausse,with 674 professors and teachers signingthis groups proclamation. Being a part of this alliance allowed the trade unions to support t he strike moreopenly and f lexibly, but it also conf erred a greater legitimacy in the media, since it was not the t rade

unions taking action but rather a citizens coalition o f actual post- secondary teachers. With theseorganizations behind them, the strikers also benefited from spontaneous solidarity, as from the mres encolres et solidaires(angry mothers in solidarity).

The failure of t he peace talks

Confronted with massive resistance, the government found itself forced into talks with studentrepresentatives. In an age of austerity, as CLASSE itself realizes, the aims of the government and theprotest movement are f undamentally antagonist ic. While the government seeks to push the costs o fbudget cuts onto the lower classes, the protest movement strives to thwart the very same cuts from takingplace at all.


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The aim of the government was, theref ore, to take the wind out of the movements sails by signaling awillingness t o talk. Prolonged talks, or rather, negot iations, can make conf rontational escalation, on whichthe protest was based, more difficult and could have led to a step-by-step demobilization of themovement. The prospects f or this st rategys success were, indeed, quite sound. In contrast to CLASSE,FECQ and FEUQ pursued a strategy of lobbying aimed at persuading the government to adopt a policymore congenial to students . For t his reason, the latter associations were invited to talks by the governmentduring the 2005 strikes but ASSE was not.

Yet FECQ and FEUQ learned f rom the mistakes o f the past . They withdrew f rom negotiations with thegovernment and, in this way, maintained unity on the st rike f ront . An apparent concession by thegovernmentits plan to raise tuition by 80 percent over seven years instead of f ivefell f lat. More so, thestudents took this proposal as an af f ront. From that point on, large demonst rations took place in Montrealevery night. At the beginning of May, severe conf rontations occurred between students and police outsidethe PLQ convention in Victoriaville; two students were seriously injured and 106 taken into custody. As aresult, Pauline Marois, leader of the opposit ion Parti Qubcois (PQ), criticized the governmentsauthoritarian tactics.

At the same time, representatives o f all the associations had res tarted negotiations. Though thegovernment of f ered to eliminate some special fees within the scope of the tuition hike, the central demandof the students, a permanent tuition freeze, fell by the wayside. When the result of negotiations was put toa vote, the negot iators distanced themselves f rom the preliminary agreement, and the vote ended in acatast rophe f or the government: the deal was defeated at all post -secondary inst itutions. On May 14, fourdays af ter the def eat, the minister o f education, Line Beauchamp, was f orced to resign.

Instead of respecting the students democratic decision and returning to the negot iating table with the willto respond t o their legitimate demands, on May 18, literally overnight, the government passedtogetherwith the votes of the right-wing populist party Coalition Avenir Qubec(CAQ, founded in 2011 by thebillionaire Charles Sirois and Franois Legault, the former head ofAir Transat)Loi 78, an emergency lawdesigned to be valid for one year. It ended the current academic year by means of a directive and limited

freedom of assembly. By making the most meager reference to national security, this law enabled thepolice to f orbid events and enacted a complete ban on assemblies at universities. In addition, it severelylimited university workers right to strike. All in all, the law aimed to paralyze the main actors andorganizations taking part in and driving the resistance; contravention o f the law was to be punished withhigh fines.

This course of action divided the population into two camps. The law was welcomed by Yves-ThomasDorval, president o f the employers asso ciation, and by some sections o f the population. On the otherhand, it was denounced by (some) opposition political parties, the trade unions, and the Canadian

Association of University Teachers (CAUT). The Quebec Bar Association repudiated the law and demanded

the government return to t he negotiating table. Louis Masson, head of the Quebec Bar Association,described the law as unconst itutional.

Student leaders called f or civil disobedience. On the night f ollowing the adoption of the law, police clashedviolently with demonstrators. A website with the motto Arrtez-moi, quelquun!caused a sensation bypublishing, eventually, 5305 photographs of individuals or groups willing to engage in civil disobedience.

From student strike t o anti-neoliberalism movement


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Emergency Law 78 boomeranged on the government. Many citizens who originally did not approve of thestrikes now supported the protests. The demonstration against the increase in tuition fees, planned for

the 100th day of the student s trike on May 22 in Montreal, turned into a massive protest against thegovernment. CSN, the Canadian Union o f Public Employees (CUPE), as well as the lef t- wing Qubecsolidaire (QS) and Option Nationalall supported the protest. The demonstrat ion was by f ar the largest inCanadian history. Over 400,000 peoplemore than five percent of Quebecs populationmarched throughthe st reets o f Montreal. Quebec became the symbol f or s tudent and anti-austerity protests worldwide.Prominent artists such as Michael Moore and the rock band Arcade Fire expressed their support publicly;demonstrat ions in so lidarity to ok place across Canada and in New York, London, and Paris.

However, according to opinion polls, a majority still supported the law and the tuition increases. Ultimately itwas the repressive impacts o f the emergency law that tipped public opinion. On the night o f May 23 alone,police arrested 513 demonstrators in Montreal, 150 in Quebec City, and 36 in Sherbrooke. In total betweenFebruary and September, 3387 people were taken into custody. The government, which had been st rugglingf or a long time with several corruption scandals, now appeared to many Qubecois as repress ive and

illegitimate.13 The number of participants in the nightly mass protests, which occurred simultaneously inseveral locations across Quebec, multiplied by the thousands.

With t his, the character of the movement changed fundamentally. Out o f the s tudent s trike emerged a masspopular movement. Correspondingly, the demands also broadened; the increase in power of the financialelite, social inequality, and the dismantling of the public sector became issues. The political scienceprof essor Anna Kruzynski aptly noted af ter May 22:

The tuition hike is part and parcel of a neoliberal agenda []. Its not isolated from other measures that aim to

privatize public services []. What the student movement has managed to do is to bring this debate into the

forefront beyond the question of tuition fees.14

The hardest- f ought s tudent st rike in Quebec (and Canadian) history15 resulted in the most powerful

challenge to neoliberalism on the continent.16 The movement was now increasingly referred to as thePrintemps rable, the Maple Spring (a simultaneous reference to the national symbol o f Canada, themaple leaf , and to the Arab Spring).

In the weeks af ter the massive demonstrat ion of May 22, the protest expanded to almost all dist ricts o fMontreal. Inst itutions of self -governance emerged in several city districts in the f orm of theAssembles

populaires autonomes de quartier. On May 31, with the student s trike itself st ill 150,000 strong, thegovernment f inally withdrew f rom negotiations.

Early elections held on September 4 resulted in the increasingly unpopular PLQs expected def eat. PremierJean Charest was defeated in his own electoral district and stepped down as party leader as a result. With

32 percent of the vote and 54 out o f 125 seats (an increase of seven), the PQ became the largest party inthe National Assembly of Quebec. Student leader Leo Bureau-Blouin was also elected on this partys ticket.Qubec Solidaire also pro f ited f rom the Maple Spring. In contrast to 2008, the left -wing party increased itsshare of the vote f rom 3.8 to 6 percent, thus becoming the f ourth s trongest f orce. In three (separatistorientated) working-class districts of Montreal, they achieved a vote share of over 20 percent. In the wakeof the Maple Spring, the party doubled its membership to 13,000.

Yet a big landslide failed to materialize. Though the PLQ clearly lost, the CAQ made gains, with the resultthat the new PQ minority government will depend on the right-wing opposition f or votes. On September 20,the new government f roze tuition f ees. In addition, it announced the abrogation of Loi 78 (which, however,

was only poss ible with the PLQs and CAQs cooperation).17

Lessons from the movement


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First of f , it can be stated that the student movement achieved a victo ry in the Maple Spring. The dramaticincrease in tuition fees sought by the government is off the table. Even more so, the protests sharerespons ibility for ultimately chasing the government out o f of f ice. Because of this, it seems unlikely in theshort- term that a renewed att empt at a drastic tuition increase will be attempted. Even if the success wasundoubtedly based on specif ic circumstances, some conclusions can nevertheless be drawn that are alsorelevant for movements outside of Quebec.

First , the Maple Spring makes clear that resistance to austerity po licies can be quite successf ul when it is

based on the protection of essential social-welfare achievements f rom which a large majority of thepopulation benef its. This applies part icularly when the population considers these achievements to be part

of their identity and the identity o f the country, and the movement def ends them as such.18

Second, in the context o f increasing labor market competition and individual strategies f or survival, theknowledge that solidarity and collective struggle are worthwhile is of immense importance. Every successshows that the prevailing policies are by no means without alternatives. Because these protests make thestate budget a political issue, they prove that alternatives always existas long as one f ights f or them.The best evidence for all this are the (in tot al) nine student st rikes t hat have taken place since 1968, whichhave resulted in tuition f ees in Quebec being the lowest in North America. At the same time, the successf ul

st ruggle f or f ree education is a refutation of the theory of immiseration. The successes of the Quebecstudent movement over the decades show that it is not the maximum misery of high tuition fees that ledto the movement but ratherat least in this casethe open spaces created by low f ees which encouragedthe movement. Additionally, those with high levels o f educational (or o ther) debtand f acing increasingfears of job lossare also less likely to mount a defense against deteriorating working conditions.

Third, the chances for successful protests are considerably greater if they are not based solely onspontaneity but rather on long-term organization. This strike did not spring from some spontaneous waveof revolutionary romanticism. It was organized over a long period of time by activists who mobilized support

among their local CGEP and university student associations.19 Furthermore, the Quebec student s trikewould not have proceeded so successfully without the Red-Hand-Coalitions networking of social

st ruggles. Here again: a spontaneous protest only becomes fully ef f ective if a stro ng organizat ion and abroad alliance of social forces have prepared the ground for its emergence.

Lastly, the reference by the Printemps rableto the Printemps arabewas an important factor in thesuccess o f the movement. Before the Arab Spring, political conditions seemed to be f ossilizedand notonly in the Arab world. Since then, mutual references to movements and the internationalization of symbolsand forms of political action have invigorated social struggles. Petrif ied relations have started to moveitstime to make them dance.

Translated from the German by Sam Putinja.

1 Eric Mart in and Simon Tremblay-Pepin, Qubec Students Teach the World a Lesson, CanadianDimension, May 2012, p. 21.

2 Louis-Philippe Vronneau, De lducation humaniste lducation marchande, Presse-toi gauche!,November 13, 2012.

3 Bloomberg, August 15, 2012.

4 New York Times, March 2, 2012.

5 Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2012.

6 Financial Post, September 5, 2012.

7 The Globe and Mail, August 29, 2012.

8 The Globe and Mail, May 7, 2012.


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9 Andrea Levy and Fanny Theurillat-Cloutier, Le Printemps rable: An Education in Dissent, CanadianDimension, May 2012, p. 20.

10 Martin Robert, The Organizations Behind Qubecs 2012 Student Strike, Canadian Dimension, May2012, p. 28.

11 Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Student Strike, Popular Struggle, Peoples Voice, June 1, 2012.

12 In 1980 CSN of f icially renounced class st ruggle but maintains a reputation as being the most lef t- wingtrade union. Since 1990 it is openly separatist, and advocates f or Quebecs independence f rom Canada.

13 Sabine Friesinger, Report ing the Strike: Campus Television Embeds Itself in the Student Movement,Canadian Dimension, May 2012, p. 25.

14 Cited in Democracy Now, May 25, 2012.

15 Levy and Theurillat-Cloutier, ibid., p.19.

16 Guardian, May 5, 2012.

17 Richard Fidler, Quebecs Election: An Initial Balance Sheet, The Bullet695, September 12, 2012.

18 Dacid Camf ield, Quebecs Red Square Movement, The Bullet680, August 13, 2012.

19 Robert, ibid., p. 28.

ingar solty: canada's "maple spring". from the quebec student strike to the movement against...

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