Focus of Quebec protests swells beyond tuition hikes
The almost nightly protests in Montreal have transcended the student movement's opposition to tuition fee hikes and are now more about the future of the province and basic rights, a panel of political experts says.
While the movement isn't exactly surging in public opinion polls, it's starting to attract international attention through its use of social media - particularly to spread its rejection of Bill 78, a new Quebec law designed to crack down on street protests.
But the recent tactic of banging pots and pans and generally making noise has increased the volume of that opposition and drawn more people from the sidelines to the frontlines with kitchen utensils in tow.
"I think now it's become contagious and people are just letting their steam out, people are mad about corruption, about lack of ethics . . . shale gas, anything you want," political analyst and former Liberal MP Jean Lapierre told CTV's Question Period Sunday.
In the beginning the student marches were primarily a Montreal phenomenon, but they have since spread to communities like Val-d'or and Gaspe, Lapierre said in an interview from Montreal.
"The people want to be heard."
It's also possible recent social unrest is a reverberation of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s when students, artists and intellectuals realized parts of Quebec society were poor, uneducated and backward.
And, that's led to resurgence in the social belief that groups such as students are intellectual workers and should be paid through means such as free tuition, William Johnson, columnist and former president of English lobby group Alliance Quebec, said as part of the panel discussion on Question Period.
That's not necessarily a view shared by McGill University associate professor Antonia Maioni, who argues the protests are really a larger debate about Quebec's political and economic future.
"We've been having a debate in Quebec for at least a decade about what's next," she said.
That debate has centered on global changes and how the province manages that upheaval in the future, she said.
"A community and a society that's divided on the question and that wants to have a way of expressing its point of view," Maioni said about the movement's motivation.
Premier Jean Charest came to power with a plan to change the state, she said, and take the province on another track.
"I think what we're seeing in some of the protests is a bit of pushback, which I think now is way beyond simply the student movement," she said.
Lapierre said what he's noticed is the lack of reference to Quebec sovereignty in the demonstrations, and more talk about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with regard to Bill 78.
"In a way, it's quite a different scene than what we've heard for the last 30 years and I must say, I have not heard one person on the street saying, ‘We want (PQ Leader Pauline) Marois'," he said.
"It's really on wider issues and the debate is right and left, but nothing about sovereignty."
Johnson doesn't agree with that assertion and said the groups backing and bankrolling the students are the same ones who lobby for independence -- artists, labour unions, intellectuals and the separatists themselves.
"For all of them the common denominator is they have a sacred cause, according to which the Quebec state and the Quebec government is illegitimate," he said.
That comes with the ingrained belief that students should be paid, society must be renewed, the people should stand with the Third World and "puts welfare ahead of profit," Johnson said.
But Maioni said it's really "more of an expression of frustration with the heavy handedness of Bill 78" as a response to the conflict over tuition fees.
"I think that really transcends any kind of politics of sovereignty, or politics of the sort that (William) was suggesting," she said.
Maioni said most demonstrators are genuinely concerned citizens who are making noise and stating this (Bill 78 ) isn't the way they want to solve problems in Quebec.
Lapierre agreed and said the public sentiment is to negotiate with the students.
"They don't want to have a bazooka to kill a duck."
The almost nightly protests in Montreal have transcended the student movement's opposition to tuition fee hikes and are now more about the future of the province and basic rights, a panel of political experts says.
While the movement isn't exactly surging in public opinion polls, it's starting to attract international attention through its use of social media - particularly to spread its rejection of Bill 78, a new Quebec law designed to crack down on street protests.
But the recent tactic of banging pots and pans and generally making noise has increased the volume of that opposition and drawn more people from the sidelines to the frontlines with kitchen utensils in tow.
"I think now it's become contagious and people are just letting their steam out, people are mad about corruption, about lack of ethics . . . shale gas, anything you want," political analyst and former Liberal MP Jean Lapierre told CTV's Question Period Sunday.
In the beginning the student marches were primarily a Montreal phenomenon, but they have since spread to communities like Val-d'or and Gaspe, Lapierre said in an interview from Montreal.
"The people want to be heard."
It's also possible recent social unrest is a reverberation of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s when students, artists and intellectuals realized parts of Quebec society were poor, uneducated and backward.
And, that's led to resurgence in the social belief that groups such as students are intellectual workers and should be paid through means such as free tuition, William Johnson, columnist and former president of English lobby group Alliance Quebec, said as part of the panel discussion on Question Period.
That's not necessarily a view shared by McGill University associate professor Antonia Maioni, who argues the protests are really a larger debate about Quebec's political and economic future.
"We've been having a debate in Quebec for at least a decade about what's next," she said.
That debate has centered on global changes and how the province manages that upheaval in the future, she said.
"A community and a society that's divided on the question and that wants to have a way of expressing its point of view," Maioni said about the movement's motivation.
Premier Jean Charest came to power with a plan to change the state, she said, and take the province on another track.
"I think what we're seeing in some of the protests is a bit of pushback, which I think now is way beyond simply the student movement," she said.
Lapierre said what he's noticed is the lack of reference to Quebec sovereignty in the demonstrations, and more talk about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with regard to Bill 78.
"In a way, it's quite a different scene than what we've heard for the last 30 years and I must say, I have not heard one person on the street saying, ‘We want (PQ Leader Pauline) Marois'," he said.
"It's really on wider issues and the debate is right and left, but nothing about sovereignty."
Johnson doesn't agree with that assertion and said the groups backing and bankrolling the students are the same ones who lobby for independence -- artists, labour unions, intellectuals and the separatists themselves.
"For all of them the common denominator is they have a sacred cause, according to which the Quebec state and the Quebec government is illegitimate," he said.
That comes with the ingrained belief that students should be paid, society must be renewed, the people should stand with the Third World and "puts welfare ahead of profit," Johnson said.
But Maioni said it's really "more of an expression of frustration with the heavy handedness of Bill 78" as a response to the conflict over tuition fees.
"I think that really transcends any kind of politics of sovereignty, or politics of the sort that (William) was suggesting," she said.
Maioni said most demonstrators are genuinely concerned citizens who are making noise and stating this (Bill 78 ) isn't the way they want to solve problems in Quebec.
Lapierre agreed and said the public sentiment is to negotiate with the students.
"They don't want to have a bazooka to kill a duck."
