The Montreal Student Riots

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Were you against black civil rights because of the Black Panthers? You can't dismiss a whole movement because SOME choose to be violent.

First of all equating the members of the entitlement generation with the Black Civil Rights movement seems completely wrong. Its like apples and oranges, or more like apples and beans. These people are not fighting for equality of rights, if anything they are fighting for better rights then students in other provinces. And I always have a problem with protests that turn violent, and with violent subgroups. within a protest movement. At this point its up to the protesters to self police if they want me to take them seriously. If someone pulls out a rock or a brick or a molotov cocktail, don't you think that there's an obligation by the rest of the protestors to maybe stop the guy?

If you see a guy wearing a all black outfit, and a mask and carrying a bulging backpack full of bricks don't you think that maybe they should push him towards the police lineup?

It wasn't the violence of radical groups within the black civil rights movement that crreated breakthroughs, it was guys like Martin Luther King and his followers that did it.

If the BCM had been controled by the Black Panther's it would have taken a lot longer to attain any kind of breakthrough.

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

What you call "whining" is another man's "standing up for what you believe in".

In this case its about entitlement and whining. Clearly the current budgets and budgetary process in Quebec isn't working and if they keep it on the same course then at some point the system is (already) going to break and it these protesters kids and grandkids that are going to pay.

This protest is truly about short sightedness and give me now and nothing more. The question that should be asked then, is if we cancel your tuition are you willing to pay a higher percentage tax on any income that you earn while you go to school?

Either that or the Quebec government finds tax cuts in other areas and leaves the tuition alone. Where should they start? With infrastructure? Heathcare? Maybe they should gut their $7 a day day care.

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

And there is the crux of the matter in a nutshell. They do not think Joe Citizen is taxed enough. Quebec and Alberta will absolutely never get along because Quebec is far, far more socialistic than Alberta. The hatred towards the province is very clear in this thread and I predicted that that is the way the thread would go right from the beginning.

Its clear that the Quebec system is a failed system in this case. Albertan's are sick of the Quebec question and most Anglo provinces because in effect we're paying the bill for their bloated and unrealistic system and programs. If these students actually had a realistic view of economics, maybe they'd understand that the rest of the provinces aren't there as a work state for Quebec and a spoiled group of protesters.

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I agree that the province is in a fiscal mess. They need to gain more revenues and cut spending. It's just that the student's want those revenues and cuts to hit those in the work force, not those trying to get into the work force.

Like I mentioned above, where do you cut, the only places that you can cut now are in their social programs or a program that has seen no increases in the last 33 years.

In terms of balance of payment, an increase of $325.00 per year is not punative. Its less then a freaking dollar a day.

Maybe instead Quebec can cut back on Cardiac Care or cancer clinices, surely they can find cuts there. Or they can increase taxes even more to the average citizens so that when these little darlings graduate they'll go work somewhere where the job prospects are better and the taxes lower.

[bomber317]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Most provinces across Canada have to pay the HST.
British Columbia does not.
Why?
Because they stood up and said they didn't want their province run that way. They stood up, protested in all means possible and demanded that they do things different.

Not sure that's a great example. BC citizens basically poke themselves in the eye to "get back" at the government.

[The Yen Man]

Man it must suck to be a student in Quebec who actually wants to be there to learn rather than riot like these punks. They're the silent majority, and they're getting screwed over by these rioters. I'd be pretty choked if I lost a semester in learning because of all the silliness.

[Stay Golden]

The Quebec youth is so lost in stupidity. So this is what the future citizens will comprise of in Quebec, what is french for Morons... faible d'esprit; personne simple d'esprit, idiot, imbécile.

[yads]

There is lots of things wrong with the student position.

1. They pay less now than their predecessors did in 1969 ($311 vs $500 in '69 dollars)
2. Their cheap education has not spurred attendance (30% of Quebec youth attend university, compared to the national average of 36%)
3. They don't care about out of province students, who pay significantly more and have now lost their semesters and money
4. They don't care about students who actually want to learn and are treating them like the enemy

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/educatio...80%99s-buying/

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Most provinces across Canada have to pay the HST.
British Columbia does not.
Why?
Because they stood up and said they didn't want their province run that way. They stood up, protested in all means possible and demanded that they do things different.

No not really. A disgraced former opposition leader led a campaign of misinformation. This resulted in people taking the most superficial possible look at the benfits/costs of HST and rejecting it. It was a bad idea for BC to reject HST and go back to their PST/GST system. The whole ordeal is going to cost the government billions that will have to be recouped through cuts or income tax.

[Dogbert]

The question is not why Quebec students are complaining about tuition that will still be lower than most places in the rest of Canada. The question is why the students in those other places simply sat idly by and watched - and continue to do so - as the establishment jacked up their fees.

One should not be forced to choose between a lifetime of minimum-wage grunt work and a lifetime of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

[MarchHare]

One should not be forced to choose between a lifetime of minimum-wage grunt work and a lifetime of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

I agree completely! And if we lived in the US, where tuition to a top-tier university costs an obscene amount, I'd likely be protesting the cost of post-secondary education as well.

Fortunately, though, we're living in Canada. As I posted earlier, I attended one of the most expensive universities in the country but was debt-free within a year of graduation. If I can successfully manage my personal finances while paying more than $6000/yr for tuition (not adjusted for inflation), students in Quebec can do the same when their fees gradually go up from $2500/yr to $3800/yr over seven years.

[dhc-2]

I have been ignoring this for the most part, as is my habit when anything to do with Quebec is on the news, because it just gets my blood pressure rising.

But I caught a piece about it on CBC last night. If I understand correctly, this started when the government proposed tuition hikes (can't remember the initial figure), in a province with the lowest cost of post-secondary education in Canada (and far lower than in the USA). Students got mad, and the government revised their plan and eventually settled on $375 (per year, I believe) over 5 years. The students' response was to strike.

The couple of 'students' I saw being interviewed last night by the CBC seemed to be of the same species as the Occupy 'protesters' we witnessed a few months back. I kind of doubt this guy ever finished high school, so he probably couldn't get into post-secondary anyway, but I digress. He sort of side-stepped the reporter's question regarding what exactly he was protesting. He went off on some tangent about the Charter of Rights. This is the kind of thing that makes me hurl stuff at my TV and dislike the French (the European ones seem to be alright...). They already have it good, better than any of us, and then they go and #### their pants over nothing. The rest of Canada already doesn't like you, and this isn't helping. Just shut up and go away.

Nothing useful to the rest of Canada has ever come out of Quebec, except poutine, and we would've figured that out eventually anyway.

So to recap, I don't actually have much of a point other than to say this whole thing annoys me.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

The question is not why Quebec students are complaining about tuition that will still be lower than most places in the rest of Canada. The question is why the students in those other places simply sat idly by and watched - and continue to do so - as the establishment jacked up their fees.

One should not be forced to choose between a lifetime of minimum-wage grunt work and a lifetime of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Color me unsympathetic about someone graduating with tens of thousands in debt. I graduated with about $20,000 in debt back in early 90's dollars and I happily paid it off.

Looking at the tuition dollar costs to the average Canadian U.S, my first thought is that it looks pretty reasonable.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

The question is not why Quebec students are complaining about tuition that will still be lower than most places in the rest of Canada. The question is why the students in those other places simply sat idly by and watched - and continue to do so - as the establishment jacked up their fees.

One should not be forced to choose between a lifetime of minimum-wage grunt work and a lifetime of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Furthermore why is it the public has sat idly by and watched - and continued to do so - as the establishment jacked up the price of everything from gasoline to milk & eggs?

One should not be forced to choose between paying for a transit ticket and enjoying an ice cold coca cola with a chicken dinner, with enough money left over to get a penny whistle & comic book.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

One should not be forced to choose between a lifetime of minimum-wage grunt work and a lifetime of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Why not?

You are considering education and a good paying job as an entitlement and not an investment.

Every single person who enters univeristy or any PSE should look at the jobs and salary available upon graduation in their field, the enjoyment they will get out of the career and the cost to obtain the degree. Then make a decision whether it is worth the investement.

If someone is living away from home while going to school there costs are somewhere around 18k a year, for a four year degree that is 76k, you should be able to save at least 4k per summer leaving you with 60k debt. The interest rate lets say is about 5% so to repay that loan over the next 10 years (you can do it a lot faster) it costs you $634 per month or about $4 per hour.

So before you decide to go to school you better be sure that your employment prospects are that much better that you can afford that payment.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by GGG

If someone is living away from home while going to school there costs are somewhere around 18k a year, for a four year degree that is 76k, you should be able to save at least 4k per summer leaving you with 60k debt.

This illustrates just what a drop in the bucket tuition is in the grand scheme of things. Even if post secondary eduction was 100% free, you're still looking at about $45-50K in expenses over a 4 year degree. People creating a dichotomy where slightly higher tution will turn affordable education into something that will sentence students to a lifetime of debt are really misrepresenting the issue.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I've met people still paying off what were $50K+ student loans from 15 years ago in an era with $2,000 tuition. It wasn't the tuition that caused them to go into that much debt, it was their living expenses that were incurred in a period where they couldn't work full time, coupled with poor financial decisions and/or discipline during and after their education.

[The Yen Man]

They're protesting over paying $3,800 a year? I'm sorry, but that's roughly $10 a day for a university education. You can't tell me these leeches can't get any random part time job and come up with $3,800. They probably spend over $10 bucks a day on weed / lattes from Starbucks. Tell the spoiled brats to suck it up.

[OffsideSpecialist]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

What are the options? Would it be possible to transfer to a non-Quebec school for the next semester if this continues into the fall?

I don't go to a school in Quebec, so I don't consider myself in any immediate danger of losing any of the next school year, however, the way Ontario unions have supported the protesters (including my student union using our fees to give them handouts) and the large amount of French students at my school has me a bit concerned that these type of protests could start in Ontario, at least the eastern part of it.

As for my options should something happen, I almost went to Calgary for my undergrad, and anything significant that prevents me from completing my degree in a timely manner might be enough to send me out there.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Most provinces across Canada have to pay the HST.
British Columbia does not.
Why?
Because they stood up and said they didn't want their province run that way. They stood up, protested in all means possible and demanded that they do things different.

No, that is a prime example of how the general population isn't smart enough to comprehend complex issues regarding economics and is able to get suckered in with a few catchy slogans.

They demanded that they shoot themselves in the foot.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

No, that is a prime example of how the general population isn't smart enough to comprehend complex issues regarding economics and is able to get suckered in with a few catchy slogans.

They demanded that they shoot themselves in the foot.

Agreed, HST is a great example of why democracy is a terrible idea when you let uninformed people use their gut feeling in making decisions.
Sure HST is bad, in that the same way income tax is bad. But they're both necessary evils in making certain provinces work if you understand how the government and its funding is setup.

On topic of the Quebec riots, Ive seen a good number of people of facebook today talking about how this isn't really just about paying a bit more for tuition, but rather a more grand protest for other underlying issues. Anyone have any insight?

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

One should not be forced to choose between a lifetime of minimum-wage grunt work and a lifetime of paying off tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

I completely disagree with your post for a few reasons.

- Not going to university does not mean "a lifetime of minimum wage grunt work".

- Tens of thousands of dollars of debt does not take a lifetime to pay off, unless you're a complete waste of working skin.

- Nobody is "forced" to do anything. It's a free country.

So just lay off the drama and appreciate that this is Canada. There is opportunity around every corner, whether it's in university, trade school, or just getting really good at a job out of high school, and then climbing the ladder.

[transplant99]

Police in Montreal moved in on student protesters again Wednesday night, kettling them and making 450 arrests — the largest number in one night since the demonstrations began weeks ago.

Good....keep that up and these "students" will stop with the nonsense.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...-kettling.html

[burn_this_city]

I'm tired of these occupy/student protestor types, they are the most entitled jackasses of all and the public associates them with my generation. This Quebec student protest is a joke and these people deserve nothing but our scorn. I hope they fine every single one of the 450 demonstrators they rounded up last night. If they don't pay the fine, then they can have a criminal record, the world needs ditch diggers more than it needs these people.