With the festival/party season about to kick into high gear in Montreal, I think these protests are in their final days. The public will turn on the protestors quickly and angrily if they are disrupting things like the F1 race and Jazz Fest, so I think the police are going to start making mass arrests.
And of course since getting arrested can result in a $1,000 fine, it's pretty ironic isn't it?
Students: "We don't want higher tuition!"
Police: "Ok, well here's a $1,000 fine, essentially two years of tuition increases you could have paid, but now you're out another $1,000"
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
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.
Yeah, I was one of the biggest opponents of the Occupy Calgary protest last year and not just because they were pooping on the park grounds like cavemen. It was the laziest protest ever, I laughed when the Occupy Movement had their day of action and the Calgary group did nothing. Beyond that when you read the Occupy Manifesto it was so full of self entitled garbage that you had a temptation to go and slap around thier teachers and college professers if they had them.
I'm anti-Quebec protesters because its such a stupid protest. When your b1tching about paying the lowest tuition in a basically bankrupt but seriously self entitled provice that funds its social programs off of the backs of other provinces, and your protesting something that has been frozen for like decades its just fracking stupid. And when your protesting something that is going to cost you a dollar a day more but going to university will probably earn you a hundred or more bucks a day you need a reality check.
This march isn't about fighting for rights, it isn't about equality in any shape or form, its about a bunch of spoiled morons who think its cool to march around being lead by a complete a$$hole who thinks he's far more important in the grand scheme of things then he actually is.
It makes me laugh when they bleat, its not us thats violent its a small group in our protest that's violent. There is a thing called self policing that you as a protester are responsible for if you don't want your movement labeled as violent. If you see some idiot in a mask pulling billard balls or rocks or a molotov cocktail and a lighter out of a backpack, then maybe you and your several hundred "non-violent" buddies should stop him and not stand there cheering while a cop car goes up in flames or a window breaks. If you see some moron getting in a cops face, or a few of your "non-violent" pal kicking a cop, maybe step in and do something instead of yelling "f%ck da Palice" you moron.
But Captain, its our right to have free access to education, your right its your right to have free education up until grade 12. University or college or technical school isn't as much of a right as a privlidge and an investment.
University Costs have sky rocketed, and its not because of some evil cabal of capitals wondering how they can squeeze more money out of Polly Precious. Building costs have accelerated and universities no longer use pen and paper and cheap over head projecters. they've had to massively invest in technology so your darling self can wifi in with that $1500.00 lap top that Mommy and Daddy bought you, they had to invest in multi media to make it easier for you to learn, and they had to increase pay to teachers thanks to a powerful union. And if you think what your paying is expensive, look at what the government is paying in terms of your share. And you know what? Quebec can't afford the nanny state model anymore. They can't tax the people more so that a brat like you can go to school, and you can't expect a constant flow of money as more provinces in the east become have not.
But Captain equalization its there for us to get cheaper education and cheaper programs. No you bottle throwing hoodlum. Its there to give an equivalent level of programs to other provinces. Bot to give you a tuition that's three times cheaper then anywhere else, not to give you $7.00 a day daycare spaces for every kind in Quebec. Frankly your province is the highest taxed province in the country and that's your fault and nobody elses.
At some point you have to realize that the things of true value and investment actually cost money that you can recruit later. Now I know that your pseudo soft pink commies have taught you to hang the rich, its the wealthy peoples fault that your life is so miserable, and everything should be evenly distributed to everyone, but you won't be the first person that leaves the cozy confines of your parents basement and the warm and fuzzy world of the university classroom to realize that over half of the things that your prof taught you was outright trash based on the fact that your prof or teacher has never actually worked in a real economy and bases his life lessons on reading textbooks by like mind professors. And children don't dare disagree with these teachers, because they don't like to be argue'd with or debated and they can fail you, but they have a nice voice.
Oh, and there are more important things in your province then keeping your tuition at a ridiculously low level. There's the whole crumbling infrastructure, there's the whole crumbling health care system, there's the terrible senior care system, and the fact that your province should be investing in ways to increase revenue to support a system that Quebec and Canada can't afford anymore.
You are the province that represents the neighbour that's broke, lives ina house way beyond his means continually borrows cash against his credit card and then demands that the neighbours and everyone else help him out, but its not his fault that he's broke its everyone elses.
And I'm fine with protesting its a fundemental right. But your protest is not relatable to the civil rights marches or the anti-war protests of the late 60's. Beyond that who in the hell gave you the right to violently threaten and disrupt students that want to go to school and want to learn and get a good job.
And who the hell proclaimed the right to destroy other people's property?
Its going to get worse for you protestors in a few years, what are you going to do when you get that first paycheck and see half of it is gone? Are you going to say "golly Gee Willikers its great that my taxes are going to these excessive protests". Are you going to go all Norma Rae when your boss yells at you for not hitting a deadline? Are you going to have a day of rage at the 7-11 when your cigarettes go up by a buck a pack due to taxes by the oppressive government.
So stop the violence, and maybe people will negotiate you. Go back to class, graduate and get a job and then you'll realize that a $325.00 a year raise is the least of your problems. Sit down and realize that what you're paying is going to help future generations.
But quit your frackin whining.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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I think they have a point on the administration costs for education being ridiculously high. That's about it though. I would like to see them offer more solutions.
Here are some ideas:
- More on-line learning with standardized testing for a lot of the introduction courses.
- Have these institutions stop giving degrees. Degrees are an institution's strangle hold or monopoly on learning.
- All you should get is a transcript of what courses were completed.
For certain professions like doctor, engineer, sure there needs to be more traditional one on one instruction and decent accreditation that they have the skills and knowledge. For a fine arts degree, business degree, etc. a list of courses from various places and relevant work experience should be enough to get the person started in the real world.
Of course it is nice to get away from home and make connections in a university setting. Sorry too bad though, that whole notion is just too expensive for society to fit the bill. Learn your chops online, go get a job with relevant experience or even work for free for a while under good mentorship. That's the way I'd re-design education.
Case in point. I work in IT beside a self-taught programmer right now. He's delivering the same value to the organization as everyone else hired in that role. No education past high school. Not going to university has not hurt him in one bit.
Last edited by freedogger; 05-24-2012 at 11:55 AM.
Anyone video ID'd should have their tuation raised $1000 and when they demand to know why. The Universities can Inform them you participated in the moron riots. Here is your image.
Of course this would result in more rioting.
I wonder if these kids would get the message if the Canadian Government threatened to put them on a no fly list due to their riot activities.
Maybe knowing they could never travel for pleasure or business outside of Canada in the future might deter some of these clowns.
Either that or full on fire hoses.
Anyone video ID'd should have their tuation raised $1000 and when they demand to know why. The Universities can Inform them you participated in the moron riots. Here is your image.
Of course this would result in more rioting.
I wonder if these kids would get the message if the Canadian Government threatened to put them on a no fly list due to their riot activities.
Maybe knowing they could never travel for pleasure or business outside of Canada in the future might deter some of these clowns.
Either that or full on fire hoses.
^^^ This is a good example of what happens when people don't get to go to university.
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It’s an unprecedented departure from the model outlined in the Parent report, a system founded in the image of low-tuition Scandinavia, France and Germany. The changes will make it more expensive. More North American.
Access to education is fundamental to equal opportunity. It's unfortunate that funding for education isn't given higher priority.
I lean towards agreeing with this point of view. Comparing ourselves to the US and their $17 Trillion dollars of debt doesn't sound like the best comparison. Maybe society would be improved, and better prepared, if students graduated with less of a debt load.
The issue for me isn't them protesting, I can certainly sympathize with that. However, I certainly do not approve of the violence. Really, I think both sides of this are approaching the thing like idiots. The protests have gone from being peaceful and for a cause to violence for the hell of it. On the other side, the law passed from the government is questionable, and the authorities in that province seem to be best at getting people riled up and going full ######, they really have no ability to keep anything under control.
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Somewhere Leon Trotsky is an Oilers fan, because who better demonstrates his philosophy of the permanent revolution?
I lean towards agreeing with this point of view. Comparing ourselves to the US and their $17 Trillion dollars of debt doesn't sound like the best comparison. Maybe society would be improved, and better prepared, if students graduated with less of a debt load.
But debt is a fact of life pretty much no matter where you go to school. People keep bringing up Sweden as a bastion of affordable education due to their free tuition, but students there have an average debt of 128,000 SEK ($18,300 CAD):
The issue for me isn't them protesting, I can certainly sympathize with that. However, I certainly do not approve of the violence. Really, I think both sides of this are approaching the thing like idiots. The protests have gone from being peaceful and for a cause to violence for the hell of it. On the other side, the law passed from the government is questionable, and the authorities in that province seem to be best at getting people riled up and going full ######, they really have no ability to keep anything under control.
The Quebec government actually negotiated with the student associations and were very reasonable stretching out the increase by an extra couple of years. the Students stupidly thought they had the government out of the barrel and rejected it out of hands and not only that, but didn't counter propose.
Then the moron running class basically said that he was pretty much ok with the violent actions of the protesters.
At that point the government should have stopped any additional negotiations.
As it is, the law that we put into place has been deemed as constitutional, the students bought it on themselves by either becoming violent or allowing their protests to become violent.
I don't know what else the government was suppossed to do. They approached the students to negotiate, they put an incredibly fair offer on the table and they had both efforts spat back in their face.
Until the law is struck down by the courts (I haven't seen a court challenge by the students yet. Even the lazy slogs of Occupy Calgary went to court) the students can keep defying the law, and the police will keep arresting the students and fining the crap out of them. Hopefully Quebec re-enforces the bans so that they can get some nice cars and laptops and houses out of it that they can auction off and put towards education.
While the government of Quebec is corrupt, inept, incompetant, slimy and cowardly, they've done the right thing in this tuition issue.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
An interesting article on the situation...outlining that the protesters don't really have the support of the people of Quebec, even the younger people in similar situations to them:
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First big question: Do you support the government position (increasing tuition fees over seven years) or the students’ (a tuition freeze)? On the central policy question of the dispute, the government wins nearly two to one, with 64% supporting the government to 36% who support the students. This is true even in Montreal, where support for students is highest (60/40 in government’s favour); even among young adults (56/44 in the 18-34 age bracket); even among female respondents (63/37) and francophones (62/38).
But what about Law 78, the government’s latest enforcement tool? “Generally, do you favour or oppose this special law?” Here it’s much closer, 51% in favour and 49% opposed. There’s no gender gap, but 18-to-34-year-olds oppose the law 56/44; francophones oppose it 53/47.
Then an apparent paradox. Taken individually, most provisions in the bill receive substantial support, much more so than the whole law does. Some 67% support suspending courses until late August, 70% support a ban on blocking access to those courses when they resume, 64% like the 50-metre protest-free perimeter around schools, 70% favour requiring 8-hour notice and a specified itinerary for any protest with more than 50 participants, 72% say police should have a right to refuse any proposed itinerary for safety reasons, and 71% say these restrictions should apply to any Quebecer, not just to students.
The only thing in the bill that isn’t generally popular across the province and across demographic groups is the big fines for infractions, which can range from $1,000 to $125,000. That splits the province 50/50, with francophones opposing 52/48.
I like these numbers a lot. How can people support a law’s provisions but not the whole law? The answer comes with the next question. What effect will the law have? Only 20% think it will “settle the conflict,” 36% think it will “only delay the problem until later,” and 44% think it will “make things worse.”
...
Onward. With a useless law in pursuit of legitimate ends, what should the government do? Abandon tuition increases? Absolutely not, say respondents: the notion gets 7% support, gusting to 10% among 18-34-year-olds. What about a moratorium, the preferred solution of Montreal newspaper columnists? Only 14% support that. Just because a problem is difficult does not mean it should be put off: 79% support negotiations, and most of those think the special law should be kept in force during negotiations, rather than suspended. Quebecers may not think Law 78 will help, but they do not want to see their government backing down once it has moved.
What do respondents think of the Charest government’s attitude? Mixed: 51% think it’s justified, 49% unjustified. And the students? Less mixed: 60% think their attitude is unjustified. On this question the students don’t enjoy majority support in any region or demographic group. Well, then, Quebecers will want to take away the kids’ right to “strike,” right? Wrong. Except in Quebec City, which comically serves as a bastion of people who can’t believe what silliness the folks in Montreal are getting up to, most respondents believe students should have a “right to strike.” So: They’re not sure the protesters are reasonable but they support the right to protest. There’s a deep vein of liberalism running through these answers.
(in regards to the protests) 44% placed the blame on Jean Charest's ailing government, while only 36% blamed the students. On the question of what should be done with tuition fees, the poll found 45% supported indexing them to the cost of living, 13% thought they should be frozen at current levels and 11% thought they should be abolished. Only 27% thought they should be increased beyond inflation. Add that up and 70% of the population are now opposed to the Charest government's proposed increases.
In a period of six days, support for the proposed increases to tuition has gone from 68% to 27%, a drop of 41 percentage points.
To anyone complaing about student debt load when graduating this increase will have little effect. After the entire increse is implemented it will cost $6800 more for your four yeae degree. Or less than you spend on beer in four years of university.
I don't agree with violent demonstrations but than again I don't believe the police in Quebec are always the innocent parties either. Do you guys remember the discussion we had here over the police provocateurs in Quebec who's mission was to escalate the situation.
Taxes in Sweden are also a lot higher. I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay more in university fees and be taxed less later on when I'm working.
I don't agree - the question is: should post-secondary education be accessible? I grew up in Quebec and the best part about CEGEP was the bad influences from high school weren't there. It was free so everyone who wanted to go to university or learn a trade went to CEGEP. High school ended at Grade 11 and pre-university CEGEP was 2 years, trade diplomas were 3 years. It great - all the cool bullies that just barely got high school diplomas weren't there.
I probably would have gone to university anyway, but if more provinces adopted the Quebec model there would be much better access to education, absolutely fundamental to equal opportunity and democracy as we expect it. I would absolutely pay more taxes to ensure that everyone in Canada who wants/is willing/is able to get post-secondary education can, and the cost doesn't preclude them from it.
I don't buy that finances are blocking kids in Canada and especially Quebec is blocking kids from getting a post secondary education.
With Student Loans, bursaries, Student Loans and Grants and what I see as the low cost of tuition, they still have a problem with kids in Quebec going to and completing university.
There's no such thing as free with huge benefits at the end.
Again, the government is paying 2 to 3 times as much per student (more in Quebec) for the little darlings to go to school, and when your government is actually in debt you can't continue to increase that ratio. At some point the students share has to keep pace percentage wise which clearly hasn't happened in a province with a 33 year tuition freeze. I'm pretty sure that over the last 3 years that university costs in Quebec have accelerated but students haven't paid a greater share, they've been playing a decreasing share.
The issue is that these students aren't willing to take a normal financial responsibility for their own future.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I don't agree - the question is: should post-secondary education be accessible? I grew up in Quebec and the best part about CEGEP was the bad influences from high school weren't there. It was free so everyone who wanted to go to university or learn a trade went to CEGEP. High school ended at Grade 11 and pre-university CEGEP was 2 years, trade diplomas were 3 years. It great - all the cool bullies that just barely got high school diplomas weren't there.
I probably would have gone to university anyway, but if more provinces adopted the Quebec model there would be much better access to education, absolutely fundamental to equal opportunity and democracy as we expect it. I would absolutely pay more taxes to ensure that everyone in Canada who wants/is willing/is able to get post-secondary education can, and the cost doesn't preclude them from it.
How do you explain that Quebec has a lower than average university participation rate? Or that university participation does not appear to be correlated with tuition costs?
(in regards to the protests) 44% placed the blame on Jean Charest's ailing government, while only 36% blamed the students. On the question of what should be done with tuition fees, the poll found 45% supported indexing them to the cost of living, 13% thought they should be frozen at current levels and 11% thought they should be abolished. Only 27% thought they should be increased beyond inflation. Add that up and 70% of the population are now opposed to the Charest government's proposed increases.
In a period of six days, support for the proposed increases to tuition has gone from 68% to 27%, a drop of 41 percentage points.
Look at this, students of Canada - you actually DON'T have to bend over and take it every time the government decides to jack up tuition!
As I said, maybe fees outside Quebec wouldn't be so high if the kids there stood up for themselves when their tuition was hiked. Quebecers seem to realize that they aren't going to simply go through with the planned hikes - they'll keep increasing tuition as long as the students there put up with it.
