Charest on right track
Student uprising well, as majority of Quebecers agree
Count me among the 73 per cent of Quebecers who, according to the latest CROP poll, are dissatisfied with the Liberal government’s overall performance. But in its handling of the student uprising, I’m pleasantly surprised.
Here are some of the most common criticisms of the government’s response to the boycott, followed by my two cents.
Education Minister Line Beau- champ was wrong to break off this week’s negotiations with the students, and wrong to refuse to restart them.
What happened behind those meetings’ closed doors remains secret, but you don’t need to have been a fly on the wall to know the attitudes of the four representatives of CLASSE, the most radical of the three student groups at the negotiating table.
The four gave vision statements prior to being elected to the negotiating committee in February. One (Philippe Lapointe) said the committee “should not negotiate but demand (exiger),” according to Wednesday’s Le Devoir. A second (Shanie Morasse). was just as rigid: “I don’t want to negotiate, I want to demand.” And a third (Nicolas Lachance-barbeau) said that sitting down with the Education Ministry officials is “against my values.”
It’s plain: These talks could go nowhere.
Consider, too, the words of CLASSE’S star spokesperson, Gabriel Nadeau-dubois, to a gathering of artists and writers three weeks ago. Referring to the boycott of classes, he said, “Our strike will serve as a springboard for a much wider, deeper and, yes, more radical protest.” Also: “We (students) have planted seeds this spring for a revolt” involving society as a whole. Finally, CLASSE’S fight is against not only the Liberal government but against Quebec’s “gluttonous elite, a vulgar elite, a corrupt elite, an elite that sees education as an investment in human capital.”
Beauchamp’s stated reason for ending the talks is that CLASSE broke the understanding that there would be a 48-hour pause in street “perturbations.” Critics say that was a flimsy pretext, but it makes sense. Premier Jean Charest says that no government can be seen to tolerate street violence, and he’s entirely right.
But classe say sit “dissociates” itself from vandalism, whether it be by students or by masked nonstudent “casseurs.”
That means nothing. As Beauchamp noted, CLASSE’S website publicized the holding of a demonstration that turned violent during the pause. CLASSE responded by saying it can’t control what others post on its website. That alibi lacks credibility because of a pattern of the group’s complaisance toward vandals.
CLASSE, for example, encourages nocturnal marches and declines to give police the marches’ itineraries – conditions that make it easier for vandals to operate.
As well, Nadeau-dubois will only condemn violence against people, not violence against property.
Nor will anyone at CLASSE call for calm.
Beauchamp was present for just one hour of the 40-hour talks, a sure sign of lack of interest.
One could also argue that, by letting an experienced negotiator and civil servants represent the government, her absence helped de-politicize the talks. Charest’s quip at a Plan Nord athering at the convention centre showed arrogance and contempt toward students. (While vandals were smashing the centre’s glass doors, he cracked that “we might offer employment to those knocking on our doors – as far north as possible” – a remark that prompted a firestorm of indignation by boycotters.)
Obviously, because of the theatrical outrage it gave his political opponents, Charest should have shut up. But La Presse’s Liberalphobe columnist Pierre Foglia, of all people, put it best: The remark happens to have been funny, he said, because it was impertinent and defiant.
Beauchamp should have opened negotiations earlier.
In retrospect, maybe. But the government’s early expectation was evidently that the boycott would lose steam by Easter. That was a reasonable calculation: It was in many students’ interest not to lose their semester.
Charest should get it over with and settle with the boycotters.
How? All three groups’ spokespeople rejected Charest’s offer Friday to make tuition increases more affordable. The two moderate groups, wanting to avoid splitting the movement, clearly are not ready to accept anything that CLASSE won’t accept. To satisfy CLASSE, Charest would have to offer to re-freeze tuition.
No government could capitulate like that. Debt-ridden Quebec is entering a long period of cutting back on expenses: If it were to cave on tuition, it would send a message to other special-interest groups that it is spineless in the face of determined pressure.
Note, too, that even a re-freeze of tuition might not satisfy CLASSE. It wants no tuition at all, not even for foreign students. But most of all it wants to cause further trouble: That’s the way to cause a “revolt” against the elites.
Charest created this crisis to exploit it as an election issue.
I don’t think he’s that clever. It could be more a case of CLASSE’S struggle – a class struggle – just falling into his lap.