Martine Desjardins
As the student movement threatened to fall apart last week when the Quebec government excluded the most radical student association from talks, Lex Gill remembers the moment that helped keep students united – and she credits Martine Desjardins.
“The FEUQ said it would bring members of CLASSE in as part of their delegation, and it was Martine who put it on the table,” said Gill, president of the Concordia Student Union. “She was instrumental in keeping us all together.”
United we stand may not seem like such a novel concept, but in the tumultuous world of student politics – led by sometimes immature, rebellious or radical student politicians – it’s not always easy to achieve.
Desjardins is just about to start her second term as president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, which happens only rarely with the organization that represents about 125,000 university students.
But it’s not surprising for someone who always rises to the top of whatever she does. At 30, and recently married, Desjardins may have discovered politics later than some of her fellow leaders. Now that she’s in it, she’ll give it 200 per cent.
“I wake up every day thinking I’m a part of something bigger than me,” said Desjardins. “There’s so much cynicism out there but now a lot of youth believe they have the power to change things.” She also understands what she’s fighting for. She began working even in high school to help pay for private school, and then worked 20 hours a week at the Bay during her undergraduate years.
At the age of 11, Martine already recognized that she needed a challenge and asked her parents to send her to a private high school. Off she went to the acclaimed Collège Regina Assumpta, where she was at the top of her class and was far more interested in sports than politics. She played for the Quebec handball team and then soccer for Université de Sherbrooke.
She grew up in a family her mother Claudine describes as the opposite of militant. But when Desjardins finally discovered politics, while doing her PHD in education at UQÀM (her thesis on the influence of fathers on young children is still not written), it seemed to perfectly fuse her passion for intellectual debate and helping the underdog.
“When people are struggling for something, that’s when I get interested,” said Martine who has volunteered as a tutor for struggling students, worked with special needs students and did her master’s thesis on why teens become pregnant.
Still, she says her dream is still the same: to be a university professor. She’s just worried that, after battling Quebec’s universities as head of FEUQ, no university will ever hire her.