Let reason prevail in the tuition conflict

It is time for reason, and for reasonable people, to prevail in the conflict over tuition-fee increases that has increasingly disrupted life on the streets of this province’s cities and tarnished Quebec’s image beyond its borders. It is commendable that the government on Friday took the lead in offering students a reasonable concession while at the same time firmly standing its ground on the necessary, reasonable and modest increase in fees that it had previously announced.

The offer that the projected $1,625 fee increase be phased in over seven years instead of five lightens the burden on students during the phase-in period, while holding to the amount of the increase – an amount that is necessary for maintaining the quality of university education offered in Quebec.

When an adjustment of the income-tax credit for paying university fees is taken into account, the increase will be on the order of 50 cents a day – roughly half the price of the cheapest cup of coffee to be had at any counter in town. It will be hard for student leaders to persuade taxpaying Quebecers that this is an untenable burden that will seriously impede access to higher education.

Even before the announcement of the government’s revised position Friday, public support for the students’ claim that the proposed increase is unjustified was waning in the face of increasingly disruptive and violent demonstrations. The most recent poll, taken this week, showed that just shy of three out of five Quebecers back the government.

The government can perhaps be criticized for waiting too long to engage leaders of the student federations in talks, and it can reasonably be suspected that its abrupt decision to ban CLASSE, the largest and most strident of the student associations, from the talks was a divide-and-conquer stratagem.

But it can be even more reasonably asserted that the fee increase as originally presented is eminently fair and will not unduly restrict ac- cess to university. It will bring today’s tuition fees proportionally to the level they were 40 years ago, while still leaving Quebecers who pay taxes forking over 83 per cent of the cost of university education. As for access, the student leaders have offered no explanation how it is that in the rest of Canada, where university students pay more than double, on average, what Quebec students pay in fees, university attendance is substantially higher.

CLASSE has shown itself to be both radical and intransigent. It has been the most reluctant of the student associations to denounce vandalism during demonstrations and intimidation of students who do not support the boycott and simply wish to go to the classes for which they have paid and that they have every right to attend. Judging from CLASSE’S rhetoric and actions, there is no reason to expect it to accept any reasonable compromise.

The students should heed the premier’s appeal to seriously consider the new government offer. If they do so, they will come to the reasonable conclusion that they have much more to gain by accepting it and salvaging what they can of the academic year than by continuing the boycott and mob eruptions that will cause them to lose their year while steadily eroding sympathy for their cause.

Another group that should start behaving reasonably is the Parti Québécois caucus in the National Assembly, which has been shamelessly seeking political profit by backing the student demand to cancel the tuition increase and ostentatiously sporting the redsquare badge of the protest movement – all the while hypocritically accusing the government of seeking to boost its ratings by refusing to bend to the student demands.

The PQ has persistently blamed the government for fostering the violence in the streets, rather than those actually committing the violence. Its position in the face of escalating mob tactics has been to cave in to the mob’s demands.

And these are the people who expect to be elected to govern the province. Unless they radically change their tune, Quebecers should recognize that they are unfit for that office.