Jubilant students declare a win in tuition-hike conflict
‘It’s a new era of collaboration instead of confrontation,’ leader says of ‘total victory’
Victory was sweet for Quebec students on Thursday as Premier Pauline Marois wasted no time in announcing the tuition hike was cancelled and the most controversial sections of Law 12, adopted by the Liberals in the spring as an emergency measure to rein in boycotting students, are being repealed.
“It’s a total victory!” said Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, which is the largest student association with about 125,000 students. “It’s a new era of collaboration instead of confrontation.”
The icing on the cake for the 170,000 students who spent last winter and spring marching in the streets opposing a tuition hike of $254 a year for seven years? They get to keep, for this year, the $39-million boost to financial aid introduced by the Liberals to offset the tuition increase.
“Sept. 20 will be etched in the annals of history in Quebec,” tweeted the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec.
“Bravo to the striking students,” Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, who was spokesperson for the Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) for much of the student conflict, said in a tweet.
Whichever side of the debate you were on, there was no denying the significance of the moment. Marois, who was criticized by the Liberals for wearing a symbolic red square in solidarity with students for much of the conflict, made a promise to cancel the tuition increase — and she moved quickly to fulfill that commitment.
Students, who organized countless marches and clanged pots and never wavered from their goal of keeping education accessible with a tuition freeze, seemed at last to have triumphed definitively.
But there is a glimmer of hope for universities in what must be a chaotic fall, dealing with makeup classes for thousands of students and budgets that may suddenly be invalidated. Marois did promise compensation for 2012-13 and said university financing will be maintained, said Daniel Zizian, director general of the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec.
Of course, details aren’t known so it still remains to be seen whether Quebec’s universities will get all of the roughly $40 million they were anticipating from the tuition in- crease this year.
“There isn’t panic, but it’s a big preoccupation,” Zizian said, although he seemed reassured by Marois’s commitment to maintain funding. “It’s a difficult situation for us.”
Under the Liberals’ original plan of a $1,778 increase over five years, universities were supposed to have about $440 million in new funding in the fifth year, $216 million from the tuition increase, according to Zizian. Universities complain they are underfunded by about $620 million a year compared with other universities in Canada.
Now it is up to the Parti Québécois’s new minister of higher education, research, science and technology, Pierre Duchesne, to organize a summit on higher education that Marois promised. Students say he has several immediate challenges, including how students will get reimbursed for the tuition hike that went into effect this fall.
Éliane Laberge, president of the FECQ, said he also has to get tough with universities.
“He’s going to have to be stricter with rectors; they were spoiled by the Liberals,” she said.
Also, the united front between the FEUQ, FECQ and CLASSE that was in effect during the tuition dispute may be over, as CLASSE continues to advocate for free education, which the other associations don’t support. In fact, CLASSE will be alone in organizing a demonstration on Sept. 22 in support of free education.
“We are waiting to meet the minister and see how the PQ positions itself,” said Camille Robert, a spokesperson for CLASSE.
Still, many organizations involved in higher education were pledging their support to collaborate with Duchesne. Guy Breton, rector of the Université de Montréal, said he welcomed the importance accorded to higher education and research with the appointment of a new minister exclusively for that portfolio.
There was a similar sentiment from Alan Shepard, president of Concordia University, and Olivier Marcil, vice-principal of communications and external relations at McGill University.
But Marcil also had another message for the new minister:
“The fact remains that something must be done to address the underfunding issue and if it is not through tuition increases, then we must look at alternative solutions,” he said. “McGill and other Quebec universities will not be able to sustain the quality of education offered if that situation is not addressed.”