Student marching continues
A smaller but determined group of students marched Sunday night against tuition hikes. There were only two arrests.
Meantime, CLASSE claims that there was dirty work at the crossroads at the negotiating table and three clauses were omitted from the final document. There’s a pretty strange story about the government choosing and isolating one student negotiator and putting the full signing responsibility on his shoulders.
mdblog 07:23 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Good. I hope that the deal doesn’t go through. After taking a closer look, this is merely a band-aid solution that will inevitably lead to the same confrontations in the future. The only difference will be that Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois will be on the government side of the negotiating table when it does! Oh how sweet and ironic life can be! :)
paul 07:57 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
I’m sure GND has a bright career ahead of him, and there is no denying his popularity amongst certain demographics – but if we’re playing hypotheticals he would be much better suited as a union leader.
Politicians aren’t very successful if they encourage radicalism, civil disobedience and lack the ability to compromise. A successful politician doesn’t draw their line in the sand and defend it by all means; they set an objective, move pragmatically towards it and have to be flexible with the final results (and their values).
I agree though – How ironic it would be if he had to manage the diverse needs of a society rather than a distinct subsect
Jack 08:45 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Yves Boisvert had an interesting take on power dynamics in Quebec politics, one that is not operational anywhere else in North America.
.http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/yves-boisvert/201205/06/01-4522604-la-contribution-syndicale.php
ant6n 09:44 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
This deal seems all win for the government. They don’t have to budge at all, never having to rethink their choice to reduce gov’t contribution to education. And students are ‘given’ the chance to try to save money in the university system, something that the government should do. This will just shift the conflict from students vs government to students vs universities/profs/employees.
Jack 09:50 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
“Si le comité affirme que Philippe Lapointe( CLASSE) prend l’entière responsabilité de la signature sans vérification du document” Dude, before you sign read the document.
Kate 14:25 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
After being kept awake for 22 hours and isolated from the other reps?
Raoul 16:18 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
I agree. This deal is only putting off the problem until after the election.
Kevin 16:28 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Maybe I’m missing something, but students don’t really hold any cards here.
The government has offered a whole bunch of stuff: free school for the poor and middle class, a seat( well, 4 out of 19 seats) on a board to look at university management, and the promise of reducing some fees if savings can be found.
Students are not going to get free tuition, ever, unless they stage a coup. And that would last all of five minutes :/
If there is something else Charest can offer, or ever will offer, I’m not seeing it
Kate 16:27 on 2012/05/09 Permalink
Vincent Marissal has a good piece today on why seeing the negotiations in terms of “holding cards” – i.e. in game-playing terms – is not helping.