Will there be a maple summer?
More : Jean Charest, La CLASSE, Student Protest, student strike
Student strike observer and legal journalist Marie Pilon takes a look at where the #ggi is at now that the heat-wave has hit, in advance of the massive demonstrations planned for June 22 in Montréal and Québec CIty.
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Ever since the inflamed debates around the student movement’s perturbations of the controversial Formula 1 Grand Prix event, we’ve seen a marked decline in visibility for the student movement. Columnists and journalists alike have been discussing the lull of protests. One may be indeed led to wonder what happened to the nightly protests and the pots and pans. However, a survey of social networks shows that even outside urban centers, citizens are still expressing themselves, from Northern Chibougamau to Ste-Hyacinthe.
Last weekend, the student federations FEUQ and FECQ revealed diverging strategies in the media. While FEUQ president Martine Desjardins disclosed the federation’s plans to foster a grassroots movement to counter a potential electoral scenario, new FECQ president Éliane Laberge contacted the minister to request that a mediation process be initiated. Meanwhile, the CLASSE’s absence from the media could be explained by their consultation processes, which took place the same weekend.
The CLASSE’s action plan for the summer echoes the FEUQ and FECQ positions according to which mobilization efforts will continue throughout, and reflects a desire to communicate with the public in order to share their visions of Québec’s political landscape. This, according to the coalition’s press release from today, is to be achieved in the context of a series of conferences and large-scale protests.
Another action, echoing the one which took place in Rio only yesterday, is planned in correlation with the Forum Mondial de la Langue Française, to be held in Québec City on July 2, to further increase the student movement’s visibility.
Taking a break: Gabriel Nadeau Dubois
Yesterday, two hundred people protested in support of the student movement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The protest, organized by CLASSE and the Brazilian student union ANÈL, was held in front of the hotel where Jean Charest was staying. A press conference was held this morning by various activist and civil society groups. CLASSE delegate Rushdia Mehreen declared that with the Plan Nord, the Charest government will destroy the environment and steal ancestral land from Indigenous peoples. Moreover, by not hearing out the student movement, she claims, he is compromising the future of Québec society. She concluded that our current government was unable to manage ecological and social crises and demanded popular consultations, commonly referred to as États Généraux, which involve every stratum of society.
Meanwhile, around Montreal, citizens who have been politicized by the ongoing struggle of the past months are getting organized in autonomous neighborhood assemblies, amounting to 15 assemblies at the time of writing. Citizen desire for additional involvement in governance and participative democracy is increasing and mutating from the pots and pans’ joyful raucous to the peaceful union of politicized social forces.
Until then, the invitation to take the streets of Montreal and Québec City on June 22, is still out there, and thousands are expected in both locations.
To know where to find your local neighborhood assembly :
http://www.qpirgconcordia.org/?p=3479&lang=en
June 22 protest in Québec :
https://www.facebook.com/events/228211827281364/
June 22 protest in Montreal :
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