Quebec’s tuition protesters are the Greeks of Canada

[wilde]

I agree this is incredibly tiresome.

Again, I hope none of the more sensitive types feel they are being mislead.

Yawn, zzzzzzzz.....

 

[DavidMR]

A link to an article in the Huffington Post, by Trudo Lemmens, an associate professor and in health law and policy in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.



http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/trudo-lemmens/quebec-protest-coverage_b_1559079.html?ref=tw


Here are a couple of paragraphs:


Perhaps we could start asking our respective provincial and federal governments to much more explicitly affirm what model of university education they truly support and what style of academic institutions they favour. If our governments are truly committed to university education as a public good, they should put their money where their mouth is. So far, we seem to let them get away with continued reduction in their proportionate contributions to higher education by silently accepting continued increases in tuition fees and private (largely corporate) donations to fill the gap.

Ours is clearly already to some degree a two-tiered educational system, which is not only in part created by tuition fees and growing income inequality but also further feeds it. In some way, the higher costs of professional degrees may now have become a (largely unexpressed) moral justification for high salaries post-graduation. Yet, it can be much worse. The excessively high costs of "better" education are clearly problematic in the U.S. Should we really emulate that model, or rather try to ensure equitable access to high quality education through appropriate adjustments to our system? If higher tuition fees than the Quebec fees are appropriate, where should we stop? How can we ensure that higher tuition does not amplify the growing inequities in our society? Can we put alternative funding models in place? The Quebec protests should be an occasion to reinvigorate that debate.

 

[Larry Storch]

They go up $325/year for 5 years so at the end the annual fees will be $1625 a year more. Click on the what does the tuition increase represent link for a graph.

http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/enseignementsuperieur/droitsscolarite/index_en.asp?page=cout

By contrast this is what it costs to attend UBC right now...

http://www.students.ubc.ca/coursesreg/tuition-fees-deposits/tuition-fees/

There appears to be a significant difference in tuition costs between the regions currently.

Thank God someone was listening.
Thanks Ferris

 

[Miss*Bijou]

They go up $325/year for 5 years so at the end the annual fees will be $1625 a year more. Click on the what does the tuition increase represent link for a graph.

http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/enseignementsuperieur/droitsscolarite/index_en.asp?page=cout

By contrast this is what it costs to attend UBC right now...

http://www.students.ubc.ca/coursesreg/tuition-fees-deposits/tuition-fees/

There appears to be a significant difference in tuition costs between the regions currently.

Well, look at that. 7 pages later and as clueless as ever. Whoo hoo.

Thank God someone was listening.
Thanks Ferris

Actually, that's the point here. You're both NOT listening.

I'm totally baffled about how some people are completely unable to hear anything that is being said and just keep repeating their nonsense despite being TOTALLY besides the point AND being told repeatedly. It's all there, laid out and spoon fed to you, yet you just insist on flaunting your cluelessness. Way to go.

It's nuts. You guys are ridiculous.



Critical thinking skills are grossly underrated.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Let me ask you a question Ms. Bijou. Is higher education a right or a privilege? Where each of us stand on this question goes a long way towards our attitude on the Quebec tuition protests...

Here's the thing. The debate isn't about the amount of the increase - but I think you get that. However the importance of the protests is not about whether education is a right or a privilege. It's about allowing that question to be debated by the population.


So whether you and I think it's a right or a privilege isn't the point at this time. It's whether or not what you and I, as well as Canadians should have a voice in what they think is best.


At this time, the Quebec government is taking a system which was established by public consensus and going ahead and changing it to a completely opposite system - without giving any of the public the opportunity to decide for themselves. If people feel the system is no longer what they want, or appropriate and feel a new consensus needs to be reached in the province - then that can be done and it should. But we're not being asked and are essentially told it doesn't matter what we think or want. I'm sorry but the government doesn't have a mandate to decide it is just going to disregard the consensus.


That's not what government is for. Its purpose is not to rule over us, it is to represent us. When the government remember what their role is and look to people instead of corporate interests before they do anything of this importance - then we can debate where we stand on this question. But right now, it doesn't matter because government doesn't give a crap what we think, nor is going to be considered when these decisions are made.


That's the problem no one seems to acknowledge. We argue or complain about things that are neither here nor there until we're all blue in the face but it is still not going to make the slightest difference whatsoever.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

There are trolls and then there are trolls.

You jumped in with a long-winded, irrational post about the third page of this thread and seem to have missed the comments before that.

This is just one ridiculous section from your first post:

" I went to McGill in the late 80s and early 90s when tuition fees were less than $1,200 a year, so with summer jobs and some parental help I graduated from my first degree debt-free. For my MA, which I took in Ontario, I worked part-time and graduated after one year with a debt of $10,000.

By way of comparison: my partner went to university in Ontario after grants were eliminated, and when the first round of tuition fee hikes were implemented. He completed a BA and then an MA, and graduated with a debt load (and compound interest) requiring monthly payments of close to $650 for 10 years.

We know we benefited, and are benefiting from, our education. Both of us have found employment that allows us to make use of what we studied, and each of us paid back our loans. But that debt (particularly my partner’s), until it was fully repaid, impacted every major decision we made as a couple and then later as a family. And we still live with those decisions: when we bought a house, when we had kids, how many kids we could afford to have, the fact that we don’t own a car, how often we see our families who live out of town. (The other determining factor is the high cost of child care outside of Quebec.)"

Well, boo fucking hoo. Yo were sooo hard done by. My fucking god are you for real?

Are you so self-centred (that's a rhetorical question) you actually believe you suffered and were the only ones to have to make some financial and familial decisions based on your income and debt?

Wow, you actually had to budget and plan and make decisions based on how much money you earned and owed. Congratulations, that must have been almost impossible and horrible and life-threatening.

The rest of your whine shows how truly clueless you are about REAL sacrifice and want and need that so many people have to cope with. I can see exactly how you empathize with the Quebec students because you have exactly the same childish mind set.

Ugh. SO lame.

CT, You really, completely, totally still missed the point. Again.

Obviously you don't care about anything other than ranting about whatever.


So I'm not going to bother. Obviously, you don't care about being besides the point. You just want to keep repeating yourself without bothering to listen. I have no time for that, clearly you're no able to listen.

Whatever.

Whatever.

SOOOOOO lame.

 

[godel]

Here's the thing. The debate isn't about the amount of the increase - but I think you get that. However the importance of the protests is not about whether education is a right or a privilege. It's about allowing that question to be debated by the population.


So whether you and I think it's a right or a privilege isn't the point at this time. It's whether or not what you and I, as well as Canadians should have a voice in what they think is best.


At this time, the Quebec government is taking a system which was established by public consensus and going ahead and changing it to a completely opposite system - without giving any of the public the opportunity to decide for themselves. If people feel the system is no longer what they want, or appropriate and feel a new consensus needs to be reached in the province - then that can be done and it should. But we're not being asked and are essentially told it doesn't matter what we think or want. I'm sorry but the government doesn't have a mandate to decide it is just going to disregard the consensus.


That's not what government is for. Its purpose is not to rule over us, it is to represent us. When the government remember what their role is and look to people instead of corporate interests before they do anything of this importance - then we can debate where we stand on this question. But right now, it doesn't matter because government doesn't give a crap what we think, nor is going to be considered when these decisions are made.


That's the problem no one seems to acknowledge. We argue or complain about things that are neither here nor there until we're all blue in the face but it is still not going to make the slightest difference whatsoever.

Can you actually tell me who this consensus was?

Actually, the Quebec government has a mandate to govern. They were given that mandate when they won the election. Whilst in government, they are not obligated to appease every special interest group.

Ultimately, they will have to answer to the electorate during the next election. You can tell them what you think then, via the ballot box.

 

[Larry Storch]

Given some of the posts in this thread I may be way out of my league, but here goes. I honestly haven't been paying a lot of attention to this mainly because it doesn't really affect me and I live in B.C. I recently read in the May 29 edition of The Province that the tuition costs are increasing by $254 over 7 years. Is this correct? If so that works out to about $36.29 more per year.
Please tell me that I'm grossly mistaken and that the costs are more in the 'astronomical' range.

Me, asking for 'basic info' and clarification.

Thank God someone was listening.
Thanks Ferris

Me, joking that several posts had transpired before anyone answered my question.

Well, look at that. 7 pages later and as clueless as ever. Whoo hoo.

Actually, that's the point here. You're both NOT listening.

I'm totally baffled about how some people are completely unable to hear anything that is being said and just keep repeating their nonsense despite being TOTALLY besides the point AND being told repeatedly. It's all there, laid out and spoon fed to you, yet you just insist on flaunting your cluelessness. Way to go.

It's nuts. You guys are ridiculous.

Critical thinking skills are grossly underrated.

You, possibly overreacting?



I realize that you are VERY passionate about this but, I was just asking a question.
Sorry.
Won't happen again.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Can you actually tell me who this consensus was?

Does no one read on this board?

I've only posted it like 3 or 4 times so far.


From previous posts:

MODERN QUÉBEC was founded in the crucible of “la révolution tranquille” (the quiet revolution) of the 1960s, when Quebeckers emerged from “la grande noirceur” (the great darkness) and turned against the archconservative government of Maurice Duplessis, who ruled Québec from 1944 to 1959. Québec society under Duplessis was marked by rigid social hierarchies: a local political elite entrenched by rampant nepotism, an Anglophone minority running the economy, and a Catholic Church watching over the citizens’ beliefs and mores through the education system and Québec’s cultural institutions. The quiet revolution not only separated church and state and laid the groundwork for Québec’s political, economic, and cultural self-determination; it also aimed to dismantle these social hierarchies and create an inclusive society based on social solidarity and equality of opportunity. In this respect, Québec chose to follow European welfare states (including, of course, France) rather than the brand of neoliberalism advocated by economists such as Milton Friedman during the same era in the United States.

A key element of Québec’s transformation was the reform of the education system, whose many shortcomings were documented in five volumes by a royal commission headed by Alphonse-Marie Parent. Reformers both modernized the curriculum and abolished the many arbitrary barriers to admission based on gender and religion and, above all, wealth. In essence, going to university had been the privilege of affluent young men, more likely Anglophone than Francophone, who used their degree as an entrée-billet to Québec’s elite—becoming doctors, lawyers, businessmen, politicians, clerics, and so on. Statistics for the early 1960s show that 11 percent of Anglophones and 3 percent of Francophones aged twenty to twenty-four went to university, and that only 14 percent of the students were women.

Against this background, the Parent commission proposed a public system of higher education that would allow everyone with the relevant skills to study. To ensure accessibility, it recommended abolishing tuitions altogether in the long run. Going to university shouldn’t depend on the size of one’s wallet or on other arbitrary factors such as gender, religion, and language. In this spirit, the Québec Liberal Party, the same party now championing the tuition raise, promised in its 1960 election campaign to ensure “completely free education from elementary school to university for all students with the required talent and will.

Although universities never became free in Québec, tuition remained frozen at $540 between 1968 and 1988. And thanks in large part to a tradition of vigorous student protests, increases since then have been relatively modest. Meanwhile, the students never gave up on the quiet revolution’s goal of free higher education. The failure to recognize that free higher education is a distinctive social value rooted in Québec history and culture accounts for much of the puzzlement, indifference, and indignation about the strike outside the region.

First of all, let’s make something very clear: the students are not feeling entitled. Their claim never was that they shouldn’t pay for their education but rather, when such payment should be made. Should they do so before they have income, or later, as taxpayers in a progressive taxation scheme. The societal consensus reached in Quebec following the Quiet Revolution was that higher education should be easily accessible for all but that the said education would have to be paid later in life through income taxes. This social contract might have to be updated but such a change should absolutely be debated.


Also, the students are rightfully questioning whether the extra money thus collected will indeed be invested in the betterment of the higher education system. There are presently no guarantees to that effect and certainly no oversight either. Hence, the government may very well choose to take money from the students’ pockets to finance healthcare programs for the elderly.

Thirdly, contrarily to what some people seem to be implying, students are acutely aware of the very steep financial problems faced by province and its reliance on federal money. Hence, one of the major goals of the protests is to question the seemingly poor management of Quebec universities: higher education in La Belle Province costs approximately $29 242 per student compared to $26 383 in Ontario, even though teachers’ salaries are inferior. The students are thus asking the government to explain this discrepancy and to address it instead of taking more money from students’ pockets to finance management shortcomings. This question of mismanagement might as well be asked of all government programs.

Finally, some of you noted that students should simply shut up and show their grievances through their votes on Election Day. Well, as sad as it may be, the younger generation obviously believes that it cannot affect or bring change only through their votes on provincial elections because demographics simply aren’t on their side.

What strikes the balance in the students' favour in the Quebec context is that the ideal of no up-front financial hurdles to University access is enshrined in some of the most foundational documents of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, in particular the Parent Commission Report, which wrested control of schools from the Church and created the modern Quebec education system, a cornerstone of the kind of society that many Quebeckers see themselves as aspiring to. Now, it could be that that ideal is no longer viable, or that we may no longer want to subscribe to it. But moving away from it, as Charest's measures have done, at least requires a debate, analogous to the debate that would have to be had if the Feds proposed to scrap the Canada Health Act. It is clearly not just an administrative measure. It is political through and through. Indeed it strikes at fundamental questions about the kind of society we want to live in. If this isn't the sort of thing that requires democratic debate, I don't know what is.

You know, it's getting very insulting -and it's certainly very disrespectful- to keep having to repeat, re-post the same thing because people challenge my arguments without bothering to read what I included precisely for that reason.

Actually, the Quebec government has a mandate to govern. They were given that mandate when they won the election. Whilst in government, they are not obligated to appease every special interest group.

Ultimately, they will have to answer to the electorate during the next election. You can tell them what you think then, via the ballot box.

I'm sorry but no. Voting once every 4 years is NOT what should make us satisfied we live in a "democracy". Politicians lie ALL the time. They shouldn't just get absolute power, without any accountability until the next election and new set of lies. It's really sad to me that someone would even think that's all we get, a vote every 4 years. Are you kidding me? Thank god not everyone thinks this way because we sure as hell would be a different country. And I'd probably be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen with a pack of snotty nosed kids running around. Well, that's probably the idea behind this whole "you get to vote so now close your eyes, shut up and go along" concept.

The problem with that attitude is that a lot of what you enjoy in life was won for you by people who didn't smugly claim all that was required to win was to show up and vote every 4 years.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Me, asking for 'basic info' and clarification.

Me, joking that several posts had transpired before anyone answered my question.

You, possibly overreacting?



I realize that you are VERY passionate about this but, I was just asking a question.
Sorry.
Won't happen again.

Honestly, no I'm not over reacting. After 7-8 pages and many, many posts -not just by me- anyone who is going top comment should have read what's been posted so far. If it was as simple as you make it, do you really think we wouldn't have been able to figure it out by now?


And it's not about being passionate at this point it's about being fiercely annoyed. I mean, come on. Are we adults here, or what? I've little patience for people deliberately making me waste my time. It's disrespectful. Is that so difficult to understand?

 

[DavidMR]

Can you actually tell me who this consensus was?

Actually, the Quebec government has a mandate to govern. They were given that mandate when they won the election. Whilst in government, they are not obligated to appease every special interest group.

Ultimately, they will have to answer to the electorate during the next election. You can tell them what you think then, via the ballot box.

This sounds like one of the answers governments give in question period. We won the election, therefore we can do whatever we want and say we have a mandate for that.

As to a consensus on this, Quebec's tuition fees weren't lowered two years ago. They have stayed low for two decades while other provinces raised them. So that two decades of policy is probably what Bijou is refering to.

 

[godel]

In this spirit, the Québec Liberal Party, the same party now championing the tuition raise, promised in its 1960 election campaign to ensure “completely free education from elementary school to university for all students with the required talent and will."

Therein lies the flaw in your argument about consensus, democracy and politicians. I fail to see why a government's adopted policy in the 1960s represents consensus support for change, while some 50 years later, a modification to that policy is deemed ruthless and has no consensus support.

Are all political parties evil, or just the ones that don't champion your belief system? Disrespect is one thing, hypocrisy and self-serving is another.

 

[kenchorney]

Thats ok. Its pretty obvious from your longwinded overlinked posts that you have lots of it to waste.

LOL Ferris your one sentence makes more sense than the freaking epic it refers to. If her time is so damn important why does she keep wasting it here, go preach to someone who cares.

Disrespect is one thing, hypocrisy and self-serving is another.

Best quote of the thread. Bijou claims no one can think for themselves and we all fall for the BS that the media feeds us yet she starts name calling and complaining every time someone has an opinion that doesn't agree with hers. Sounds like hypocrisy to me.

P.S. Bijou you owe CT an apology for the troll remark, all I saw was a guy posting his own opinion.

 

[DavidMR]

And it's not about being passionate at this point it's about being fiercely annoyed. I mean, come on. Are we adults here, or what? I've little patience for people deliberately making me waste my time. It's disrespectful. Is that so difficult to understand?

It's apparent you're getting some people royally annoyed. Perhaps they'd be more at home with a thread about Sir Richard Branson's invitation to Premier Christy Clark.

 

[storm rider]

Thats ok. Its pretty obvious from your longwinded overlinked posts that you have lots of it to waste.

Dude you hit the nail on the head.....seriously you did....like Mr.Miyagi driving in a 2 inch nail with a single blow.

SR

 

[kenchorney]

It's apparent you're getting some people royally annoyed. Perhaps they'd be more at home with a thread about Sir Richard Branson's invitation to Premier Christy Clark.

Perhaps we would prefer not to be bitched at for having a different opinion.

 

[Mod-2]

I think this has gone on long enough. Thread closed.