Quebec Student Protest Movement Begins Tour Of Ontario Universities

By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: 

While the pots and pans are on a summer hiatus, the ground-breaking Quebec student protest movement is visiting an Ontario university near you. Representatives of CLASSE, Quebec’s largest student federation, and other activists have embarked on a tour of ten Ontario universities.

The nine-day Quebec-Ontario Student Solidarity Tour, funded by the Canadian Federation of Students, kicked off at the University of Ottawa on Thursday.

Click here for tour events and times.

Expect to meet some of the familiar faces of the movement, including: Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson for CLASSE, Marianne Breton Fontaine, a grassroots student activist and independent journalist and Audrey Deveault, Chairperson of the Dawson Student Union.

Click here to read the bios of the tour speakers.

The tour seeks to share “first-hand accounts and analysis explaining how the strike grew from a campaign calling for access to education into a people’s struggle for democracy and a better Québec.”

Nadeau-Dubois (photo), said to the National Post about the tour: “It’s really an opportunity to share what we have learned in the last months; to share our knowledge of mobilization, of social organization.”

CLASSE adds:

“With a quarter of a million people marching in the streets of Montreal for three months in a row, a broad and powerful united resistance has developed and is shaking Quebec. Despite over a thousand arrests, police violence, and disturbing anti-democratic laws brought in by the Charest Liberal government, the students have held strong. As federal and provincial austerity budgets have had severe impacts in Ontario, how can we build solidarity as well as a broad, united and growing movement here?”

This is, probably, the beginning of Canada’s season of student-led civil disobedience. Canada-wide tours are in the works. And, later this month, the University of Toronto will host a Student Strike Training Program – on how to effectively plan a student strike in Ontario. Jamie Burnett, another Quebec protest organizer, will facilitate the workshops.

Tour endorsers include:

• Anti Racist Action – Kingston
• Canadian Federation of Students – Ontario
• Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW)
• CUPW Local 538
• Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) – Ontario
• CUPE Local 4207
• Canadian Peace Congress
• Committee of Progressive Pakistani Canadians
• Central Student Association, University of Guelph
• Food Not Bombs – Kingston
• Guelph and District Labour Council
• IWW branch – Kingston
• Jeunesse Militante Magazine – Quebec
• Kingston indymedia Collective
• Kingston Coalition Against Poverty
• Ontario Public Interest Research Group – Windsor
• University of Windsor Student Association
• Ontario Public Interest Research Group – Brock
• Ottawa Strike Committee
• Occupy Kingston
• Occupy Queen’s University
• Open Source Action Centre
• Public Service Alliance of Canada local 901
• Queen’s Society of Graduate and Professional Students/CFS Local 27
• Society of Graduate and Professional Students at Queens University
• Solidarity Against Austerity – Ottawa
• Student Solidarity Network – Hamilton
• The Student Federation of the University of Ottawa
• University of Windsor Student Association
• Young Communist League of Canada

Photo Credits: http://solidaritytour.tumblr.com/