Montreal Student Protest: A Review

I participated in the student protest that happened in Montreal yesterday against the tuition fee hikes announced by the Quebec government. So I thought I would give you guys a little review on how that went.

All the McGill students gathered at 1pm and met up with the Concordia crowd at McGill College and St-Catherine, where we proceeded to march to Parc Emilie-Gamelin at Berri. There we joined tons of people from UdeM, UQAM, UQAT and UQAR (and those are only ones that I personally noticed). Once this large group was assembled we marched all the way back to McGill College, stopping in front of Jean Charest's Montreal office. The crowd was absolutely HUGE, I have never been part of something that large before and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I was afraid at first that turnout would suffer because of the rain but it seemed to make very little difference and everyone seemed motivated and ready to protest. There were lots of cops everywhere and a helicopter watching us, but thankfully I wasn't arrested or brutalized. To my knowledge, only 4 people were arrested. Compare that to the riots we see after Canadiens games and I feel proud of my fellow students for protesting in a mature, peaceful fashion. I never felt scared or nervous during the protest in any way.

Some of the highlights of the march for me were when people stopped what they were doing to watch us; some giving us thumbs up and others just filming on their phones. Either way, I was glad that we caused a disturbance in a city where people would walk over a dead hobo in their way without a second look. At one point we marched past a daycare and all the kids ran up to the windows and starting waving and smiling at us, that was by far the highest point of the day for me.

Although some people argue that there is no point to this protest and it won't affect the government's decision, I believe that it's always better to do something rather than nothing, on the off-chance that one day it might actually produce change. There are also those who point out that Quebec's tuition fees are lower than those in the rest of Canada and in some other countries. I would argue that they are only comparing Quebec to other countries and provinces whose tuition situations serve their purposes. There are other nations where tuition is much lower than in this province and some where it is free. Their argument does not take into account the complete set of facts and I fail to see how tuition fee hikes are ever a step in the right direction.