#feuq

 "Yes, we would have liked to continue the strike," says CLASSE co-spokesperson Jeanne Reynolds.  "But we can see that people want to continue to mobilize for the march on August 22nd and strike votes will be taken up again after the election."

 "Yes, students of several cégeps have returned to class, but there are still tens of thousands of students to vote," Reynolds says.  "It is too soon to tell."  According to her, fear of losing the semester is the main reason behind the votes to date in favour of returning to classes.  

  Threat of Cancellation

 "The threats from the Federation of Cégeps have had an impact," she says.  Over the last few days, the president of the Federation of Cégeps, Jean Beauchesne, has confirmed that the semester could be cancelled if students do not return to class.  

 For its part, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) refuses to say it has been beaten.  "We have not been beaten because there is still a way to block the tuition fee increase," says its president, Éliane Laberge.  "We have to get people out to vote on September 4th."

 She does not see the movement running out of steam either.  "Don't confuse the means and the end," she says.  "In March, the only means was to strike: we tried everything else.  Now, the elections have brought a new way for us to achieve our ends.  We see many young people getting involved in the campaign."

 There are similar feelings at the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ).  Contrary to CLASSE, FECQ and FEUQ have not given word to their members about whether or not to pursue the strike.  

  Different Context

 "The strike was very effective this winter, but it was always a means and never an end," says FEUQ president Martine Desjardins.  "There are not the same reasons for having a strike in the context of an election.  Students think that the present context suggests other kinds of action."  

 The penalties set out in Law 12 (formerly Bill 78) have certainly spooked many students, adds Desjardins.  "We can't deny it, the fines are stiff for individuals as well as for associations."  FEUQ, who along with FECQ are campaigning to get young people out to vote, believe that there is more value in concentrating on the September 4th general election.  

 And what should happen if the Liberals are re-elected?  The three student leaders refused to speculate, but they agreed on one thing: the struggle would be far from over.  

  A Tough Choice

 "I support those who have decided to continue the strike.  But, personally, I would find it hard to put myself on the line a second time."

 So says Anne-Florence Bisson, a master’s student in ethnology at Université de Laval, who still wears a red square and is firmly opposed to the tuition fee increase.

 But she is torn between pursuing the strike and going back to classes.  

 Between now and the return to classes (scheduled for September 5), many students at Université de Laval will have to decide whether or not to continue to strike.  Quebec students have closely followed votes at other Cégeps throughout the province.  The choice was difficult.  Why risk losing a semester, given that the government of Jean Charest might not be re-elected on September 4?

 Rosalie Readman, a master’s student in political science, goes back and forth between an electoral truce and the strike.  "It may not be sound strategy to continue the strike during the election," she says.  "The focus must be on the Liberal government's record," she says, regarding corruption and collusion, rather than on the student strike.  

Sitting at the same table, Benjamin Ducol says he will vote to continue the strike "while waiting" for the results of the election.  He is convinced that it would be too difficult to restart the strike if the government of Jean Charest were to be re-elected.  "But there will need to be a second vote after the elections," he added.

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

FEUQ will continue its congress tomorrow with its sister group, Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), to trade ideas about where to go next in this electoral campaign.  This will include continuing to mobilize young voters in time for the September 4 election, so as to make a difference in the vote.  "We have launched a series of questions to political parties so as to obtain precise answers on questions that matter to students," concludes the FEUQ president.  The answers will be published in the back-to-school edition of Voix étudiante, our newsletter.  We hope that all parties will take the time to respond even if we are critical of their policies.  It seems to me that the least thing a party can do if it hopes to form the next government is to take the time to respond to the entire population of Quebec, young people include.  It seems that the Liberals and CAQ don't take this duty to heart."

For more than 20 years, FEUQ has respresented university students in Quebec.  Composed of 15 member associations and over 125,000 strong, FEUQ is the most important youth group in Quebec.  www.feuq.qc.ca

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

Marois and Bureau-Blouin have come out saying that it could help the Liberals if they take the strike back up during the electoral campaign, when no negotiations are underway.  Among other things, the Liberals want to make the vote a referendum on the student conflict.

Nadeau-Dubois is not so certain. “We could turn this argument around,” he says. “People could also say that Liberals are inciting disorder and that their election will therefore resolve nothing. It's hard to say, with 40% of voters undecided and the election just begun. Nothing is in play yet.”

Truce: FEUQ and FECQ stay neutral

FEUQ's response to the prospect of an electoral truce is “neutrality.” “We want to let our members speak in their general assemblies,” said FEUQ president Martine Desjardins. Likewise for Éliane Laberge, president of FECQ. Still, she says she hopes students “will take all elements of the real context into account” before voting, including the fact that Liberals will derive “political capital” from their conflict.

Desjardins points out that university students will return to classes after Cegep students. The return to classes in universities will happen at the end of August. She says she is “cautious” for she fears “giving ammunition to the Liberals.” If there are protests with arrests or violence, “there is a danger of helping them.”

The leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, François Legault, has said since the start of the week that students have to return to classes in an orderly way. But he gives no credibility to the appeal for a truce launched by the Parti Québécois.

“Unless I saw wrong, I saw Mme. Marois in the street, encouraging protesters,” he decried. “Today, that same party is telling people to stop with the protests.”

Tuition fees: the PQ proposes a summit

The PQ has stated its position regarding tuition fees: within 100 days of taking power, the PQ would cancel the special law as well as the tuition increase. There would then be a summit on university financing, which would address tuition fees, university management, financial assistance, debt payback and student housing.

This summit would be made up of equal parts students, government and “civil society,” notably members of unions and management.

The maximum yearly tuition increase would be indexed to the cost of living.  Bureau-Blouin says he will continue to advocate his own position, which is a tuition fee freeze.  "My convictions have not changed," he said.  He promises to act on them, but also "to listen," and to be "non-dogmatic."  

Summit: FEUQ in agreement, CLASSE worried

CLASSE is satisfied with the PQ plan to abolish the tuition fee increase and the special law.  And it is not opposed to the summit.  "If this allows for an in-depth discussion (of secondary studies), then it is a great idea," thinks Nadeau-Dubois.  But he worries that tuition fees will be indexed to inflation.  And he is worried about the make-up of the panel.  He would like "the university community" -- students, teachers and their assistants, and support staff -- to make up half the number of panel members.  These groups will have to be represented in the "civil society" that Marois has referred to.

FEUQ and FECQ have also positively received the idea of a summit.  While saying she is "vigilant," FEUQ president Marine Desjardins is satisfied that the discussion panel will talk about university management, like advertising budgets and satellite campuses, as well as tuition fees.  "We have to talk about having universities collaborate, rather than compete with one another," she said.  She thinks a summit should cast a wide net and last a long time.  "We would not support a summit that lasts just one day," she said.  

FEUQ is still concerned that the PQ wishes that tuition fees be indexed to inflation.  "It's interesting, to us," says Desjardins.  "This part of their platform wasn't agreed to by vote in their last congress, and it's not based on evidence. "  "Indexing to inflation is obviously not what we are proposing," adds Laberge.  

In Montréal for the night, Jean Charest said that Pauline Marois, "is getting a taste of her own medicine," namely "intransigence," since "even those she supports are refusing her solutions."

"What is hiding behind her politics," he asked?  "If she is saying she will cancel our policy, where is the money going to come from?  Who is going to pay the bill?  The middle class?  Yes, Pauline Marois thinks highly of the middle class: she thinks they are a bank machine that keeps dispensing money."

Marois: "Where is the money going?" 

Marois points out that Québec invests $29,242 per student per year. This is more than Ontario ($26,382) and more than the Canadian average ($28,735). “Where is this money going?” she asks. She figures that universities have spent a million dollars on “golden parachutes” in the last two years, and $56M on satellite campuses.

The Conference of Rectors and Principals of Québec Universities says that it is precisely because it is difficult to reduce expenses that financing should be increased.

On May 5, 2012, student leaders and the government reached an agreement in principle that, if universities were able to make savings in management costs, those would be used to lower fees paid by students. But before student associations voted on the measure, Jean Charest hinted he was sceptical there were any money found to save.  "I have read the agreement, and the savings don't come automatically," he said.  "We hope to be able to find money to save, but it's not automatic."

-- With Martin Croteau and Tommy Chouinard

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

It is with this in mind that FEUQ kicks off its campaign with a massive effort to spread the word about the terms and conditions of the September 4 vote.  For many students being far from their primary residences will present numerous problems on voting day. This is why FEUQ supported Quebec's chief electoral officer's (DGEQ) proposal to have voting booths in universities.  This proposal was vetoed by the Liberals. Following this, FEUQ broke new ground by asking for absentee polling stations on campus. Absentee voting, which must be done in the office of a returning officer, would more or less address the problem.  "To make a difference, we have to use all means necessary to reverse the trends we've been seeing in the last few years.  It has to do with the health of our democracy," concluded the president of FEUQ.

For more information, please visit our campaign website at the following address:www.votons.ca/fr/node/68

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

Students affected by these recent modifications will have no choice but to vote via the new process for voters residing outside their electoral district.  Effectively, between 10 and 4 days before the election these voters will have to go before a scrutineer in a polling station in the riding where they are temporarily residing, and they will have to go through a more complex administrative process.  So says the judicial advisory clinic Juripop in response to a request for advice made by FECQ.

FECQ and FEUQ recommend creating offices on CEGEP and university campuses to handle people who wish to vote outside their ridings.  

To remedy the situation and to really enable the youth vote in the next elections, FECQ and FEUQ suggest creating offices on CEGEP and university campuses to handle people who wish to vote outside their ridings.  [Doing so would be] "a first step to really enable young people to vote by reaching out to them right in their own environment," affirms Laberge.  "Senior citizens are enabled to vote to by having voting stations in old folks' homes and workers are enabled by being given four hours to go to a polling station.  These are real steps to grant people access to voting and we support them.  Now, if the Liberals are not afraid of the student vote, it is time for them to put their money where their mouth is and take a step to give everyone access to voting," adds Grégoire.

This morning, this suggestion was sent by registered mail to the DGEQ and to the province's political parties.  

Lastly, FECQ and FEUQ encourage all students who have changed address in the last year to complete a change of address so as to be able to vote in the district they consider their home.  This has to be done before the election call because at the moment the election is called, the lists are frozen and it becomes more complex to have the information updated.  To change an address after this time, a person has to appear before a revision committee that doesn't always accommodate a student's availability.  

The letter, as well as the judicial opinion above, will be online at the campaign page of FECQ and FEUQ: http://www.1625canepassepas.ca

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

Yanick Gregoire, vice-president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), says that the letter is a fear tactic.  He also points out that Blackburn has confused the players, because it is FEUQ that plans to target contested ridings, not CLASSE.  "We're seeing someone in panic mode who sees that youth want to take part in the electoral process within the limits of the law," Gregoire believes.  "We tell people to go vote because it is important.  I don't think anyone can be against this civic virtue.  Other than the Liberals, it seems."

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesperson for CLASSE, adds that the object of this letter is also to marginalize opposition.  Regarding electoral law, FEUQ and CLASSE have said they are aware of it and wish to respect it.  No matter what the Liberal party thinks, FEUQ will continue to target ridings where the competition between candidates will be tightly contested when an election is called.  

The students count above all on being able to convey to the public the importance of going out to vote, as well as lawfully making their concerns heard to candidates.  Denis Dion, spokesperson for the DGEQ, explains that during an election campaign, a partisan action by a lobby group is not illegal as long as it does not incur an expense.  For example, a twitter message against a party is a partisan action, but one that costs nothing.  

On the other hand, if students buy ads in the pages of a newspaper, the ad cannot be partisan.  Each case reported to the DGEQ is analyzed to determine whether this is the case.  

If the students' message is to get out and vote against the Liberals, then that is partisan.  But if they encourage people to vote for parties that promote accessibility to education, then everything depends on the terms being used.  "Telling people to get out and vote is not partisan," argues Gregoire.  Therefore, at face value, this would not be a problem, Dion confirmed.  

It was not possible to reach Mr. Blackburn on Wednesday.  

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.

For the battle of the ballot box, the student associations have an arsenal comparable to those of the political parties. They have targeted 11 ridings where the results have been close in the December 2008 elections and intend to pick up about 15 others from now until the planned start of the electoral campaign at the beginning of the month of August.

The ridings of minister Pierre Moreau (Châteauguay) and Robert Dutil (Beauce-Sud), brought home by less than 600 votes, find themselves notably in the students’ line of sight.

Jean Charest won in Sherbrooke with a more comfortable majority of 2314 votes, but the presence of 45 000 students (of which 12 000 were on strike last spring), gone back to two colleges and a university, risks giving place to a tight battle, according to the student associations.

The student organizers have analyzed the votes of the last election “neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street”, going by the results of the Director general of Quebec elections (DGEQ), explains Yanick Grégoire of the FEUQ. The students will use all methods to encourage the voters that they will have targeted to go vote: telephone calls, emails distribution of pamphlets, information stands in cégeps and universities during back-to-school, messages on social networks.

The student associations don’t support any party and leave their members to vote for the candidates of their choice. But in mobilizing to “get out the vote”, the target is clearly the Charest government.

“The students understood during the spring that they have the power to make things move. We’ve mobilized for tuition fees, we can go vote”, says Éliane Roberge, president of the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), which brings together 80 000 students.

The student associations give themselves the foremost challenge of encouraging their members to register as voters at their place of residence during the school year, and not at their parents’ homes. Many students leave out going to vote, traditionally, because they are registered with the DGEQ in their parents’ riding and not at the place where they study.

The voters from 18 to 24 are the ones who voted the least in the last elections, indicates a study by the research chair on democracy and parliamentary students from the University of Laval. According to this report, ordered by the DGEQ, at most 41.2% of 18 to 24 year-olds voted in December 2008. The voters 65 and above were the most enthusiastic (at 74%) to get themselves to the ballot box. The rate of participation in the 2008 elections attained a historic low of 57.4%.

Despite the students’ mobilization, Jean Charest’s liberals wager that a majority of voters agree with the tuition fee increase. The surveys from the last few months have also demonstrated that Quebecers support government’s hard line toward the protesters who have stormed the streets of Montreal and other cities for several weeks.

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Translated from the original French by Translating the printemps érable.