Anti-Hikes Coalition Blockades Skyscraper

Several hundred protesters blocked access to downtown Montreal’s stock exchange tower this morning in opposition to the austerity agenda of the Quebec government. The action was organized by the Coalition opposée à la tarification et à la privatisation des services publics in collaboration with unions and other groups to demand the withdrawal of the planned tuition hike, health tax, and electricity rate hike.

For the students, workers, and unemployed present at the action, it is clear that these policies are components of a single agenda that places the burden of a weak economy on those who can least bear it, while asking little to nothing of the wealthy and the corporate sector. There are no plans to raise Quebec’s corporate capital gains tax rate of 0%.

After disrupting the beginning of the workday in the heart of the Financial District, demonstrators moved to extend the blockade to the nearby Delta Hotel, where tensions with police escalated. Police used pepper spray on protesters and made four arrests.