Unlimited Student Strike Begins

The first wave of the unlimited student strike to block the Quebec government’s planned tuition hike has begun. On Monday, February 13, fine-arts students at UQAM in addition to social work and graduate sociology students at Université Laval initiated strike action. They were joined on Tuesday by five other student associations at UQAM and ULaval, bringing to 11,440 the number of students with strike mandates.

Tuesday afternoon, around 500 striking students marched through downtown Montreal to mark the strike’s debut. The march visited McGill, chanting UQAM, McGill, même combat! (“same struggle”) and picking up demonstrators along the way.

The march stopped in front of the James Administration building, where a UQAM student addressed the crowd with a megaphone, noting the intervention days earlier of police on McGill’s campus for the second time in three months to expel protestors. “No matter where you go – UQAM, McGill – the police always come to clamp down on those who demonstrate for their rights,” he said.

The strike is expected to grow exponentially in coming weeks. Ten thousand students will begin strike action Monday, February 20, and at least 66,000 more have strike votes scheduled.