The past two weeks of the Quebec student strike have brought an intense roller-coaster of events. The Quebec government put forward an offer that would “find a way out of the crisis”, but which did nothing to resolve the issue of the proposed tuition increase. The offer was massively rejected in assembly after assembly across Quebec. Then, on Tuesday the 14th of May, there was the surprise announcement by education minister Line Beauchamp, who was not only quitting her ministerial post but also giving up her seat in the National Assembly — reducing the Liberal government’s majority to just one seat. Today, the government seems in a frenzy to smash the students. The provincial police have charged picket lines and arrested dozens. This government is a wounded animal lashing out.

We are re-publishing two letters of solidarity with the Quebec student movement, and we encourage our readers and supporters to distribute them to their own unions, locals, student groups, workplaces, etc.  Fightback fully agrees that we need to spread the example from Quebec to the rest of Canada, as well as standing in solidarity with Quebec students in their struggle against the Jean Charest government.

As part of their agenda of austerity and attacks on working-class people, the Conservative government is attempting to bring in major “reforms” to Canada’s system of immigration. During the last federal election campaign, Stephen Harper and his minister of immigration, Jason Kenney, tried hard to woo ethnic communities’ support to the Conservatives.  But now that the elections are over for a while, the Tories feel safe in attacking these same communities as part of the general war against workers.