The education summit called by the new Parti Québécois government began this past Monday. Unsurprisingly, it has been met with a cynical mood from the participants and sympathizers of last spring’s student movement.
At the beginning of February, education minister Pierre Duschesne already decided that free post-secondary education was not possible and would not be on the table at the summit. It was already publicly well known that the PQ sought to index tuition fees to the cost of living — “a perpetual increase” as the Association for Student Union Solidarity (ASSÉ) called it.
When looking at the guests invited to this summit, it is clear that many of the participants, such as the Employer’s Council or the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, are the bearers of the bosses’ interests and right-wing political discourse. The scandalous presence of these capitalist organizations denotes a clear bias of the government in favour of big business.
The bold decision by ASSÉ to boycott this meeting has received mixed reactions within the student movement. This decision is, however, the correct one; to not move towards free education, as well as other progressive projects, is to move backwards in history. In reality, the summit has no other use than to offer the government a chance to smile for the cameras around the same table as members of “civil society”. But, the lesson from last year’s struggle is that a clear vision, opposed to the logic of the capitalist system, can successfully unite different social forces and reveal the state to not be as powerful as it may first seem.
Unprecedented protests
Last year, Quebec witnessed the largest student protest in its history. The unprecedented demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of students and workers, which took to the streets day after day despite the threat of police brutality, forced the state to retreat on the question of the tuition increase.
A movement of this size had never been seen in Quebec, or even the rest of Canada, and came despite a series of defeats for the labour movement. In the most recent years, the working class has seen their standard of living stagnate or deteriorate; the youth of Quebec have shown the rest of society that through militant action, it is possible to turn back this bleak future that the bosses wish to impose upon us. Accumulated discontent within society was finally discharged in the streams of students, angry at the tuition increase imposed by the Liberals.
During the student struggle, the students confronted the government led by Jean Charest, the most unpopular premier since the reign of the despot, Maurice Duplesis. Students innately felt the importance of defeating the tuition increase by organizing collectively and taking to the streets. The ongoing conflict with the government this past spring put to an end a long series of defeats for the labour movement including the abortive Common Front of 2010, where the three main trade union federations came together to negotiate collectively against the Quebec government. This massive mobilization of public sector unions, representing 475,000 workers, failed to win significant concessions from the Charest government after its leaders decided it was better to reach a deal than confront the state through action.
Through the student movement, Charest’s Liberal government was finally defeated and saw itself relegated to the opposition benches. Following the election of the Parti Québécois on 4th September, there was a hope in the air that certain changes were going to come after the PQ had campaigned to end the tuition increase and to end the undemocratic Bill 78. However, the recent provincial budget and education summit confirm that the PQ does not represent the interests of workers and youth in Quebec.
The present summit is disturbingly reminiscent of that organized by the Liberals in late 2010, which was a poorly organized sham that was aimed at legitimizing the hated $1,625 tuition increase. Marois, just like Charest, is subservient to the logic of the capitalist economy, which prioritizes the profit of the bosses — the social future of education is put aside.
There is nothing new about these government summits, and their outcomes are always the same. In February 2000, former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard organized “The Summit of Quebec and the Youth” with the goal of achieving a “zero deficit”. Students, then, were however not fooled by this. Even earlier, in 1982, the government of René Levesque organized an “Economic Summit of Quebec”, which ended up reducing the wages of public sector workers for three months, increased sales taxes from 9% to 10%, and froze doctor’s wages in order to fill a hole in the budget.
The capitalist barrier
As the summit began on 25th February, ASSÉ stated on its website:
“We will talk about free education, but it is impossible not to question the government’s economic framework which doesn’t allow any progressive measures. A reduction in tuition fees will not be considered seriously along with a capital tax on financial institutions which could finance it.”
The inherent contradictions of capitalism are the real reasons behind the supposed “impossibility” of free education. To restore profitability to the system, the capitalist class must extract concessions from the social wage as we have recently seen in the southern European countries, or in Britain where students are suffering from a £9,000 increase in tuition fees. If we want to advance the interests of workers and youth, it is more important than ever to overcome capitalism, otherwise we risk austerity without end.
Despite the favourable balance of forces at the height of the struggle in 2012, and the magnificent strength of the student movement, the social gains won were only temporary. The help and support of workers in this context is essential and could tip the balance of power more in our favour. The task of militants in the student movement is to engage with workers, and to give the labour movement the confidence that the struggle can be won if we are united. This can start with solidarity with workers’ struggle — defending the demands of the workers, as well as spreading the idea of a 24-hour general strike against austerity as the beginning of a fight back against capitalism.
The question of the labour movement is central here. The students and youth can be the spark for action, but the workers are the ones who can shut the economy down. By bringing in the whole of the working class, we can build a sufficient counter-weight against the power of the ruling class. Only through fighting capitalism, and building a socialist society, can we guarantee free, accessible, quality education for all.
This article originally appeared in French on our sister publication, La Riposte.
