Don Macpherson: Negotiation is not a solution in itself
“Negotiation” – almost everybody in Quebec still seems to believe in its magical powers to solve the current protest crisis, even after it’s already failed once.
Three-quarters of Quebecers in a recent poll by Léger Marketing for Québecor-owned media say the Charest government should resume negotiations with the students associations on its announced tuition increases.
The student “leaders” say they want negotiations (though the hardline CLASSE threatened to walk out of the talks before they even began). And so does the government.
If only it were that simple.
16 May 2012
Quebec to table special law in student tuition crisis - Montreal - CBC News
Quebec to table special law in student tuition crisis - Montreal - CBC News
Quebec will table a special law to allow boycotting students to eventually finish their school semester, while taking a summer break to "restore calm" in the three-month old tuition crisis.Emergency legislation announced Wednesday night will suspend the current semester for many CEGEP college and university students, with provisions for classes to be postponed until August, Premier Jean Charest said.
Charest stressed the law calls for semester suspension.
"We're not cancelling, let's be clear, we're suspending," he said, flanked by several rectors and university-association officials. "It will allow us to finish the winter sessions in the fall."
08 May 2012
Don Macpherson: The choice is democracy or mob rule
http://www.canada.com/news/Macpherson+choice+democracy+rule/6531797/story.html
At precisely what point did we pass through the looking glass? Was it when responsible people began blaming the government for “provoking” violence instead of student leaders for enabling it?
Or when respectable citizens started clamouring for a democratically elected government to buy “social peace” – or, more likely, rent it for a while – from a mob of masked anarchists?
Or was it when Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesman for the hard-line CLASSE – and, apparently, for the entire student movement – declared on Wednesday: “I don’t have the power to appeal for calm”?
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