SARAH DESHAIES
Quebec Bureau Chief

MONTREAL (CUP) — After a day-long meeting Jan. 21 in Quebec City, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec and the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec have reaffirmed the intention to strike on March 22 to protest rising university tuition fees in the province.

But first, the individual members groups need to seek approval from their constituents.

“We have the mandate to ask our associations to go on strike, but first they need to ask their members if they want to, and then we will be able to say the FEUQ is on strike,” said president Martine Desjardins, who made the announcement with FECQ President Léo Bureau-Blouin in Montreal on Jan. 23.

The date was chosen earlier in December to coincide with the timing of the release of the finance minister’s budget.

Desjardins said that FEUQ, the student lobby group that is often a government negotiator, has not been invited to sit in on the pre-budget consultation meetings that are now taking place.

After walking out of the same meetings in December 2010, she said their calls have not been answered by the finance department: “We asked them to talk with us. But they won’t do it.”

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has said the government will go through with gradual tuition hikes, beginning in fall 2012, to culminate in a total rise of $1,625.

Quebec permanent residents currently pay the lowest tuition fees in Canada, but FEUQ and FECQ, which represent about 200,000 students in universities and general and vocational colleges, or CEGEPs, across the province, assert that further tuition hikes could harm students’ finances.

The education ministry could not be reached for comment.

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Photo: Navneet Pall/The Concordian