ERIN HUDSON
CUP Quebec Bureau Chief 

Quebec students gather in a downtown Montreal bar to watch the provincial election result.

MONTREAL (CUP) — Despite a Parti Québécois victory in last week’s provincial election, student leaders say the movement is far from over.

This comes after the party’s headline-making promise to abolish the university tuition hikes that sparked the protests that dominated Quebec the past year.

“This is not a complete victory,” Élaine Laberge, president of the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec, said on election night in a downtown Montreal bar as the news of the PQ and Pauline Marois victory came in.

“It’s going to be a complete victory when the Parti Québécois is going to cancel the tuition fee increases.”

Speaking at the election result party hosted by two of the student federations, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec Martine Desjardins expressed doubt that the election was an end to student mobilization.

“It’s only a baby step,” she said. “This is not the end of the mobilization. Our goal is not obtained yet. We need a resolution and a real outcome.”

Jérémie Bédard-Wien, an executive of Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE), the largest body representing students throughout the strike, said that, for students, the main course of action in the coming days would be to “keep the pressure on the government” to ensure the PQ follows through on its education promises.

“It’s really important to consider this repeal of the tuition hike not a victory of the electoral process or a particular political party,” he said.

“The Liberal hike has been cancelled. However, the PQ’s vision is very similar to the Liberals and we expect them to propose an indexation of the fees on the cost of living. This is not something that we consider acceptable,” Bédard-Wien said on the PQ’s proposed education policies.

At the peak, over 300,000 Quebec students were on strike in downtown Montreal. Costs accrued by police throughout the seven-month-long strike in Montreal alone amount to $15 million.

The day after her election, Premier Pauline Marois stated in a press conference her intention to order by decree the abolition of the Charest government’s tuition hike, to abolish the controversial Law 12 and convene a summit meeting to discuss higher education. The same day Marois reportedly called Desjardins personally to state the importance of settling the student conflict for the PQ.

Whether the PQ will be able to implement its promises remains to be seen according to Concordia political science professor Harold Chorney who specializes in public finance and policy.

“They’re a minority government. Minority governments cannot behave the way majority governments do,” he explained.

The economic viability of abolishing the tuition hike seems realistic to Chorney, but he noted that the details of the “financing formula” could cause problems — particularly if the province’s budget, passed by the National Assembly every March, runs a deficit as a result.

“Governments have to present and get approved in the assembly a budget, and if you stand outside of the budget you are in political trouble,” Chorney said.

Marois promised to abolish the tuition hike through an order in council, a process that, theoretically, could be issued by the Minister of Education unilaterally.

“It’s an interesting gambit that Pauline Marois is going to try to play and something I actually agree with — I think there ought to be, [like] she suggests, a tuition fee hike freeze until they figure out a better way of financing higher education — but that doesn’t mean that’s going to be politically winnable.”

Chorney also noted the potentially powerful position the upstart Coalition Avenir du Québec  could hold with its 19 seats. The PQ occupies 54 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly. The Liberals occupy 50.

With the defeat and subsequent resignation of former-premier Jean Charest, Chorney pointed to the state of internal disorganization within the Liberals as an indicator that the Liberals are unlikely to try to defeat the PQ government unless a coalition with the CAQ and Liberals occurs.

In the view of others such as another Concordia political science professor Guy Lachapelle, a coalition between the PQ and the CAQ is the more likely pairing.

Regardless, Corina Kajugiro, a student at Cégep Rosemont, said after the election results were in she felt the PQ would be unable to handle the problems with the student conflict alone.

Marois’ final promise in her first address as premier was a promise to convene a summit on higher education — a step that university rectors and staff have wanted to take for years, according to Lachapelle.

“We never had the debate about the place of education in our society and I think that’s very important,” he said. “It’s a question of education in our society.

“I think it will be very interesting to watch – to see who’s nominated to be the chair, to sit on the commission,” Lachapelle added. The details of the summit have yet to be made public.

The upcoming summit will be the next major focus for CLASSE as it will be a key opportunity to communicate the associations’ view for education, CLASSE executive Bédard-Wien said.

“We’ve always fought for a radically different vision of education — education free from tuition and from the corporatization — the influence of corporations, and so we’ll keep fighting against that and so, of course, the summit is a crucial point in that strategy,” he said.

According to Bédard-Wien, the real victory for the student movement is the central role issues and debates around education assumed throughout the general student strike.

“The strength that we built through leverage in numbers allowed us to put these debates on the political map and the fear that such momentous times in Quebec society will replicate itself is the main reason why the PQ is actually following up on these promises now,” he said.

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Photo: Erin Hudson/CUP