Students in Quebec: Paving the Way to a General Strike?

Seventy thousand Quebec university and CEGEP (pre-university and technical college) students—almost one-fifth of all post-secondary students in the province—have joined a strike against the provincial Liberal government’s plans to dramatically increase university tuition fees.

And tens of thousands more could soon join the strike. Nine thousand students have authorized their associations to initiate strike action and 70,000 additional university and CEGEP students are holding strike votes this week and next.

Quebec’s Liberal government is committed to raising tuition fees by 75 percent or $1625 over the next five years. The tuition fee hikes are part of a sweeping austerity program involving steep social spending cuts, the imposition of a new health care tax, electricity rate increases, a hike in the regressive sales tax, and new or increased user fees for other government services.

The corporate media is uniformly against the strike, but polls show the students enjoy the support of the majority of Quebecers.