It was a eventful year across the country. Between protests, riots, elections, Canada was an interesting place for students to be in 2011-2012. With the year coming to a close, Cassie Aylward provides a run-down on the year’s biggest national stories.
Harper’s majority
Canadians headed to the polls to vote in the federal election May 2, 2011. With just over 50 per cent of seats in the House of Commons, Stephen Harper became the prime minister of Canada for the third straight election — except this time, Harper got his long-wanted majority.
Not only did the Conservatives get their majority, but the New Democratic Party (NDP) won more than 100 seats in the House, sending the once mighty Liberals to only 34 seats.
The Bloc Quebecois descended to naught with four seats. The leaders of both the Liberals and the Bloc, Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe, lost their seats and stepped down as leaders of their respective parties.
The historic election also saw a handful of people under 25 years old elected within the NDP and gave the Green Party its first seat ever to Elizabeth May, the party’s leader who was elected in her British Columbia riding.
The voter turnout, however, was underwhelming. Only 61 per cent of Canadians went to the polls, and youth voter turnout was only 59 per cent.
Death of an icon
NDP leader and beloved politican Jack Layton lost his long battle with prostate cancer August 22, 2011.
Layton had, only a few months before, led his party to the biggest gains it had ever seen, and had stepped down as leader of the party only less than a month before.
Layton’s death was mourned on Parliament Hill, where Canadians brought cans of Orange Crush, orange flowers and notes echoing the words of hope Layton left in a final letter to Canadians he had penned just days before he died.
“Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair,” Layton wrote. “So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
Back to the polls
In October 2011, Ontarians went back to the polls to elect a new provincial government. Leaders Tim Hudak (Progessive Conservative), Dalton McGuinty (Liberal), Andrea Horwath (NDP), and Mike Schreiner (Green) all unveiled very different plans for how they would save students some money, but it was McGuinty’s plan to give each student a grant worth 30 per cent of the cost of tuition that was voted in. McGuinty got his position back, minus a majority.
The voter turnout was the lowest the province had ever seen, with only 48 per cent of registered voters casting a ballot.
Tuition turmoil in QC
When Quebec’s provincial government announced that the province’s students would start to pay more in tuition fees, students weren’t taking it lying down.
In March 2011, the Quebec government anounced students would have to pay $325 more each year for tuition until 2016. Province-wide protests began in September 2011, and some of them turned ugly. On November 10, 2011, the City of Montreal saw four people arrested and faced charges for assaulting police officers and robberies. On McGill University’s campus, riot police were called. For the following months, francophone schools went on strike, and several more protests turned ugly across the province.
With no end to the outrage in sight and no mention of cancelling the increase from the government so far, the uneasiness in the province could continue well into the summer and the 2012-2013 school year. Quebec students are still paying the lowest fees in the country.
‘Occupy’ movement kicks off
They call them the one per cent, and they say they need to share. In September 2011, protesters in New York City began “Occupy Wall Street,” protesting the one per cent of people who hold the majority of the world’s wealth.
The protests kicked off a worldwide movement that lasted for several months. Protesters in Ottawa began occupying Confederation Park Oct. 15, 2011. Protests remained peaceful, but the occupiers got the boot Nov. 21. Eight people were arrested early in the morning Nov. 23 after some protesters refused to comply with the National
