Thousands of protesters took to Montreal streets once more March 5 to rally against the Quebec government’s decision to raise tuition fees by three per cent per year.
Police said they were required to make over 60 arrests and send in a riot squad after an initially peaceful protest turned violent when bottles and chunks of ice were thrown at observatory police.
Const. Raphael Bergeron said Montreal police officers arrested 10 people for criminal acts ranging from mischief, breach of condition, assault on a police officer with a weapon and assault.
Montreal police also arrested an additional 50 protesters under by-laws. Bergeron said the majority of the by-law arrests most likely resulted in tickets for disturbing the peace.
One protestor and one member of the police force sustained injuries at the riot, which occurred near the downtown Montreal area, according to Bergeron.
Although tuition rallies have been a familiar fixture in the Montreal area, student protester David Rankin said there have been fewer movements since the Parti Québécois were elected in Sept. 2012.
Rankin said most students had curbed their public demonstration efforts. Because Parti Québecois leader Pauline Marois promised in her campaign to freeze her Liberal counterpart’s highly contested tuition hikes.
Rankin said the catalyst for this round of protests was the PQ government announced on Feb. 25 they would raise tuition fees despite their criticism of the Liberal policy regarding post-secondary fees.
Things heated up again when the PQ government held a two-day summit on higher education, he said.
At the summit, held on Feb. 25 and 26, the Parti Québécois tabled its plan to increase tuition by roughly 70 dollars annually.
“This proposal strikes us as the fairest one for society,” Marois said at the summit, according to the Canadian Press. “The financial burden for students would remain stable and several measures will be implemented to reduce the impacts, which are already minimal, of the indexation.”
Members of the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ) had previously decided to boycott the summit because their demand for free tuition was not tabled for discussion.
Rankin said the tuition increase indicates Marois’ appearances at similar tuition protests last year were “obviously more of a photo op than a protest against anything.”
The PQ premier announced at the summit the success of their party’s promise to cancel the Liberals proposal to raise tuition by $325 over the next five years and by $254 over the following seven.
