This fall, hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting across France — and other European countries, including tens of thousands in Serbia and Italy. The intense protest activity in Europe demonstrates the importance of solidarity as well as the urgency for Canada to change legal code to support protestors.
The protests in France began with high school students lamenting a lack of funding and worsening conditions of their education system. They started in mid-September in a southeastern suburb of Paris and have since swept across the nation. Soon, the movement became bigger and began to denounce broader issues regarding the increasingly high costs of living. The people out on the streets now include university students, led by student political activist syndicates who are blockading universities and colleges in solidarity with the high schoolers. Additionally, the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour), France’s largest union, has expressed support for the protests.
An article published by Le Monde in early November reported that 500 high schools were blocked by protestors, according to the Union Syndicale Lycéenne (High School Student Union). Thousands upon thousands of people are out in the streets, fighting for improved access to education, and there’s no indication of letting up until conditions are met.
The protests happening in France aren’t an isolated event. Nearly 300,000 took to the streets against fuel taxes in 2018, 1.28 million demonstrated against pension reforms in 2023, and 600,000 shut down the Eiffel Tower over budget concerns last year. These protests have often brought results; the pension reform being protested against was suspended, and the fuel tax was quickly abandoned following the demonstrations.
As a Canadian abroad in France, I can’t help but look out to this massive social movement with some envy. Protesting is a crucial component in creating social change, and a staple to a nation’s healthy democratic function. Compared to countries like France, Canada’s protesting culture is elementary.
Harvard political scientist Dr. Erica Chenoweth found that, among nonviolent protest movements in the last century, those which mobilize 3.5% of a nation’s population essentially ensure political change. If we look at the protests that have happened in Canada in recent years, none have really come close to that magic number. A visible protest since the turn of the century was the Fridays for Future climate marches in 2019, when the prime minister at the time, Justin Trudeau, marched in the protest, using it as a photo op for his reelection campaign. If a protest is so docile that the very leader being protested against can use it as a publicity stunt, how effective can that protest really be?
That’s not to say protests in Northern Turtle Island (Canada) have been docile or unimportant. University protesters for Palestine have stood their ground against a hostile police force, same with Wet’suwet’en Water Protectors opposing pipeline construction, leading to more than seventy arrests. Canada has recently seen an increase in protest action.
“We have large urban areas with politically conscious young people and more than enough reason to mobilize, yet our activism doesn’t seep into the streets nearly as often, nor as intensely.”
So, what’s missing? We face an affordability crisis, a declining education system, and Indigenous rights abuses. We are far too wealthy as a nation to still have 39 long-term drinking water advisories in First Nations communities. This is exactly the kind of injustice we should be filling the streets to demand an end to; we have large urban areas with politically conscious young people and more than enough reason to mobilize, yet our activism doesn’t seep into the streets nearly as often, nor as intensely. One of the main reasons is that our ability to protest effectively is heavily restricted by our legal code. Canadian labour laws only permit strikes when they are in pursuit of collective bargaining.
Employees in federally regulated fields must follow the Canada Labour Code, including Section 107 which says that a minister can intervene “to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes or differences.” This vague language enables the government to interpret it in a way that tends to prioritise the employers’ interests over a fair collective bargaining process.
Considering that France’s labour unions are one of the largest forces behind their protests, our unions’ inability to disrupt the workflow for political purposes is a pretty big weight on Canada’s protesting capabilities. If we are to create a Canadian context conducive to a strong protest culture, this is certainly a law we need to reform to better protect marginalized people.
Beyond the portions of the Labour Code inhibiting us, we could be doing a far better job of encouraging a culture of solidarity movements. A collective, coalescing effort among different groups within society is necessary to get our protesting numbers closer to the 3.5% that ensures social change.
The ideal protesting environment would be one where our university students strike alongside the Canadian Union of Public Employees, one where the plumbers’ unions barricade the AI data centre construction sites in solidarity with the environmentalists.
Ultimately, the ideal protesting environment would be one where our university students strike alongside the Canadian Union of Public Employees, one where the plumbers’ unions barricade the AI data centre construction sites in solidarity with the environmentalists. If we figure out a way to create these movements of solidarity, our protests will become far stronger, numerous, and ultimately better at creating a society capable of demanding social change.
