By Erin Hudson

Quebec students respond to being ordered back to class

MONTREAL (CUP) — This year’s back to school season means back to the picket lines for Quebec students as efforts to mobilize against the province’s special legislation, Law 12 (formerly the controversial Bill 78), kick into high gear.

While many students are entering their last weeks of summer, Law 12 has mandated some Quebec students to head back to class tomorrow to finish the spring term that was affected by the student strike. For some, there have been no classes since February.

The mandated return to class is viewed as a make-or-break moment for the student movement, which has been mobilizing against Quebec’s scheduled tuition hikes since they were announced in March 2011. The hikes currently proposed by the government amount to $254 per year over seven years, for a cumulative hike of $1,778 per student.

“The week of August 13 to 17 in the Montreal-area [where most of the striking CEGEPs are located] is a crucial moment for the student strike. Either the strike will be crushed by Charest’s ‘special law’ or the strike will continue,” reads the call for students to re-block classes on the web platform of the action, Bloquons la Rentree.

Under Law 12, the resumption of classes is scheduled to occur in waves throughout August beginning tomorrow. For students to be on strike, the majority of a representative body within the CEGEP or university must vote to participate in the strike.

Law 12 was introduced in the National Assembly as legislation to provide for “when and how classes are to resume and includes measures to ensure the validity of the 2012 winter and fall terms and the 2013 winter term.” The law includes clauses mandating classes for the disrupted winter semesters to resume at the 15 CEGEPs and four universities on strike as of May 18 — the date the law came into effect.

The law also includes provisions to maintain “peace, order and public security.” Provisions include the submission of an itinerary eight hours to the presiding police force in advance of any demonstration with 50 or more people in attendance. The law gives the police force the right to alter the itinerary of the demonstration so as to uphold “peace, order and public security.”

After Law 12 was passed, between 500 and 700 lawyers and legal professionals marched in protest against it in Montreal. The law was criticized by the Quebec Human Rights Commission, while the Quebec Bar has questioned its constitutionality, and Amnesty International states the law violates Canada’s international human rights obligations.

An attempt in early July to strike down provisions within the law was dismissed by the Quebec Superior Court. The presiding justice told The Montreal Gazette that Law 12 must be debated in its entirety, set to occur in September.

In anticipation of resistance to the resumption of classes, the Montreal police service, Service de police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM), released a set of guidelines on Friday outlining how the force would apply Law 12. The SPVM states officers will not intervene in relation to Law 12 unless requested to do so by “the executives of educational institutions.”

“As I mentioned last spring, Law 12, it’s a tool. It’s one of the tools that we have. If you remember correctly, last spring we never applied Law 12 [then Bill 78]. We never had to use it,” Lafreniere said.

Other “tools” used by the SPVM thus far in the student strike include the Criminal Code and municipal bylaw P-6 — voted into effect in Montreal the same day as Law 12 — which bans the wearing of masks at demonstrations and declares illegal any assemblies of 50 people or more that do not provide an itinerary.

Lafreniere noted that officers would intervene to apply the Criminal Code if criminal acts occur during the back-to-school/strike actions.

The call to re-block classes by forming picket lines outside classrooms or school buildings comes from the Back-to-Strike Convergence which, according to their website, is looking to mobilize supporters from surrounding provinces and the USA in addition to local students.

Bloquons la Rentree and the convergence are among several groups independent of the four major student federations and are calling for students to resist the application of Law 12 starting August 13.

“As a father of two kids I would love to tell you that it’s not going to happen — that everyone is going to be safe and sound next week and we won’t have to intervene at all . . . [but] I have no clue,” said Lafreniere.

“We’ll be there, we’ll get ready for the worst, but we’ll be expecting and hoping for the best.”

By Erin Hudson

Quebec students respond to being ordered back to class

MONTREAL (CUP) — This year’s back to school season means back to the picket lines for Quebec students as efforts to mobilize against the province’s special legislation, Law 12 (formerly the controversial Bill 78), kick into high gear.

While many students are entering their last weeks of summer, Law 12 has mandated some Quebec students to head back to class tomorrow to finish the spring term that was affected by the student strike. For some, there have been no classes since February.

The mandated return to class is viewed as a make-or-break moment for the student movement, which has been mobilizing against Quebec’s scheduled tuition hikes since they were announced in March 2011. The hikes currently proposed by the government amount to $254 per year over seven years, for a cumulative hike of $1,778 per student.

“The week of August 13—17 in the Montreal-area [where most of the striking CEGEPs are located] is a crucial moment for the student strike. Either the strike will be crushed by Charest’s ‘special law’ or the strike will continue,” reads the call for students to re-block classes on the web platform of the action, Bloquons la Rentree.

Under Law 12, the resumption of classes is scheduled to occur in waves throughout August beginning tomorrow. For students to be on strike, the majority of a representative body within the CEGEP or university must vote to participate in the strike.

Law 12 was introduced in the National Assembly as legislation to provide for “when and how classes are to resume and includes measures to ensure the validity of the 2012 winter and fall terms and the 2013 winter term.” The law includes clauses mandating classes for the disrupted winter semesters to resume at the 15 CEGEPs and four universities on strike as of May 18 — the date the law came into effect.

The law also includes provisions to maintain “peace, order and public security.” Provisions include the submission of an itinerary eight hours to the presiding police force in advance of any demonstration with 50 or more people in attendance. The law gives the police force the right to alter the itinerary of the demonstration so as to uphold “peace, order and public security.”

After Law 12 was passed, between 500 and 700 lawyers and legal professionals marched in protest against it in Montreal. The law was criticized by the Quebec Human Rights Commission, while the Quebec Bar has questioned its constitutionality, and Amnesty International states the law violates Canada’s international human rights obligations.

An attempt in early July to strike down provisions within the law was dismissed by the Quebec Superior Court. The presiding justice told The Montreal Gazette that Law 12 must be debated in its entirety, set to occur in September.

In anticipation of resistance to the resumption of classes, the Montreal police service, Service de police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM), released a set of guidelines on Friday outlining how the force would apply Law 12. The SPVM states officers will not intervene in relation to Law 12 unless requested to do so by “the executives of educational institutions.”

“As I mentioned last spring, Law 12, it’s a tool. It’s one of the tools that we have. If you remember correctly, last spring we never applied Law 12 [then Bill 78]. We never had to use it,” Lafreniere said.

Other “tools” used by the SPVM thus far in the student strike include the Criminal Code and municipal bylaw P-6 — voted into effect in Montreal the same day as Law 12 — which bans the wearing of masks at demonstrations and declares illegal any assemblies of 50 people or more that do not provide an itinerary.

Lafreniere noted that officers would intervene to apply the Criminal Code if criminal acts occur during the back-to-school/strike actions.

The call to re-block classes by forming picket lines outside classrooms or school buildings comes from the Back-to-Strike Convergence which, according to their website, is looking to mobilize supporters from surrounding provinces and the USA in addition to local students.

Bloquons la Rentree and the convergence are among several groups independent of the four major student federations and are calling for students to resist the application of Law 12 starting August 13.

“As a father of two kids I would love to tell you that it’s not going to happen — that everyone is going to be safe and sound next week and we won’t have to intervene at all . . . [but] I have no clue,” said Lafreniere.

“We’ll be there, we’ll get ready for the worst, but we’ll be expecting and hoping for the best.”

By Anna-Lilja Dawson

Trip from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, B.C. involved capturing videos and interviewing residents

SASKATOON (CUP) — For 14 days in late July and early August, two University of Saskatchewan students travelled the 1772-kilometre route of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. During this time they took photos, captured video and documented the personal stories of residents of the communities along the pipeline’s projected path.

Tomas Borsa, a political studies and psychology student, and Tristan Becker, a recent political studies graduate, made the trip from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, B.C. Teaming up with Skyler Flavelle from Whistler B.C. The group set out to create a multimedia project titled Line In The Sand.

Borsa blogged about their travels while Becker and Flavelle took care of the photography and videography, respectively. According to their website, the project will culminate with a published book “comprised of images, essays and commentary from those affected by the pipeline.”

The Northern Gateway pipeline is a project by Enbridge Inc., a Calgary-based energy company, that would carry an estimated 525,000 barrels of heavy crude oil a day from Alberta’s oilsands to Canada’s West Coast. The project is intended to open up access to emerging Asian markets, where demand for oil is at an all-time high.

Many communities nestled around the Northern Gateway’s planned pathway feel that the pipeline’s construction is beyond their control as efforts to protect their land have so far been futile, Borsa said.

He said the passing of Bill C-38, a 425-page omnibus budget bill that, along with several other new laws, allows the government to exempt federal projects from environmental assessment, greatly limited those who could speak at public hearings regarding the pipeline. In addition, Enbridge has provided strict mediation that has reduced the topics open for discussion and limited a speaker’s time to 10 minutes.

Borsa said the project was necessary to help share the opinions of those who are most concerned with the proposed pipeline.

What he found surprising was the clear-cut difference in public opinion between B.C. and Alberta. In B.C., where a vast amount of the pipeline will cut through First Nations territory, some communities oppose the pipeline so strongly that they have rallied together for a ban on oil pipelines and tanker projects within their territories. The majority of these communities depend heavily on already fragile ecosystems for their livelihoods and cannot afford the risk of an oil spill endangering the environment.

The militancy shown in communities facing serious risks was shocking to Borsa, who said that people will go as far as lying down in front of bulldozers to protect their land. The greater the risk to a community, the more open and willing the community members were to share their stories, he said.

Enbridge has offered communities along the projected path a 10 per cent equity stake in the project in an attempt to increase support for the pipeline. The company recommends that this money be used to fund cultural centres and build schools in their communities.

Borsa said that many communities have refused the offer and remain opposed to the pipeline.

He said that there is no middle ground to be found for communities that support the pipeline but still harbour concerns for the environment.

The few people that the group found who are in favour of the Northern Gateway project in B.C. were Shari Green, mayor of Prince George, and Joanne Monaghan, mayor of Kitimat. Both were unavailable for comment when they requested an interview.

Borsa found that Albertan communities were generally accepting of the pipeline, due to what he believes is simply more familiarity with the mining and oil industries. Economically speaking, Alberta has more to gain than B.C., with more job creation and much more money going directly to the province — Alberta will receive $30 billion over a period of 30 years while B.C. will receive $6 billion.

Borsa said that Albertans were more concerned with whether or not Canada should wait for the price of oil to rise before opening up to international markets or if the Asian markets are the best place for Canadian resources to be exported to.

He added that if the project does move on to the construction phase, Line In The Sand must return.

“It ramps up the urgency of us going back.”