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Students marching in Quebec earlier this week. (Facebook / ASSE)
Quebec Students Strike Against Austerity and the Petro Economy
While the U.S. media have remained relatively quiet about it, students in Quebec are in the middle of what may become the country's biggest series of demonstrations since 2012's Maple Spring -- and potentially the largest strike in Canadian history.
Mar 28, 2015
While the U.S. media have remained relatively quiet about it, students in Quebec are in the middle of what may become the country's biggest series of demonstrations since 2012's Maple Spring -- and potentially the largest strike in Canadian history. Organized primarily by the province-wide student union Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, 66 local student associations -- spanning 10 campuses and 55,000 students -- have declared an indefinite general strike. A total of 102,000 students will join in on April 2 for the #manif2avril national day of action. More student associations will be holding votes on whether to join in the coming weeks.
Camille Godbout, an official spokesperson for the Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, or ASSE, told the Montreal Gazettethis week, "We will continue to increase the pressure. We're angry." To date, the strike has included near-daily demonstrations around the province, many of which have been met with the liberal use of batons and chemical gas by police. An estimated 300 protesters were arrested or ticketed Wednesday night in Quebec City.
In the budget unveiled yesterday, education is scheduled to receive just a 0.2 percent raise, which -- factoring in inflation -- critics say essentially amounts to a cut. Student unions like ASSE, one of many such organizations, have a robust history in Quebec, the province that features Canada's highest union density. Nearly 40 percent of all workers throughout Quebec are union members, compared to just 11.1 percent of U.S. workers, as of January 2015. ASSE, which represents some 80,000 students throughout the province, was formed in 2001 out of the worldwide global justice demonstrations at the start of the century. Today, ASSE continues to maintain that movement's orientation towards disruptive action, and commitment to democratic and decentralized organization.
ASSE represents both university students, as well as those at the province's CEGEPs, private and publicly-funded colleges that provide vocational education and preparation for university (unlike in the United States, where the terms college and university are more or less interchangeable, the two are distinct in Quebec and a number of European countries). Members of each university department are typically represented by a different local, complete with elected leadership and voting power in the union's national assembly. The strength and dynamism of these unions is a large part of what has kept Quebec's higher education fees lower than the rest of the country's, and better funded by its government. Most recently, locals from various student unions came together in both 2005 and 2012 to protest fee hikes. The latter, which resulted in a several month strike action that won serious concessions from the government, has served as an inspiration for student organizers around the world.
But Printemps 2015 -- a broader effort that includes major labor groups and more conservative student unions -- is also about much more than just tuition hikes. Rather, a collection of Quebec's progressive and anti-austerity forces have come together in opposition to the new, belt-tightening Liberal Party budget introduced yesterday, as well as the province's laissez-faire approach to fossil fuel infrastructure and exploration -- exemplified, in part, by the government's cozy relationship to the controversial Energy East pipeline set to transverse Quebec. In addition to Printemps 2015 and ASSE, The Red Hand Coalition has played a central role in coordinating this spring's anti-austerity demonstrations.
"It's not like a student concern," one Printemps 2015 organizer told Canadian news site Rabble, "it's a social concern."
Cuts to education, now, are seen as part of a broader attack on Quebec's social safety net, including healthcare and pension benefits, and a degradation of particularly working class Quebecois life. A kick-off demonstration, entitled "Popular Protest Against Austerity and the Petro Economy," was held last Saturday in Montreal, and drew participants ranging from 5,000 to 12,000, depending on who was doing the counting. A host of public sector unions may strike on April 1, but are in negotiations with the government so as not to do so illegally. The National Protest on April 2 will be followed by an "Act on Climate" March in Quebec City on April 11, and a much larger social strike on May Day.
However the rest of this new Maple Spring unfolds in Quebec, organizers in the United States and around the world would do well to pay attention.
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Kate Aronoff
Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic and author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet -- And How We Fight Back. She is co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal and co-editor of We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism--American Style.
While the U.S. media have remained relatively quiet about it, students in Quebec are in the middle of what may become the country's biggest series of demonstrations since 2012's Maple Spring -- and potentially the largest strike in Canadian history. Organized primarily by the province-wide student union Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, 66 local student associations -- spanning 10 campuses and 55,000 students -- have declared an indefinite general strike. A total of 102,000 students will join in on April 2 for the #manif2avril national day of action. More student associations will be holding votes on whether to join in the coming weeks.
Camille Godbout, an official spokesperson for the Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, or ASSE, told the Montreal Gazettethis week, "We will continue to increase the pressure. We're angry." To date, the strike has included near-daily demonstrations around the province, many of which have been met with the liberal use of batons and chemical gas by police. An estimated 300 protesters were arrested or ticketed Wednesday night in Quebec City.
In the budget unveiled yesterday, education is scheduled to receive just a 0.2 percent raise, which -- factoring in inflation -- critics say essentially amounts to a cut. Student unions like ASSE, one of many such organizations, have a robust history in Quebec, the province that features Canada's highest union density. Nearly 40 percent of all workers throughout Quebec are union members, compared to just 11.1 percent of U.S. workers, as of January 2015. ASSE, which represents some 80,000 students throughout the province, was formed in 2001 out of the worldwide global justice demonstrations at the start of the century. Today, ASSE continues to maintain that movement's orientation towards disruptive action, and commitment to democratic and decentralized organization.
ASSE represents both university students, as well as those at the province's CEGEPs, private and publicly-funded colleges that provide vocational education and preparation for university (unlike in the United States, where the terms college and university are more or less interchangeable, the two are distinct in Quebec and a number of European countries). Members of each university department are typically represented by a different local, complete with elected leadership and voting power in the union's national assembly. The strength and dynamism of these unions is a large part of what has kept Quebec's higher education fees lower than the rest of the country's, and better funded by its government. Most recently, locals from various student unions came together in both 2005 and 2012 to protest fee hikes. The latter, which resulted in a several month strike action that won serious concessions from the government, has served as an inspiration for student organizers around the world.
But Printemps 2015 -- a broader effort that includes major labor groups and more conservative student unions -- is also about much more than just tuition hikes. Rather, a collection of Quebec's progressive and anti-austerity forces have come together in opposition to the new, belt-tightening Liberal Party budget introduced yesterday, as well as the province's laissez-faire approach to fossil fuel infrastructure and exploration -- exemplified, in part, by the government's cozy relationship to the controversial Energy East pipeline set to transverse Quebec. In addition to Printemps 2015 and ASSE, The Red Hand Coalition has played a central role in coordinating this spring's anti-austerity demonstrations.
"It's not like a student concern," one Printemps 2015 organizer told Canadian news site Rabble, "it's a social concern."
Cuts to education, now, are seen as part of a broader attack on Quebec's social safety net, including healthcare and pension benefits, and a degradation of particularly working class Quebecois life. A kick-off demonstration, entitled "Popular Protest Against Austerity and the Petro Economy," was held last Saturday in Montreal, and drew participants ranging from 5,000 to 12,000, depending on who was doing the counting. A host of public sector unions may strike on April 1, but are in negotiations with the government so as not to do so illegally. The National Protest on April 2 will be followed by an "Act on Climate" March in Quebec City on April 11, and a much larger social strike on May Day.
However the rest of this new Maple Spring unfolds in Quebec, organizers in the United States and around the world would do well to pay attention.
Kate Aronoff
Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic and author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet -- And How We Fight Back. She is co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal and co-editor of We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism--American Style.
While the U.S. media have remained relatively quiet about it, students in Quebec are in the middle of what may become the country's biggest series of demonstrations since 2012's Maple Spring -- and potentially the largest strike in Canadian history. Organized primarily by the province-wide student union Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, 66 local student associations -- spanning 10 campuses and 55,000 students -- have declared an indefinite general strike. A total of 102,000 students will join in on April 2 for the #manif2avril national day of action. More student associations will be holding votes on whether to join in the coming weeks.
Camille Godbout, an official spokesperson for the Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, or ASSE, told the Montreal Gazettethis week, "We will continue to increase the pressure. We're angry." To date, the strike has included near-daily demonstrations around the province, many of which have been met with the liberal use of batons and chemical gas by police. An estimated 300 protesters were arrested or ticketed Wednesday night in Quebec City.
In the budget unveiled yesterday, education is scheduled to receive just a 0.2 percent raise, which -- factoring in inflation -- critics say essentially amounts to a cut. Student unions like ASSE, one of many such organizations, have a robust history in Quebec, the province that features Canada's highest union density. Nearly 40 percent of all workers throughout Quebec are union members, compared to just 11.1 percent of U.S. workers, as of January 2015. ASSE, which represents some 80,000 students throughout the province, was formed in 2001 out of the worldwide global justice demonstrations at the start of the century. Today, ASSE continues to maintain that movement's orientation towards disruptive action, and commitment to democratic and decentralized organization.
ASSE represents both university students, as well as those at the province's CEGEPs, private and publicly-funded colleges that provide vocational education and preparation for university (unlike in the United States, where the terms college and university are more or less interchangeable, the two are distinct in Quebec and a number of European countries). Members of each university department are typically represented by a different local, complete with elected leadership and voting power in the union's national assembly. The strength and dynamism of these unions is a large part of what has kept Quebec's higher education fees lower than the rest of the country's, and better funded by its government. Most recently, locals from various student unions came together in both 2005 and 2012 to protest fee hikes. The latter, which resulted in a several month strike action that won serious concessions from the government, has served as an inspiration for student organizers around the world.
But Printemps 2015 -- a broader effort that includes major labor groups and more conservative student unions -- is also about much more than just tuition hikes. Rather, a collection of Quebec's progressive and anti-austerity forces have come together in opposition to the new, belt-tightening Liberal Party budget introduced yesterday, as well as the province's laissez-faire approach to fossil fuel infrastructure and exploration -- exemplified, in part, by the government's cozy relationship to the controversial Energy East pipeline set to transverse Quebec. In addition to Printemps 2015 and ASSE, The Red Hand Coalition has played a central role in coordinating this spring's anti-austerity demonstrations.
"It's not like a student concern," one Printemps 2015 organizer told Canadian news site Rabble, "it's a social concern."
Cuts to education, now, are seen as part of a broader attack on Quebec's social safety net, including healthcare and pension benefits, and a degradation of particularly working class Quebecois life. A kick-off demonstration, entitled "Popular Protest Against Austerity and the Petro Economy," was held last Saturday in Montreal, and drew participants ranging from 5,000 to 12,000, depending on who was doing the counting. A host of public sector unions may strike on April 1, but are in negotiations with the government so as not to do so illegally. The National Protest on April 2 will be followed by an "Act on Climate" March in Quebec City on April 11, and a much larger social strike on May Day.
However the rest of this new Maple Spring unfolds in Quebec, organizers in the United States and around the world would do well to pay attention.
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LATEST NEWS
Senate GOP Fuels Privatization Fears by Confirming 'Quack Grifter' Dr. Oz
The new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator joins "a team of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies that have already shown disdain for the American people and their health," said one critic.
Apr 03, 2025
Echoing a party-line vote by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee last week, the chamber's Republicans on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, former televison host Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Since Trump nominated Oz—who previously ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania—a wide range of critics have argued that the celebrity cardiothoracic surgeon "is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS," in the words of Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
After Thursday's 53-45 vote to confirm Oz, Weissman declared that "Republicans in the Senate continued to just be a rubber stamp for a dangerous agenda that threatens to turn back the clock on healthcare in America."
Weissman warned that "in addition to having significant conflicts of interest, Oz is now poised to help enact the Trump administration's dangerous agenda, which seeks to strip crucial healthcare services through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act from hundreds of millions of Americans and to use that money to give tax breaks to billionaires."
"As he showed in his confirmation hearing, Oz will also seek to further privatize Medicare, increasing the risk that seniors will receive inferior care and further threatening the long-term health of the Medicare program. We already know that privatized Medicare costs taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs," he continued, referring to Medicare Advantage plans.
CMS is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, now led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who, like Oz, came under fire for his record of dubious claims during the confirmation process. Weissman said that "Dr. Oz is joining a team of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies that have already shown disdain for the American people and their health. This is yet another dark day for healthcare in America under Trump."
In the middle of Trump's tariff disaster, the Senate is voting to confirm quack grifter Dr. Oz to lead the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services.
[image or embed]
— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Oz's confirmation came a day after Trump announced globally disruptive tariffs and Senate Republicans unveiled a budget plan that would give the wealthy trillions of dollars in tax cuts at the expense of federal food assistance and healthcare programs.
"While Dr. Oz would rather play coy, this is no hypothetical. Harmful cuts to Medicaid or Medicare are unavoidable in the Trump-Republican budget plan that prioritizes another giant tax break for the president's billionaire and corporate donors," Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, said ahead of the vote.
"None of Dr. Oz's 'miracle' cures that he's peddled over the years will help seniors when their fundamental health security is ripped away to make the rich richer," Carrk continued. "And while privatizing Medicare may enrich Dr. Oz's family and big insurance friends, it will cost taxpayers far more and leave millions of patients vulnerable to denials of care and higher out-of-pocket costs."
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), was similarly critical, saying after the vote that "at a time when our population is growing older and the need for access to home care, nursing homes, affordable prescription drugs, and quality medical care has never been greater, Americans deserve better than a snake oil salesman leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services."
"Dr. Mehmet Oz has been shilling pseudoscience to line his own pockets. He can't be trusted to defend Medicare and Medicaid from billionaires who want to dismantle and privatize the foundation of affordable healthcare in this country," the union leader added. "AFSCME members—including nurses, home care and childcare providers, social workers and more—will be watching and fighting back against any effort to weaken Medicare and Medicaid. The 147 million seniors, children, Americans with disabilities, and low-income workers who rely on these programs for affordable access to healthcare deserve nothing less."
Israel Bombs More Gaza Schools, Killing Dozens, Including Many Women and Children
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," said one observer.
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Israeli airstrikes targeted at least three more school shelters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing dozens of Palestinians and wounding scores of others on a day when local officials said that more than 100 people were slain by occupation forces.
Gaza's Government Media Office said that at least 29 people—including 14 children and five women—were killed and over 100 others were wounded when at least four missiles struck the Dar al-Arqam school complex in the Tuffah neighborhood of eastern Gaza City, where hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering after being forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled coastal enclave by Israel's 535-day assault.
Al Jazeera reported that "when terrified men, women, and children fled from one school building to another, the bombs followed them," and "when bystanders rushed to help, they too became victims."
A first responder from the Palestine Red Crescent Society—which is reeling from this week's discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of eight of its members, some of whom had allegedly been bound and executed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops—told Al Jazeera that "we were absolutely shocked by the scale of this massacre," whose victims were "mostly women and children."
Warning: Video contains graphic images of death.
Horrifying scenes following the Dar Al-Arqam School Massacre!#Gaza pic.twitter.com/xOvuq3Zztx
— Dr. Zain Al-Abbadi (@ZainAbbadi11) April 3, 2025
An official from Gaza's Civil Defense, five of whose members were also found in the mass grave on Sunday, said: "What's going on here is a wake-up call to the entire world. This war and these massacres against women and children must stop immediately. The children are being killed in cold blood here in Gaza. Our teams cannot perform their duties properly.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Zaher al-Wahidi said that the death toll was likely to rise, as some survivors were critically injured.
Dozens of victims were reportedly trapped beneath rubble of Thursday's airstrikes, but they could not be rescued due to a lack of equipment.
The IDF claimed that "key Hamas terrorists" were targeted in a strike on what it called a "command center." Israeli officials routinely claim—often with little or no evidence—that Palestinian civilians it kills are members of Hamas or other militant resistance groups.
Israel also bombed the nearby al-Sabah school, killing four people, as well as the Fahd School in Gaza City, with three reported fatalities.
Some of the deadliest bombings in the war have been carried out against refugees sheltering in schools, many of them run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—at least 280 of whose staff members have been killed by Israeli forces during the war.
The United Nations Children's Fund has called Gaza "the world's most dangerous place to be a child." Last year, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. More than 17,500 Palestinian children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Thursday's school bombings sparked worldwide outrage and calls to hold Israel accountable.
"While your kids are getting ready for school, kids in Gaza were once against just massacred in one," Australian journalist, activist, and progressive politician Sophie McNeill wrote on social media. "We must sanction Israel now!"
There were other IDF massacres on Thursday, with local officials reporting that more than 100 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn. Al-Wahidi said more than 30 people were killed in strikes on homes in Gaza City's Shejaya neighborhood, citing records at al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
Al Jazeera reported that al-Ahli's emergency room "is overwhelmed with casualties and, as is so often the case over the past 18 months, the victims are Gaza's youngest."
Thursday's intensified airstrikes came as Israeli forces pushed into the ruins of the southern city of Rafah. Local and international media reported that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families fled from the area, which Israel said it will seize as part of a new "security zone."
Human rights defenders around the world condemned U.S.-backed killing and mass displacement, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—whose bid to block some sAmerican arms sales to Israel was rejected by the Senate on Thursday—saying: "There is a name and a term for forcibly expelling people from where they live. It is called ethnic cleansing. It is illegal. It is a war crime."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants for the pair over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 175,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including upward of 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Almost everyone in Gaza has been forcibly displaced at least once, and the "complete siege" imposed by Israel has fueled widespread and sometimes deadly starvation and disease.
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"We could replace a billionaire with a mechanic," Osborn wrote in a thread on X on Thursday. "I'll run against Pete Ricketts—if the support is there." Osborn said that he's launching an exploratory committee and would run as Independent, as he did in 2024.
Ricketts has served as a senator since 2023, and prior to that was the governor of Nebraska from 2015-2023. By one estimate, Ricketts has a net worth of over $165 million—though the wealth of his father, brokerage founder Joe Ricketts, and family is estimated to be worth $4.1 billion, according to Forbes.
A mechanic and unionist who helped lead a strike against Kellogg's cereal company, Osborn lost to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) by less than 7 points in November 2024 in what became an unexpectedly close race.
Although he didn't win, he overperformed the national Democratic ticket by a higher percentage than other candidates running against Republicans in competitive Senate races, according to The Nation.
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Osborn cast the potential race as between "someone who's spent his life working for a living and will never take an order from a corporation or a party boss" and "someone who's never worked a day in his life and is entirely beholden to corporations and party."
"We could take on this illness, the billionaire class, directly," he said.
Osborn, who campaigned on issues like Right to Repair and lowering taxes on overtime payments, earned praise from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who told The Nation in late November that Osborn's bid should be viewed as a "model for the future."
Osborn "took on both political parties. He took on the corporate world. He ran as a strong trade unionist. Without party support, getting heavily outspent, he got through to working-class people all over Nebraska. It was an extraordinary campaign," Sanders said.
In reaction to the news that Osborn is exploring a second run, a former Sanders campaign manager and longtime progressive Democratic strategist Faiz Shakir, wrote: "working-class candidate v. billionaire political race. I'm here for it."
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