http://www.facebook.com/events…

Here in Quebec, we have 1 year less of high school but it is mandatory to do a 2-year college program before being able to attend university.

Many choose to do a technical college program instead of going all the way to university. Why? Because it’s almost free and the pay outcome isn’t much different. It is why the nursing program is much more popular at the college level than at the university level.

There are a lot of programs that you can find at both level. Yes, the university program is way better but for a young person who is not that good at school, you will favour the 3-years program over the 5+ years (2 years of pre-university college + 3 or 4 years of undergraduate degree) of the university program.

As everywhere else around the world, you need to do some research before applying to an university  program. Some universities offer degrees with better quality than others. You might find the Art History degree at Universite Laval to be shitty but the one at Université de Montréal to be fantastic. Same apply to all degrees: some universities are better than others.

As for your statement about the quality of medical care, I believe you make that statement only because of the waiting period. There is no data which shows the quality is worse than everywhere else.

Protesters are all white?! Where did you get that from? Watch CUTV and you will see with your own eyes: protesters are not “whiter” than the population in general.

Bill 101 was such a mess that now in 2012, 80% of all anglophones in Quebec now can speak French contrary to only 4% in 1956. Unless you believe French shouldn’t exist; it shows how great it worked. If immigrants wanted to speak English, they just had to move to Ontario. The language of the majority is French, why is it such a bad thing to learn it if you come from abroad? If I move to Italy, you bet I am going to learn Italian! It’s called respect.

The upper-class go abroad… I still haven’t found a politician from Quebec who did not earned a degree in Quebec. The upper-class from all countries go abroad (“abroad” as in the US and the UK mainly). The same applies to English-speaking Canadian provinces. I have yet to find someone who chose UBC over Harvard for their doctorate…

I live in New York State. In the last few elections, it was a given that the Democratic candidate was going to win my state, therefore getting the electoral college votes. Let’s look at the 2000 election. I voted for Nader. If I voted for Gore  it didn’t help him, he was winning NY anyway. If I voted Bush (which I would never have done)it didn’t help him, he was losing New York by a lot anyway. So I voted my conscious rather than voting for the lesser of two evils. That is a much more meaningful vote than my other options.

How is a 3rd party ever going to get any power if no one ever votes for them? Maybe they get 5% in one national election, and then ten in the next, and win some local offices. That is how we get a 3rd party.

If anything Quebec should be further *lowering* tuition to make Quebec universities more accessible to both Quebec students, and those outside. It is a pretty basic equation, the more English speaking students that come to Quebec schools to learn, will learn more French language skills, increasing one of Quebec’s primary goals. The less Quebec kids that go outside of Quebec for their university education, predominantly in English, the decrease in one of Quebec’s primary goals.

A perfect analogy of this is “Student Pricing” of software, and large donations of software and computer labs to university’s by large corporations like Microsoft, Sun, IBM, etc… They are *not* doing this out of the goodness if their beating hearts, or for the tears they shed for poor students, it is because of one simple fact. It is proven than the more knowlege and experience one has gained using those tools, the more likely it will be that they will continue to use those in the future. Perhaps making the training, or purchasing decisions for large corporations themselves someday. It is a very long view of things, which is uncharacteristic for both business and politics I know.

I mean I don’t know if it is just me, but the Quebec government is coming off and completely stupid over this, and their overreaction response by passing a bill making protest illegal is just making things much worse.

They could have looked like progressive hero’s,  making education a real priority, ensuring inovative Quebec workforce for the future, while at the same time subtly promoting their language laws and cultural identity within Canada, likely more effectively than any other method available.

As it stands, they come out as being harder on students, increasing student debt, increasing the divide of educational accessibility, and now even worse against civil rights, free speech, and all sorts of negative stuff.

Really being handled poorly if you ask me, government really dropped the ball and missed an excellent opportunity.

Disclaimer: Not from Quebec, nor do I live there currently.

in my experience traveling through all of Canada’s provinces, Quebec has the highest population of post-secondary students and graduates.

Bill 78 applies to you regardless of your relation or lack thereof to the tuition debate.

You are correct that it has evolved into a call for the dissolution of the Charest government, as well it should. 

The student compromise might just be something along the lines of 

“Revoke Bill 78 and call for free tuition, and in response we will support your government. Do otherwise and you will be thrown out of office.”

That would be a compromise, because of how severely Charest disrespected his constituency with Bill 78. 

Tuition would stand pat and negotiations, if any, would continue with a completely new government.

As it stands, that is compromise.

There are far and away better reasons to remain a part of Canada besides the simpleton, easily thrashed falsehood that Conservatives like to spread. 

Being associated with Alberta’s tailings ponds is not one of them.

In the link below, deputy Bernard Drainville melts your claim like the oil industry melts the ice caps.

He enumerates important changes that would be made in an independent Quebec. The Senate, Monarchy, F35s, the Queen’s rifle, the redevelopment of the gun registry we did’nt want to thrash , the judiciarisation of the political relationship between provincial and federal instances, the Conservatives forcing us into building prison we don’t want, the Governor General position,the numerous service overlapping are a few things of those we would gladly stop paying for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQR1zg0cTn0

I sympathize with your frustration over the perequation that seems to disadvantage Alberta. But please keep in mind:

The Quebecois students don’t want the financial burden of the tuition freeze to be taken care of by the tax payers.

Right now the universities are subsidized per capita, and that encourages the universities to build new campuses, for instance. The students ask for an instance, a forum in which they would participate, where the management of the universities would be discussed. It’s quite clear substantial economies can be made there.

The student associations suggest that a tax we use to collect on capital gains (0,4%) is reinstated in Quebec, wich would cover the expect of freezing the tuition rates.

If you pay more than we for your tuition, I see a few reasons. Quebecois pay three times the sales tax than Albertans do, and twice the personal income tax Albertans do. Keep in mind we had far more generous social measures in the past than we have now, that we funded ourselves, far before the shift in the perequation deals.

I find it shocking that -if thing are what they appear to me- you don’t get your share of the revenue generated by your province. If you think that, for the future of your province, the RESPONSIBLE thing to do is support a system that subside oil companies over you, vote for the Conservative party who choose fucking f35s over social measures (including keeping your tuition low)… Well go for it man.

The students sacrificed a school term so far, which will diminish their revenue for life as they enter the workplace six months to a year later than planned. A lot more costly and RESPONSIBLE than just shoving it and paying the few damn thousands more, like you do.

This argument is absolutely false, and show a complete lack of knowledge about how the education system works in Quebec. Comparing university attendance in Quebec to other Canadian provinces is comparing apples to oranges, because of the existence of CEGEPs, which are also higher education schools. There are two main reasons ignoring CEGEPs distorts numbers:

1) Several degrees that require university studies in the rest of Canada require a CEGEP diploma here, which mean that fewer people attend university because they get a CEGEP diploma instead.

2) undergrad studies are shorter here, because people who want to go to university are required to attend CEGEP first. People spend less time in university = less attendance.

A better comparison would be in looking at all post-secondary education: CEGEPs + universities. When you consider CEGEPs, attendance of Quebecers is 10% higher than in the rest of Canada, and since the inception of CEGEPs, attendance rates have always dropped when tuition increased. Always. Anybody who is claiming otherwise is ignoring CEGEPs out of ignorance or out of a desire to twist numbers for a political purpose.

“Let’s cut spending on social welfare programs (on a purely ideological basis) while we simultaneously spend trillions on defense and haemorrhage public money into the private sector in the form of bailouts because we, as taxpayers, can’t afford to continue supporting the neediest sectors of society because the most privileged sectors need our money so it can eventually trickle back to us! What could possibly go wrong??!”

FTFY.

In all honesty I will probably need to eventually get 5-10 grand in loans, but I will have that paid off before I graduate.

Now if you want to tell me that paying tuition 2 to 3 times lower than what I pay is impossible without going into massive debt, I can tell you that’s absolute horsesh*t.

It’s more than manageable if you’re just a little bit responsible….

“Let’s spend money we don’t have on things we can’t afford!  How could that go wrong??!”

If you think we don’t have a right to tell you that hey, my tuition in Alberta is about $7,000 a year, which will still be DOUBLE what Quebec students’ will be AFTER the increases they are protesting.  (I also should mention that I pay for my education myself, by working, and that I haven’t needed any student loans, so it IS manageable)

But back to the point. I’m begging Quebec to seperate.  Please do! Give up the 14ish billion in transfer payments that you recieve.  See how self sufficient you really are.  Learn about fiscal responsibility the hard way.

Because clearly, responsibility isn’t something that Quebecois have an abundance of…

@awjit – I think the US should have 30 viable political parties. Or more. Yeah, a lot of things wouldn’t get done, but neither would monstrosities like the USA PATRIOT Act pass both houses of congress like greased lightning.