Student Commission, YCL-LJC
April, 2015
The Young Communist League of Canada – Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada (YCL-LJC) stands in solidarity with Quebec students fighting against austerity. We condemn the threatened politically motivated expulsions of 9 students at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) by administration, as well as the Liberal government’s and the UQAM administration’s use of police repression in an attempt to stifle the student movement.
Quebec student militants, often affiliated with the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, have organized local student union strikes. Their movement resulted in a massive rally and march through Montreal on April 2nd where 75,000 students, workers, and progressive forces in Quebec took to the streets of Montreal in the middle of a work day to condemn government austerity.
In this broader context, nine students at UQAM have been threatened with expulsion, including two students on UQAM’s governing council. These students are guilty of organizing with fellow students to fight for their interests and against capitalist neoliberalism.
The administration at UQAM has also worked with the state to impose an injunction on students who are on strike against austerity and political expulsions. The President of UQAM has begun a contract worth 500,000 dollars with a private security company to quell dissent on campus. On April 9th, 22 students on strike at UQAM were arrested by police. Professors joined in solidarity with students, at one point blocking police from brutally repressing the students. Courageously, students occupied UQAM, demanding a release of the arrested students, a repeal of the political expulsions, and the resignation of the President, along with their other demands.
The night of April 9th saw the police disperse occupying students in UQAM with tear gas, arresting students, and also continuing repression on the streets. The police have violently repressed students every day in Quebec, kettling, and arresting students with charges under bylaws that criminalize protest. Police repression has resulted in a teacher in Quebec being bitten by a police dog, an 18-year-old student being shot in the face with a tear gas canister, and many other injuries of activists. The YCL-LJC condemns the police attacks, the Liberal Government’s use of police repression, and the corporate media’s crooked justifications for these attacks. We demand an end to the injunctions and other measures that violate students’ democratic rights to organize, strike and picket, including Montreal bylaw P-6, which requires demonstrators to provide a route for rallies in Montreal. We also join students and professors at UQAM in their demands for the resignation of the President and a repeal of all political expulsions.
We encourage the Pan-Canadian student movement to extend their solidarity to Quebec students who are heroically resisting austerity and join in the condemnation of police repression. We must work to break the corporate media blackout in English-speaking Canada and have discussions on what we can learn from the developing struggle in Quebec. The most important way to extend solidarity with students and workers in Quebec is to organize a united and massive movement against austerity across Canada.