Police brutality attention-starved

Police brutality in Montreal – especially killings at the hands of police officers – is a year-round issue, a point yesterday’s demonstration was attempting to make. The lack of sustained political pressure and media coverage is clearing the path for a controversial police brutality bill currently under debate in the Quebec National Assembly…

Quebec court rejects emergency injunction against Bill 78

Quebec Superior Court Chief Justice François Rolland on Wednesday rejected a motion filed by Quebec’s student associations asking for an emergency injunction against certain elements of Quebec’s contentious Bill 78. In a twenty-one page decision released late Wednesday afternoon, Rolland found that the students case had the “appearance of right”, but failed to meet the two other criteria for this type of emergency injunction, namely “irreparable prejudice” and “balance of inconvenience”.

June 22: Things are coming up Charest

With another day of action against tuition hikes planned for this afternoon – the sequel for similar actions on the 22nd of March and May – I spent the June 21 combing few some of the recent polls to try and get an idea of where all this madness has left us politically

We are all Quebecers: Chilean students

The following is an open letter signed by 109 Chilean student leaders and academics: The undersigned Chilean academics and student leaders denounce before the national and international public opinion the persecution of the Quebec student movement in Canada, as expressed in Bill 78, enacted on Thursday May 19 by the Provincial Government of Premier Jean Charest. Bill 78, the “truncheon law”, is the most severe piece of legislation…

Love is the movement: it starts in Quebec, but it will not end here…

Our world is upside down, and somehow we have been convinced that walking on the ceiling is normal. But this unsustainable balance of power is a house of cards, a carefully maintained illusion which depends entirely on our subservience to it. If we walk away from our televisions, break the bonds of our isolation and talk to each other about our dreams, our desires, we realize we are neither alone, nor crazy

Playing to the Suburbs: The Failure of the Quebec Student Movement

Imagine you’re a suburbanite. You live in Laval, Quebec or the West Island. Turn on your TVs, surf to Google News, read your newspapers, twist that dial to your favourite radio station; what do you hear, what are you reading? The protesters in Montreal have, again, done something bad. They broke a window, they woke up an old frail grandma, they threw some smoke bombs, or, maybe (oh the horror) they stopped traffic for an hour…

After the success of Casseroles Night in Canada: What next?

On twitter, the hashtag #CasserolesNightinCanada became a trending topic in Canada, and my feed was full of expressions of solidarity from every part of the country, and grateful thanks from Quebeckers. Last night Canadians, and their international allies, sent a message. A message that we will not be divided against each other. That language and location will not keep us apart. A message that we are all in this together…