Over the weekend, Montreal police came under criticism for using pepper spray in a bar where several participants of the violent street protests tried to find refuge. Police officers used pepper spray at close range affecting both rioters and regular patrons, Vancouver’s Times Colonist reported.
On top of this comes emergency legislation which has shocked human rights groups inside and outside the country. To get the rioters off the streets, the Canadians are doing exactly what even Russian Parliament, the State Duma, would not dare to do to anti-government protesters after the opposition parties threatened a Parliamentary walk-out about a week ago.
In an attempt to quell almost three months of non-stop rebellion against tuition-fee hikes (more than 80 per cent over seven years), Quebec has just passed a set of new draconian public order laws and bylaws. The acts make it practically impossible for college students to protest in the streets and to protect their rights. A similar set of legislation has already been introduced in the Canadian House of Commons and it could become law within months.
In Russia similar proposals have been dropped and sent to be revised after opposition MPs said they would have nothing to do with them and would walk out of parliament if and when the Lower House debates the bill. Like its Canadian twin, the Russian bill was to stiffen penalties for breaching restrictions on public street rallies and marches. The bill stipulates raising fines for violating public demonstrations regulations to 1.5 million rubles (more than $48,000) from the current 1,000 rubles (about $30). Russia’s three opposition factions, including the Communists, A Just Russia Party, and the Liberal Democratic Party, have denounced the proposed bill as “repressive” and “provocative”. It will now be rewritten.
Canadian student protests and boycotts of classes over the proposed tuition hikes, which began as little more than a traffic and classroom nuisance on February 13 has by May grown into massive protest movement in Quebec. In those few weeks, an education minister resigned, demonstrations turned into riots, dozens were injured and jailed, and thousands of students – some 35 per cent – have boycotted or been blocked from attending college and university classes.
Last Friday the provincial parliament passed Bill 78, which one scholar described as the worst attack on Canadian freedom since the War Measures Act. Student groups, unions, opposition politicians, a host of legal scholars, the Quebec Human Rights Commission, right-wing and left-wing commentators, and the normally restrained Quebec Bar Association blasted the provincial law as an assault on the right to free speech and assembly.
Filmmaker and activist Michael Moore tweeted his support of students and dismissed the new anti-riot legislation, the Times Colonist said.
The law says that any individual protester found guilty of an offence that forces the cancellation of classes would be liable to a fine of $1,000 to $5,000. If the offence is committed by a senior officer or representative of a student group or federation, the fine could be as much as $35,000. The student association or federation could face a fine as high as $125,000.
These new rules would give police the power to fine those wearing masks, with penalties ranging from $500 to $3,000. Section 16 says that police have to be informed 8 hours ahead of the time, duration and route of any demonstration by 25 people or more.
To be fair, Quebec legislation has a time limit and is set to expire on July 1, 2013. But a similar private-member’s bill, C-309, is progressing through the Canadian House of Commons. It has already easily passed a second reading and could become Canadian law within months. In Ottawa, the bill tabled by a Conservative backbencher would make it a crime for protesters to wear a mask or disguise while participating in a riot or unlawful assembly. The maximum penalty for wearing one in an unlawful assembly would be five years in prison, and 10 years for wearing one during a riot.
Last week the government of Quebec suspended classes in 14 of the province’s 48 colleges where strikes were still in progress as well as in certain departments and faculties in 11 of the province’s 18 universities. There are by now 155,000 college and university students on strikes.
The attitude of Canadians to the rioting students of Quebec is, as usual, split almost exactly along the lines of The Great Canadian Language Divide: the Francophone population, about 23.2 % (Quebec is the largest French speaking province of Canada) more or less supports the students; while the rest of Canada, 59.7 % of its English speaking populace, looks on, appalled.
The Anglo Saxon community looks at all the Québecoise-canadienne (Quebeckers) as being some sort of privileged social parasites sucking the blood from the budget. The problems with Quebeckers, their English speaking compatriots claim, is that they feel more connected to France than they do with the rest of Canada. A great deal of their money comes from the booming resource economy of English speaking Alberta, whose social and economic model is despised by millions of Quebeckers – especially the protesting students.
The quintessence of this kind of attitude was recently quite neatly put together by Canada’s most prominent political columnist Margaret Wente, who said the Quebec students are “the Greeks of Canada”: “If this is an example of Quebec’s distinct society, we want no part of it. We sort of sympathize with the Germans, who are fed up with the Greeks because the Greeks strike them as totally irresponsible. The Greeks want to have it both ways. They want to stay inside the EU, but they refuse to play by the EU’s rules. They want the Germans to send them money forever and ever, and no matter how much the Germans send, they’ll keep demanding more. The student protesters are the Greeks of Canada. And we’ve had it,”Margaret Wente admits, adding “Actually, I feel much sorrier for the Greeks than I do for the protesting students.”
Greek students lead a riot at Quebec University, Canada Greek Reporter’s headline said last week, quoting Globe and Mail.
"I'd love to open a tennis school for children in my hometown of Sochi." said Sharapova Maria.
