Education issues in Canada
Ontario teachers to face pension cuts under union-promoted deal
By Carl Bronski, 15 May 2013
A deal between the Ontario Liberal government and the Ontario Teachers’ Federation that freezes pension plan contributions is generating opposition among public school teachers.
Ontario Liberals to keep raising post-secondary tuition fees
By Dylan Lubao, 19 April 2013
Ontario’s NDP-backed minority Liberal government has announced plans to raise university tuition fees to $8,000 by 2016.
Quebec’s Education Summit and the failure of ASSE’s protest perspective
By International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Canada), 5 March 2013
Supporters of the IYSSE distributed this statement at the February 26 demonstration organized by the student group ASSE to protest the Quebec government’s education summit.
Quebec: PQ imposes annual hikes in university tuition fees
By Keith Jones, 28 February 2013
Using a phony “national” Education Summit as a backdrop, Quebec’s Parti Québecois government announced Tuesday that henceforth university tuition fees will rise annually by at least 3 percent.
Toronto homeless advocates protest budget cuts
By Dylan Lubao, 27 February 2013
In the midst of a luxury condo boom, eight homeless people have died in Toronto in the first eight weeks of 2013.
Quebec’s education summit: A cover for university tuition fee hikes
By Keith Jones, 25 February 2013
Today and tomorrow, Quebec’s Parti Québecois government will hold an education summit to provide political cover for imposing annual university tuition fee hikes.
Ontario teachers’ union funded Liberal leadership candidates
By Carl Bronski, 8 February 2013
The largest secondary school teachers’ union local in Ontario lavished donations on candidates running to lead a provincial Liberal government that is implementing a brutal austerity program, including real wage-cuts for teachers.
Ontario government threatens teachers with fines in bid to thwart walkout
By Carl Bronski, 11 January 2013
Ontario’s Liberal government has urged the province’s Labour Relations Board to declare the one-day walkout by 76,000 teachers planned for today illegal.
Ontario Liberals impose sweeping concessions on teachers
By Carl Bronski, 5 January 2013
Invoking its anti-worker Bill 115, Ontario’s Liberal government has imposed concessions contracts on thousands of teachers.
Parti Québécois’ education summit—a mechanism for imposing tuition fee hikes and spending cuts
By Eric Marquis, 4 January 2013
Quebec’s trade unions and student associations are lending their support to the Parti Québécois government’s phoney “national summit” on higher education.
Ontario high school teachers union accepts concessions
By Carl Bronski, 24 November 2012
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has reached agreement with seven provincial school boards on a series of major concessions demanded by the Ontario’s Liberal government.
Ontario teachers’ unions seek concessions deal
By Carl Bronski, 8 November 2012
The union of Ontario public teachers has postponed limited job action in protest of legislation that imposes wage cuts and other concessions.
Quebec: Thousands protest Liberals’ tuition hikes, user fees and privatization
By Keith Jones, 24 August 2012
The large turnout in Wednesday’s demonstration attests to the fact that youth and workers are as determined as ever in their opposition to the Liberal government’ rightwing agenda, but CLASSE made no effort to draw the political lessons of the past six months of struggle.
Quebec students debate whether to continue their strike
By a WSWS reporting team, 14 August 2012
The WSWS spoke with students who met last week to decide whether to continue their six-month strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s plans to dramatically raise university tuition fees.
SEP public meeting
The Quebec student strike, the working class and the struggle for social rights
11 August 2012
The SEP is holding a public meeting in Montreal August 16 to draw the lessons of the Quebec student strike and elaborate a socialist internationalist strategy to carry forward the fight for fundamental social rights.
Quebec students seek to broaden strike, but CLASSE leaders capitulate to union opposition
By Keith Jones, 24 July 2012
Tens of thousands of striking students and their supporters marched through downtown Montreal Sunday in a demonstration called by CLASSE, the student association that has spearheaded the five-month strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s plan to drastically raise university tuition fees.
Quebec union head condemns “social strike” against Charest government
By Richard Dufour, 28 June 2012
The president of Quebec's second-largest labor federation has ruled out any possibility that the unions will organize even limited job action in support of the striking students and against the provincial Liberal government.
Québec Solidaire open to an electoral alliance with the Parti Québécois
By Richard Dufour, 19 June 2012
Under conditions where the four-month-long student strike and opposition to Bill 78 have roiled the establishment, Québec Solidaire has again signalled its readiness to form an electoral alliance with the Parti Québécois.
Quebec: Protests continue against Bill 78 and the attack on education
By a WSWS reporting team, 16 June 2012
The vast movement of social protest that arose in Quebec in response to the provincial Liberal government’s university tuition fee hikes is continuing.
Quebec artists denounce governments’ smear campaign against student strike
By Keith Jones, 14 June 2012
More than 2,500 writers, filmmakers, actors, and others artists have signed an open letter to Quebec Culture Minister Christine St. Pierre demanding that she retract her claim that the four-month-long student strike is “violent.”
“Casserole” protests in support of Quebec students spread across Canada
By a WSWS reporting team, 5 June 2012
A new form of protest, “casserole” demonstrations, emerged last month in response to the Quebec Liberal government’s draconian Bill 78.
Quebec government scuttles talks to end 16-week student strike
By Keith Jones, 1 June 2012
Quebec’s Liberal government broke off negotiations with student associations yesterday afternoon.
As state repression continues
Student associations in talks with Quebec government
By Keith Jones, 30 May 2012
Quebec’s province-wide student associations held talks Monday and Tuesday with the provincial Liberal government, even as it continued its drive to break the 16 week-long student strike.
Quebec student strike: Government excludes fee hikes, Bill 78 from proposed talks
By Keith Jones, 26 May 2012
One week after criminalizing Quebec’s 15-week-long student strike, the provincial Liberal government is apparently about to summon leaders of the province-wide student associations for talks.
Quebec police mount mass arrests in bid to break student strike
By Keith Jones, 25 May 2012
Following this week’s mass protests backing Quebec’s striking students, the state has intensified its repression.
Quebec student strike:
Police begin to apply draconian Bill 78
By Keith Jones, 24 May 2012
Quebec authorities have begun to make use of the sweeping repressive powers contained in Bill 78—the emergency legislation the provincial Liberal government rushed through the National Assembly late last week to suppress the province-wide student strike
Quebec law criminalizing student strike threatens basic rights of all
By Keith Jones, 19 May 2012
Quebec’s Liberal government has rammed through emergency legislation that criminalizes the fourteen-week long Quebec student strike and places chilling restrictions on the right to demonstrate over any issue.
Quebec to adopt emergency law to break student strike
By Keith Jones, 18 May 2012
The Quebec Liberal government introduces emergency legislation aimed at breaking the 14-week student strike.
SEP/ISSE public meeting:
Defend Quebec’s striking students! Education should be a social right!
16 May 2012
The International Students for Social Equality and the SEP (Canada) are holding a public meeting in Kingston, Ontario on the afternoon of Saturday, May 19 as part of the fight to mobilize the working class in defence of Quebec’s striking students.
Quebec students reject union-promoted sellout of their fight for accessible education
By a WSWS reporting team, 11 May 2012
Striking students have overwhelmingly rejected the agreement reached last Saturday between the Quebec Liberal government and leaders of the three province-wide student associations to end their three-month strike.
Quebec scuttles talks with striking students, unveils plan to nearly double tuition fees
By Richard Dufour, 1 May 2012
The Quebec Liberal government’s “global solution for university accessibility” is a transparent attempt to break the 12-week-old student strike and legitimize further state repression.
Workers must rally to the defense of Quebec’s striking students
By Keith Jones, 27 April 2012
The Canadian elite has been so implacable in its opposition to the Quebec student strike because it recognizes that the students’ insistence that education should be a social right is an implicit challenge to their entire class strategy.
Major daily publishes fascist diatribe against Quebec student strike
By Eric Marquis, 25 April 2012
One of Quebec’s principal dailies has published a commentary from a senior Quebec government official that openly calls for fascist-type violence to be employed against striking students.
Quebec government seeks to intimidate, split striking students
By Keith Jones, 21 April 2012
Over the course of the past week, Quebec’s Liberal government has escalated its efforts to break the two-month old strike of students opposed to its plan to increase university tuition fees by 75 percent.
In the face of state repression, government intransigence:
Quebec student strike at a crossroads
By the International Students for Social Equality, 18 April 2012
The two month-old Quebec student strike must become the catalyst for a working class counter-offensive against the destruction of jobs and public services.
Quebec government escalates campaign to break student strike
By Eric Marquis, 14 April 2012
Quebec’s ruling elite has stepped up its campaign to break the two-month old province-wide student strike, which it views as an intolerable challenge to its drive to dismantle public services and extinguish any social rights.
Quebec authorities seeking to criminalize student strike
By Richard Dufour, 9 April 2012
Quebec’s Liberal government is using arrests, court injunctions and the threat of cancelling the winter semester to force an end to a nearly two-month-long strike by students opposed to its plan to raise university tuition fees by 75 percent.
Quebec student strike:
A strategy to mobilize the working class is needed
By Richard Dufour, 27 March 2012
The student strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s drastic increase in university tuition fees is at a crossroads.
Quebec: Mammoth demonstration in support of strike against university fee hikes
By Keith Jones, 24 March 2012
Two hundred thousand people took to the streets of downtown Montreal Thursday to demand that the Quebec Liberal government rescind its plan to raise university tuition fees by 75 percent over the next five years.
Quebec to implement university fee hikes in face of mass protests
By Keith Jones, 22 March 2012
In Tuesday’s budget address, Quebec’s Liberal government vowed to press ahead with its austerity program, including a 75 percent increase in university tuition fees that has sparked the largest student strike in the province’s history.
Quebec: Almost 200,000 students striking against university tuition fee hikes
By Eric Marquis, 17 March 2012
The student strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s plan to raise university tuition fees by 75 percent has swelled to involve close to 200,000 post-secondary students.
Support for Quebec student strike swells
By Eric Marquis, 1 March 2012
Seventy thousand university and college students have joined a two week-old strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s plans to dramatically increase university tuition fees. And thousands more may soon join the strike.
Quebec’s striking students must turn to the working class!
By International Students for Social Equality, 29 February 2012
Students must consciously reach out to workers as allies in a common battle and fight to transform the student strike against tuition fee increases into a unified struggle in defense of all public services, all social programmes, and all jobs.
Strike cancels classes at Toronto’s York University
By our reporting team, 15 November 2008
Having forced 3,500 teachers’ assistants and contract faculty on strike, York University is pressing for the contract dispute to be resolved by binding arbitration.
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