Quebec students send a message against austerity 

By Linda McQuaig
The Toronto Star
May 07, 2012

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1174591--quebec-students-send-a-message-against-austerity

No wonder those Quebec student protestors have been spooking
the English Canadian establishment. If they get their way,
the same ideas could catch on here, leaving the best-laid
plans for austerity in tatters.

What seems to particularly gall some English Canadian
commentators is the fact that the Quebec students - who
reached a tentative deal with the province on the weekend
after a three-month strike - have been protesting tuition
hikes that would still leave them with the lowest tuition in
the country. Why can’t these spoiled brats be grateful, and
go back to watching video games and keeping up with the
Kardashians like normal, well-adjusted North American youth?

It’s that old problem about Quebec. Somehow people there
manage to shake a bit loose from the rigid corporate-imposed
mindset that has gripped North America in recent decades,
convincing us that we as a society must cut back on things -
like university education and old age pensions - that were
somehow affordable in days when our society was a lot less
rich.

The Quebec students, more attuned to the outside world, have
figured out that this self-denial has more to do with dogma
than with some new reality allegedly necessitated by the
global economy.

How else to explain the fact that many northern European
nations manage to keep university education easily affordable
- even free in Scandinavia - while managing to compete very
effectively in the global economy?

The Norwegian embassy in Ottawa confirmed yesterday that, in
addition to free tuition, Norway provides a stipend to cover
much of a student’s living expenses. (Of course, Norway is
blessed with ample oil reserves - almost as blessed as
Canada.)

The Scandinavians - and the Quebec students - consider higher
education a public good, essential to democracy.

Many Scandinavian countries demonstrate their commitment to
this concept - and to genuine global community - by even
offering free university tuition to foreigners, including
North Americans. We reciprocate by treating foreign students
like cash cows to be milked relentlessly, charging them
tuition fees roughly three times the Canadian rate.

Now there’s the spirit of global co-operation!

This lack of generosity toward others isn’t surprising since
we even throw our own young under the bus. Student debt here,
which falls disproportionately on low-income households, now
totals $14.4 billion and growing by the second, as
demonstrated by the ticking debt clock on the Canadian
Federation of Students website.

Of course, high tuition also enables our establishment to
keep students on a tight leash, focused on getting into
professional and business schools (where they’ll have some
hope of repaying their debts) and keeping clear of courses
that might teach them to question prevailing orthodoxies and
mindsets.

Some mistakenly see a generational war going on here. But the
austerity fetishists also have their sights set on the older
crowd, with plans to take away two years of their retirement.

Under the more sensible Scandinavian approach - banned under
the business dogma that dominates here - the tax and transfer
system helps citizens move through the stages of their lives.

Education is paid for by those in the workforce whose
retirement will later be paid for by the students whose
education they paid for. Over the life cycle, it all works
out. Everybody contributes when they’re working, and gets a
hand at the beginning and end of their lives.

Everyone also has a chance to develop to the best of their
abilities, maximizing their own potential and raising
national productivity.

Rex Murphy, writing in the National Post, dismissed the
student protests as "the future elite of Quebec having a
self-indulgent fit."

It’s an odd form of self-indulgence. Tens of thousands of
students have marched hundreds of hours in the cold,
potentially jeopardizing their academic (and financial)
futures, in order to champion accessible education for all as
the cornerstone of a democratic society.

If only they could be less self indulgent, and stick to
drinking, partying and finding themselves a comfortable niche
in the corporate world.

[Linda McQuaig’s column appears monthly. [log in to unmask]]

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