As readers of this blog know, the erstwhile Liberal government in Québec attempted to increase university tuition fees a little over a year ago. This led to a long student strike and harsh police measures against student protest. Then the Liberal government was defeated in elections held in September, and the separatist Parti Québécois formed a new minority government. Given that it does not control the provincial parliament, it has been a remarkably aggressive government, introducing a number of highly visible nationalist measures, including a bill that would require businesses with more that 25 employees to operate internally in French. (Interestingly, the penalty for non-compliance would be inclusion on a name-and-shame website.)
More controversial still are the measures taken against universities. The above-mentioned tuition fee increase was cancelled along with the consequent revenue increase to universities. And the universities were presented with a retroactive cut of $126 million to their combined budgets. (McGill's share of the cut is about $20 million, just to give you an idea . . . eight months into the budget year, they have to fill this unanticipated hole in the current year's budget.)
It's a large cut, yet students and faculty seem oddly complaisant. At McGill, for example, the Principal, the Board, and non-academic staff have taken a strong stand, but as far as I can tell there has been little reaction from faculty or student groups. This marks a strange contrast with the enthusiastic support that the student protests found among faculty. Is it just the holidays?
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