It’s just after 8pm in Montreal, and the reporter from CUTV is talking to a young mother who is taking her two kids to the 28th nightly demonstration in a row.

Even though she knows she could be arrested, for defying the Charest government’s totalitarian Bill 78, like so many were the night before.

“About 300 people were arrested and 20 were injured during overnight protests in Montreal in defiance of Quebec’s contentious Bill 78, which cracks down on student-stoked demonstrations sparked by the province’s proposed tuition hikes.”

And the leader of the largest student group warned today that it could be a long, hot, and dangerous summer.

“One of Quebec’s main student federations called upon its fellow citizens to disobey the provincial government’s emergency law, passed last week to stymie the daily and sometimes violent student protests.

“The government should cancel the bill ‘before people get injured, before people die,’ said spokesperson Gabriel Dubois-Nadeau.”

But then this is now more than a protest about tuition fees, and that young mother is not alone. As the people on this website say . . . arrest me somebody! arrêtez-moi quelqu’un!

And Je désobéis…
I DISOBEY.

Because some things are worth getting arrested for, and the freedom to demonstrate in a democracy is one of them.

You know I hate to see Quebecers fighting themselves, and I have absolutely no time for the handful of hoodlums who would throw things at police or break windows.

But whatever the Con media says, this is an overwhelmingly peaceful movement. Tonight some of them were wearing rabbit ears, and carrying balloons . . .

And because the police stayed at a distance, there was no violence or mass arrests. Just another big freedom party in the streets of the city I love so much.

I have no idea where this awesome struggle is going, and sometimes I fear the worst.  Because it is polarizing opinion in the province like nothing I’ve seen before.

But I do know that this Quebec Spring is now too big and broad based to be suppressed with night sticks and pepper spray. Jean Charest must do the right thing, scrap Bill 78, and negotiate with the student leaders. Instead of hoping that he can use the protests to win the next election.

And I also know that the people in the streets of Montreal, the students and the others, are marching for ALL of us in Harper’s ghastly Canada. Where Peace, Order, and Good Government never sounded more like a fascist slogan, as the Cons dismantle our country.

Today it’s their turn. Tomorrow it will be ours.

Which is why I love this message so much……

Here’s to the big freedom party.

Solidarité FOREVER . . .

Quebec’s striking students received some high-profile musical support last night when Montreal’s Arcade Fire appeared on “Saturday Night Live” wearing the symbol of the student movement, a red square.

The Grammy-winners, along with Nick Fraiture of The Strokes, accompanied host Mick Jagger on a version of the Rolling Stones’ 1965 single, “The Last Time.” They aren’t the first Quebec artists to offer the symbolic endorsement while on an international stage: earlier Saturday, filmmaker Xavier Dolan and the stars of his new movie Laurence Anyways wore the carré rouge on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.

While Arcade Fire performed, protestors once again flooded the streets of Montreal, testing Quebec’s new Bill 78, intended to clamp down on the strike. Among other strictures, the law requires that police be given eight hours notice of any gatherings involving more than 50 people. They have reportedly been flooded with calls, including prank notices of children’s birthday parties.

Well I suppose it was inevitable eh? Ever since the Quebec students began marching, the Con media has been attacking them like a pack of rabid hyenas.

The Con liberal Andrew Coyne called them a violent mob. The windy little teabagger Rex Murphy called their protest a self-indulgent parody.

The petty-bourgeois hack Margaret Wente did her ghastly Marie Antoinette impression.

But now Michael Den Tandt has gone one deranged step further, and called for the Quebec students to be caned.

There’s a better way: Dispersal with massive use of tear gas; then arrest, public humiliation, and some pain. In 1994, an 18-year-old American named Michael Fay, living in Singapore, was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of vandalism and mischief, after he keyed several expensive cars. He was sentenced to four months in jail, a $3,500 (Singaporean dollars) fine and six strokes of the cane, applied to his bare buttocks.

Barbaric? Not really. Arguably, caning is more merciful than incarceration for an energetic young vandal on the cusp of becoming a full-fledged career criminal. Many would probably rather be caned than locked up, given their druthers.

Caned like they are Singapore . . .

And I really don’t know what to say? Except is he serious?  Is it booze? Is it dementia? What kind of kinky stuff is this?

And of course what kind of savage country are we becoming?

You know the other day a friend of mine said the problem is the boomers invented the youth culture. But now they are old, so they hate the young with a passion. And  this is the beginning of a brutal generational war.

But I prefer to think it’s just another sign that Canada, corrupted by the filth of Stephen Harper and his Con thugs, has lost its way.  And doesn’t even recognize that the young are its future. And that they are fighting for a better world.

“When we defend the right to free public education to serve the people and their needs, we confront the bigger fishes that are obstacles along our path. And it is at this point that we must be more ingenious, more intelligent, more committed, more relevant, to avoid falling into the game and strategy of those who wish to divide us, frighten us, those who see us as hardliners, as delinquents.

A better world for ALL of us here now, and all future generations.

And I did point out to my friend that not all older Canadians are on the wrong side of history . . .

Didn’t you just love that fighting senior telling the cops what he thought of them?

Yup. Michael Den Tandt should shove that cane where the sun don’t shine.

The Con media should restrain themselves.

And the Quebec students should keep on marching . . .

Uh oh. It  looks like my Quebec student’s victory celebration party, from which I’m still recovering, was a little premature.

Students in a half dozen colleges and 10 university faculties and departments voted to reject the agreement on Monday after the Charest government boasted of having won the battle. Students at other schools are set to vote on the deal throughout the week, but the trend is clearly running against it.

So premature in fact that when I return to Montreal, after having praised this “deal” as a decent “compromise” in a post the other night, I’m going to have to wear a mask or a hoodie. So some of my friends don’t recognize me and beat me up. Or at the very least call me a fool.

But hey, how did I know that the Quebec Liberals would cheat?

After weathering criticism from members on the weekend, student leaders claimed Monday the agreement they signed was not a true reflection of the 22-hour-discussions held Friday night to Saturday afternoon in Quebec City.

They also accused Premier Charest and Line Beauchamp, the Education Minister, of gloating the government had not conceded on the tuition increases.

How did I know that I couldn’t trust the Education Minister?

How could I ever have imagined that the pathetic ex-Con Jean Charest would strut around like a barnyard rooster, crowing about how he had put the province’s students in their place, in a desperate attempt to try to take the spotlight off his corrupt government?

The big man. The big chicken . . .

Oh well. One day I’ll learn to lead with my head instead of my heart.The good news is that the Quebec students are showing amazing strength and solidarity, even if many of them face losing the whole semester.

Helping Canadians understand that there are better models …

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.

Better models than the Made in America one, or the horror of Harper’s jungle.

The savage state or l’état sauvage . . .

And the bad news? The savage state is going to try to crush them.

Because Jean Charest dreams of winning an election, on the backs of the young.

Here’s to the Quebec students.

May their strong but gentle spirit never be broken…

Reviewed by Brian Brennan

Jan Wong was a star of The Globe and Mail newsroom, a driven, gutsy, award-winning reporter who observed the Tiananmen Square massacre at first hand, and tested the limits of Canada’s airport security by smuggling box cutters aboard four Air Canada flights in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In September 2006 she wrote a morning-after feature story – a combination of reporting and analysis – on the Montreal Dawson College shooting that left the gunman and one student dead. In her story she linked the incident to two other Montreal school shootings, noting that in each instance the perpetrator came from immigrant stock. Each had been marginalized in a society that valued “pure laine,” which Wong defined as francophone slang for old-stock Quebecers.

All hell broke loose.

Out of the Blue chronicles the crisis that followed for Wong, including her two-year struggle with depression and her fight to have her sick pay restored after the employer accused her of malingering. It’s a candid, compelling, unflinching account, dappled with references to others who battled depression and wrote about it, and packed with well-documented information about the history, causes, symptoms, and treatment of mental illness. It also offers a rare glimpse into the inner workings of an intensely competitive newsroom where reporters complained of “severe byline deprivation” if they hadn’t a story in the paper for a while.

The “pure laine” reference, cleared by her editors before publication, plunged her into hot water. Letters of condemnation, 13 of which the Globe published, came from readers including Prime Minister Harper and Quebec Premier Charest. The House of Commons passed a motion apologizing to the people of Quebec for the “offensive remarks.” Wong received a flood of racist hate mail, abusive phone calls, packages containing excrement and mutilated copies of her books, and a death threat alarming enough to warrant calling police.

The Globe let Wong take the fall. It attempted to appease her critics by publishing an editorial saying there was no evidence Quebec’s linguistic struggle contributed to marginalization of immigrants or to any violence perpetrated by them. The editor-in-chief, Edward Greenspon, added in a damning column that Wong’s opinions should not have been part of her story. With nobody in her corner, Wong went on extended stress leave, during which she was diagnosed with severe depression.

Wong remained mostly silent following the uproar. After first granting her permission to talk to other media outlets about the backlash, the Globe management slapped a gag order on her. At the same time, the newspaper company’s insurer, Manulife, began questioning her claim that she was stricken with a mental illness and could not return to work.

Though she ended up losing her job at the Globe, Wong eventually received written acknowledgement from the employer that she had been ill and unable to attend work during the time she was on stress leave. She also negotiated successfully for a favorable settlement agreement and removal of the gag order. But that wasn’t the end of the Globe fallout. Left free to write about her ordeal, she landed a contract with Doubleday Canada and spent three years at work on Out of the Blue. She was “a keystroke away” from sending it to final copy edit before printing when her publisher got cold feet, despite having had the book assiduously lawyered, because of some references she made to the Globe‘s “corporate bullying.” Wong refused to change the material, parted ways with Doubleday, and published the manuscript herself.

I’m grateful that she did. Books like this rarely make it into print because corporations generally demand silence as part of settlement agreements with individuals who sue them for wrongful dismissal. Wong took on three behemoths – the Globe, Manulife, and Doubleday – and emerged from the fray with her voice gloriously intact.

It’s reached a point where I almost can’t bear to read or watch any MSM coverage of the Quebec student strike.

Because all I usually see is a bunch of kooky old right-wing pundits flapping their gums, or hissing like kettles. Like the grotesque Con dwarf Rex Murphy.

Who should have been locked in a padded cell, or a broom closet, for writing such fascist tripe.

So I thought I should straighten him and the others out by pointing out some other facts:

(1) The students staged massive peaceful marches for weeks, but the Charest government refused to even talk to them. Even as many of them were being arrested for no good reason.

(2) The government only changed its tune when student anger reached a boiling point, and a handful of the usual suspects broke a few windows. And only so the Quebec Liberals could pose as champions of law and order, to try to make people forget that they are one of the most criminally corrupt governments in modern Canadian history.

(3) The battle to keep university education affordable has been going on for more than forty years, since the days of the Quiet Revolution. And is one of the things that makes Quebec a distinct society.

“[University of Montreal political science professor Pierre] Martin sees the conflict linked to an unrealized promise of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution of the 1960s: free post-secondary tuition.’That’s the norm that people compare themselves to and that’s part of the reason tuition fees remained so low in Quebec for such a long time, because whenever the thought of raising them came to public debate, it was not in the minds of most people.’”

(4) Those who ask why Quebec students should complain, when their tuition fees are the lowest in the Canada, should really be asking themselves: Why are tuition fees so high in the rest of the country? Or why isn’t tuition FREE as it is in Scotland?

Because education is a right. We need educated citizens more than we need tanks and war planes. And the kind of society you live in depends on your PRIORITIES.

(5) If the strike and the massive marches have become more than just about education . . .

“How is it that so many people are so worked up about a relatively minor increase in tuition fees? In spending time talking to protesters, one thing becomes clear. This movement, if it ever was, is no longer just about tuition . . .

“‘The issue is bigger than tuition fees,’ [says one protestor]. ‘It is a question of re-establishing democracy. There is no democracy. We are closer to totalitarianism. Decisions are made without listening to the people.’”

. . . So much the better. For we will NEVER change the world by sitting on our asses. And I only wish that we could get 200-thousand people into the street to protest against the way the Harper regime is raping our democracy and our values.

But getting Canadians off their couches is harder than raising the dead. So I don’t just support the Quebec students, I’m grateful to them for showing us the way to resist.

And for giving younger Canadians role models like the leader of CLASSE, the largest student group, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois . . .

“In a speech this month, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois said the students are battling the same ‘elite’ that lays off workers at Aveos aircraft maintenance and Rio Tinto mines, and that prevents Couche-Tard convenience-store workers from unionizing.

“‘Those people are a single elite, a greedy elite, a corrupt elite, a vulgar elite, an elite that only sees education as an investment in human capital, that only sees a tree as a piece of paper and only sees a child as a future employee,’ he said.”

Who is my kind of hero.

Yup. Marching for a better world.

Shining like a light in the grubby darkness of Harperland.

Never giving up. On lâche rien.

Go students GO…

Published by kind permission of Talonbooks.

By Michel Tremblay

Her grandmother hugged her tight, unable to say a word; her grandfather swallowed his tears; only her sisters let themselves go and cried, copiously. With her big suitcase beside her, she herself hasn’t moved, her lips quivering slightly but not too much. Strangely enough, no goodbyes have been exchanged though both grandparents and granddaughter know that they’ll probably never see one another again. Don’t say things. Avoid them or arrange so that they don’t exist. A calculated chill instead of outpourings, though they are necessary.

She did not turn around when she climbed into the buggy so she hasn’t seen the dejection in the eyes of Josephine and Meo from whom one-third of what is left of their reason for living is being taken away this morning while they wait for the rest to be cut off. Will the other two leave on the same day or will they have to live twice more through this intolerable scene that should be taking place amid heartbreaking sorrow and cries but is actually happening in a terrifying silence? Will they be able to bear three departures, three times on the same train?

When Monsieur Sanschagrin’s whistle echoed in the early morning chill, Rheauna held out her ticket to the tall man with a moustache who had just asked her if she was Rheauna Rathier due to leave for Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. He spoke each name in a resonant voice as if they were all exotic destinations on the other side of the world. The door of the car closed with a gruesome bang, she ran to the first window, pressed her nose against the glass and then, as the train was starting to move, her sisters and her grandparents on the wooden platform waved desperately, she allowed herself to weep, to cry, to pound her fist. She wished that the other four wouldn’t see her collapse, that she could wait for the train to pull away from the station.

Before she gave in to her sorrow, but she couldn’t help it, she didn’t want to go away, to cross Canada or visit her two aunts and her second cousin, then lose her way in the big city, Montreal, with the mother she had stopped loving so long ago. She wanted to stop everything — the train that was picking up speed, the course of her life that was branching off in a direction she hadn’t chosen, the nightmare that was starting here, this morning, that perhaps would never end. She thought about jumping off the train, at the risk of breaking her neck, or pulling the alarm bell to stop it. Or throwing herself at the tall, moustached man, who was looking at her wide-eyed, to punch him and beg him to give her back her family. She thought about dying or, rather, that’s what death was: a definitive departure for an unknown destination. Alone. In a moving prison. With no hope of a change.

This time it’s the entire village of Maria that seems to be swalllowed up by the fields of wheat. And rye. And oats. And corn. The steeple of the church of Sainte- Maria-de-Saskatchewan floats for a moment above a square that’s greener than the rest, of wheat that’s not yet fully mature though it will soon be haying time, then it, too, will drown in the waves of grain and disappear for good. Never again will she see that either. She will talk about it all her life, she will describe the colours, the smells, the horror of bushhfires like the one last summer, the beauty of summer sunsets and the northern lights in winter over the vast plains, the tears that will come to her eyes whenever she imagines her grandmother bending over her wood stove where a pot of beef and vegetables is simmering, or her grandfather rocking on his veranda and smoking his smelly pipe, or Devil chewing diligently on a juicy red apple. That’s all over now. She takes out her handkerchief, wipes away her tears, settles into her leather seat and looks out, shattered, at the endless plain that is running at full speed on either side of the train.

Excerpted from Crossing the Continent by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman. Published by Talonbooks, 272 pages, $18.95.

As the Liberals continue their fevered pathetic assault on Nycole Turmel.

No doubt hoping that out of her ashes, their shrunken party will rise again, like some fleshless phoenix. Or some charred scarecrow.

Even as they help fuel comments like this and this and this in the pages of the MSM.

It probably wouldn’t hurt if they read this column.

Because then they might, hopefully, ask themselves, what the hell are they are doing?

Do they really believe that by bashing a 67-year old granny, whipping up a Red Separatist Scare, and encouraging anti-French feeling, that they can win back Quebec? The province they absolutely need to recover, if they are ever to become a viable party again.

And where else do they think this tempest in a cracked teapot will help them? In Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta?

Or will it help bring the real separatists to power, help the Cons win another majority, and maybe even contribute to the destruction of our country?

Gawd. Never has the Liberal Party stooped so low. Or acted so dumb.

They lost Quebec because they couldn’t understand it. And now because they STILL don’t understand it, they are about to lose it all over again.

And worse they can’t seem to understand that granny Turmel, and her gang of young Quebec MPs, have dealt the real separatists the hardest blow they have EVER received.

Oh boy. For years I have tried to be as non-partisan as possible, and avoided being too harsh on the Liberals, hoping against hope that progressives would unite to defeat the Cons. But not any longer.

Somebody please stop this madness.

Before it damages our country further . . .

By Alison@Creekside

Just a 2% increase in the popular vote took the Cons from 143 seats in 2008 to a 167 seat majority tonight, thanks to our fucked up first-past-the-post system and because of what happened in key ridings in Ontario where presumably the Lib voters moved over to the Cons: ie., in Toronto the Cons took 31 seats to the Libs’ 8 and the Dippers’ 12.

So the Libs and the Dippers change places in seat count compared to 2008, Elizabeth May finally gets a seat while Duceppe and Iggy lose theirs, and the Bloc, the only genuinely social democratic party in the country, is wiped out.

Consider this: Quebec’s 59 seats has kept the Cons from an almost total lock on the country this time.

It will be interesting to see how Alice at Pundit’s Guide breaks down the efficacy of the various strategic voting guides. In my own riding — West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky — the recommendation from Project Democracy, previously Vote for Environment in 2008, and other strategic voting sites was to vote Liberal. As it turned out, the Dipper came second to the winning Con, who would have won anyway.

Note: In 2008 the voter turnout was 59%; today it was 61%. So much for Get Out the Vote.

What else hasn’t changed since 2008?

60% of the 60% of Canadians who voted still did not vote for Harper, who has been allowed to govern as if he held a majority for five years already now.

As you know I have always tried to be as non-partisan as possible. All I want is ANYONE but Harper. But these days, like most people in my neighbourhood, I’m also hoping for an orange wave.

I’m hoping for that because I honestly believe that what Jack Layton has managed to achieve in Quebec, breaking the stranglehold of the Bloc, is a historic opportunity that may not be repeated again.

And I’m worried about what might happen in Ontario.

The surge of the New Democratic Party in Quebec appears to be holding strong but a new survey conducted by Nanos Research suggests there has been no similar bump for the NDP in Ontario, where elections are won and lost.

I’m worried that if the NDP and Liberal support remains roughly the same, the vote split could help the Cons. And I know we could lose that historic opportunity.

“There are probably a number of voters in Quebec who have watched what’s happened and have started to park into the undecided column,” he said. “ It doesn’t mean that they are necessarily going to move to the New Democrats. It means that they are up for grabs in the last seven days of the campaign.”

Just like I know that if Ontario did join the orange wave even more people in Quebec would vote for the NDP, so would people in the Atlantic provinces and British Columbia. We could steal some Con seats even in Saskatchewan.

And a great orange wave could sweep from coast to coast to coast. And change this country FOREVER.

I hope my Liberal friends don’t hold these words against me, or treat me like The Enemy. Because of course I’m not. There are a lot of good Canadians in that party. Including the person I love the most. And I’m sorry what those foul bully Cons have done to their leader.

“Those negative [Conservative] attack ads helped form Canadians’ opinions of Michael Ignatieff even before Day One in this election,” said Mr. Nanos. “He started off with a disadvantage” and has not been able to overcome it.

But the sad truth is Ignatieff has been damaged beyond repair. The Liberals have lost Quebec. Their party is old and tired. And it can’t offer the hope Jack Layton and the NDP can, for something new and different.

And then there is this other consideration. If the Liberals did end up in third place, and working in a coalition government with Layton as Prime Minister, a little humility might do them good. They would be forced to come to terms with what kind of party they really are. And that would make it easier for them and the NDP to merge, and form the Liberal Democrats. Our best hope for a Con-free future.

I know that changing old habits and party loyalties is hard. I realize that anyone who advocates that, is likely to be shot at by both sides. And I am aware, as Steve from Far and Wide writes, that our biggest enemy is cynicism.

We keep telling ourselves that voters aren’t cynical, but every measure suggests the opposition- they are, and nobody has really changed that perception, unless having no wear on your tires classifies as profound inspiration. People kicking themselves trying to figure out why Harper isn’t floundering in the polls, chiefly it’s because there is such a firm wall of pure cynicism surrounding the whole process, all the actors, all the brands, that the impetus for substantive change never manifests.

But after the breakthrough in Quebec, that’s the other big reason I am hoping for an orange wave. As an idealistic person I don’t want to live in a cynical Con world. It’s choking the life out of me like some dark winter of the soul.

And nothing can break that grim hamster wheel of despair like something new and different.

Oh well. That’s all I wanted to say. I will not be criticizing the Liberals in what remains of this campaign. Just working as hard as I can to help the progressive cause prevail. Still asking progressives to vote smart.

Because first and foremost those evil Cons must be DEFEATED.

But in my heart I’ll also be hoping for an orange wave. And a new beginning for Canada after so many years of darkness.

I may be disappointed eh? But that has never stopped me before.

Spring brings life back to The Great White North.

And hope springs ETERNAL . . .