Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories

Rally in Solidarity with Quebec Students

4:00pm
Tuesday May 22 2012

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Vancouver Students to Rally for the Right to Education and the Right to Assemble

Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories – May 21, 2012 – To commemorate 100 days of the student strike in Quebec and to build a movement in solidarity with them in the face of tuition hikes, mass arrests, crippling fines, and other forms of state-based repression, Vancouver area student organizers are calling for a rally to begin at 4:00 pm on Tuesday, May 22 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

For over three months now, students in Quebec have been on the streets, fighting for the right to education and now for the right to assemble and the right to free speech. What started off as an action against tuition increases, has come to include environmental and labor concerns, and drawn out thousands in solidarity. This Tuesday there will be over hundreds of thousands of people on the street in Quebec and in other cities throughout Canada to commemorate the one hundredth day of the strike.

More recently, the Quebec legislature has enacted Bill 78, which massively restricts the right to strike and to assemble. Under this law, organizations and individuals who participate in unsanctioned demonstrations or urge others to do so will be subject to crippling fines. This is the latest in a series of assaults by the Quebecois government on the student movement. These attacks have included mass arrests that have exceeded those during the October crisis and the G20, as well as repeated police brutality that has been condemned by international human rights organizations including Amnesty International.

The inspiring organizing efforts of the Quebecois student movement ought to spark conversations across Canada about the cost of post-secondary education. In British Columbia, the debate over the cost of education has largely been diverted from tuition fees to discussing student loan reform, even though BC has the highest tuition fees in the country. The historical moment provided by the strike should be taken by all of us as an opportunity to refocus our activism towards permanently and substantially reducing the cost of education.

It is time for Vancouver to stand up in Solidarity with the brave student movement of Quebec and for the rights of students everywhere! No to police brutality! No to undemocratic legislation! Yes to the right to strike and assemble! Yes to free public post-secondary education! Abolish tuition fees! Power to the People!

Rally for Public Post-Secondary Education
Vancouver Art Gallery
Tuesday May 22nd
4:00 pm

For more information please visit our facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/events/240181392749096/