I just saw this. Quebec: 23% population, 19.8% of GDP Alberta alone: 11% population, 16% of GDP If you add in Saskatchewan and the oil-producing regions of the Maritimes, I think you see the point. Per capita, Quebec does not generate near the money that other provinces do. However, I believe they have some of the highest government dollars spent on them per capita. So that's where some of my pissed-offedness comes from.
Dude, seriously, the police do not need to sneak provacateurs into their ranks, despite what blogger's evidence you may have. There is always a group of people who wanted nothing more than to cause shit in any protest because they know that they can get away with it. I went to a college that was full of them, and an outlying community that was filled with the same type of people, but couldn't get into the school, but showed up at any protest to raise hell. Some people just want to cause shit, and they do, and typically with these sorts of protests, they know they can get away with it because the others who are there because they are there to protest will just say "hey, stop it. Come on guys, stop". My distaste for everything Tea Party is known here, but you don't see any sort of this "provacateurism" going on in their rallies because someone who tried that shit would be surrounded by internet tough guys finally getting their chance. The people starting shit are assholes who take away from real issues. However, all too often you end up with a protest having a list of 40 demands having nothing to do with the main issue as every group decides to stick their nose into the protest.
They're protesting the outrageous student debt that they're under after school, not tuition. Stop trusting MSM. It's a fact that sometimes goons are hired to fuck shit up and make protesters look bad, 99% of them are peaceful.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/24/scott-walkers-prank-call-and-more-great-political-hoaxes.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... oaxes.html</a>
Quebec also has much higher provincial taxes than you do. I live close to the border and while beer might be cheaper in Gatineau, gas is more expensive.
I rest my case. You quoted a blog, and what they quoted was nothing more than a fleeting thought from an under fire Gov. Yeah, there is the old joke from the movements in the 60's that they: "always knew who was from the FBI because they were the ones saying 'lets blow shit up and raise hell'" But lets face it, the violent acts that occured in the 60's protest era were not at the hands of FBI plants. *edit* I was brushing my teeth and realized my last sentence may have be wrong as I feel like we talked about it in one of my classes. I will look into it tomorrow.
I know very little about Canada, or its politics. I will say this (which I believe is responsive to the thread as written): If you believe you need permission from the government in any way to protest, you do not have liberty. Nor do you deserve it.
Get fucked. Since when is working with your government to achieve your goal a bad thing? You can bash your heads against the wall like assholes, or you can all work together to get shit accomplished. You might see it as counter-productive to work alongside the very system you're protesting against, but these students aren't trying to overthrow the entire fucking government.
Get a clue. Where did I say you shouldn't work with your government? I didn't. It's not an inherently bad thing. But if you seriously believe and advocate that you should have to go to your government and ask 'hey, can you grant me permission to have a protest in order to criticize you for decision X you made,' what exactly would your recourse be if they say 'well, no, not this week.' Freedom that exists at the largess of others is not freedom at all. Which sounds great. Until the authority you're working with ignores you, or pays lip service and does nothing and drags their feet (which in political science is referred to as 'drift' and is the most common way that governments ignore criticisms and requests from the people) the very group they are ostensibly charged with helping. What then? More requests? My point is once you believe you need government permission to exercise your rights, then they're no longer really rights, they become privileges, which can be taken away. Nor am I saying that's the first step. My point was, and my only point, was in order to protest - in whatever form - if you feel it is necessary to request permission to do so, you are not free.
I'm big on fiscal restraint and sound budgeting, and being honest given the situation we're all in, there's going to be some pain and costs of public education should probably rise. That being said, all the old people really need to shut the fuck up. Yeah, if we young folk don't chip in and bail out the water along with everyone else, we're all going to drown, but you're the asshole that got drunk and drove the boat into a reef, so your only job right now is to keep your head down and bail faster and harder than everyone else. The absolute last thing you should be doing is whining about someone else grumbling that they have to bail the boat. <a class="postlink" href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/24/john-moore-its-the-older-generation-thats-entitled-not-students/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... -students/</a>
uhh dude, there have been several cases where police have admitted inserting under cover cops into Black Block protester groups in North America. The most famous admission about that sort of tactic was when a Wisconsin govenor being prank called thought he was talking to David Koch and was talking about inserting troublemakers into peaceful protests to spin it into something more than it was. Oakland police have talked publicly about how their guys were made leaders of the black block protests they infiltrated within a couple of hours and how they used it to try and direct the crowd. Fuck, Quebec police in '07 admitted to disguising cops as part of the protester groups to get better information on who to arrest afterward
FOCUS: Are the students in Montreal overreacting, or are they within their rights to protest a tuition hike? As a current student in Montreal, I believe that the students are entitled to protest the tuition hike. These tuition hikes should have been subtly increased beginning a long time ago. Students now are rightfully angry that they're bearing the brunt of this increase, while past students got to pass on through post-secondary with lower tuition fees. The government would be smart to drop the amount the tuition increases by each year and do it more gradually. While I think they are permitted to protest, I certainly do think there has been overreactions by the students in the measures they're taking to protest. While the protesters march along Sherbrooke (major street in Montreal) they've been throwing rocks at windows of banks, causing a lot of damage and potentially injuring a lot of people. They've also blocked off the Champlain Bridge (main bridge to get onto the Island) and thrown gas bombs which shut down all metro lines, causing hundreds of thousands of peoples' commutes (including mine) to be majorly delayed. TL;DR I'm in support of peaceful protest, but many students have taken it way too far.
Having a cop dressed in street clothes holding a sign to keep tabs on who is breaking shit is much different from the claim that "the cops involved are causing them to break shit". The only reference I found to your claim so far was someone claiming that the people who were breaking the most windows clothes looked too much like they just came off the "corporate rack". For god's sake they used the term "spidey sense" more than once. I am not saying that I don't see this possible. I am more saying that I have never seen any need to throw people into the mix to stir shit up. There are plenty of people who just want to cause shit. I knew a guy in high school who couldn't wait to go to his first protest to break shit. I knew people at college who just wanted to break shit. I know that nobody likes Black Bloc's hijacking of the occupy protests. They distract from the real issue, and cause people to only look at them, and not what the protesters are going after. No one wants to take responsibility for "that guy", and it is easier to say "he isn't one of us", or even "they are just a plant to make us look bad" than to accept that people just want to raise hell.
Dude, the governor of fucking Wisconsin pretty much tacitly admitted to doing it. Is it really that hard to imagine that maybe other states are doing the same thing? Please don't trust us, go listen to the phone call yourself or read the transcript. Then if you still don't believe that it's real go look up the official statement that the governor made. It's all right there for you to see, you just have to want to see it.
Hey, Hotwheelz, I'll bite: the Quebec provincial police are known to hide agents provocateurs among protesters: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/200 ... bello.html</a> Rather poorly, I might add, as they were so stupid as to wear the same boots as the cops on duty. It's a long, long, long walk to say that absolutely none of the violence is being committed by real protesters. Further to this, it's rather well established, going back to riots in Toronto during the G8 and in Vancouver during the Olympics, that Montreal harbours these radical anarchist types who exist for the sake of committing violence during protests.
Obviously YOU need to see it, and read a little more clearly and learn to comprehend what you have just read. I have even said that it has been known to happen in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are police in plain clothes in the middle of protests mall coping it. (observing and reporting). CONSIDERED! I have considered a lot of things, a lot of depraved and douchey things. But I didn't do them. And Walker was called out for being a douche for even considering using plants by a police chief in Wisconson. I get that you have a soft spot for the occupy movement as they gave you a great public platform to voice your problems with the state. But you seem to think it absolutely impossible that there are jackasses out there who want to raise hell and break shit using the large mass of people around them as a cover to get away with their vandalism.
Having an undercover agent help stir up angry sentiment does not excuse rioters from acting like thugs. That's tantamount to saying, "Hey that's not fair, we were tricked!" Tough shit, don't act like an asshole if you don't want your ass kicked by the cops. And by and large, the Occupy movement has gone from a group with legitimate concerns to a punch line.
I don't think it's entirely impossible, in fact it's likely. But you're completely ignoring what Scootah, there's testimony from police saying that they put under covers in Blac Bloc. What bothers me is a) the media has painted this unfairly and b) that people think their reasons are as simple as "DER LET'S FUCK SHIT UP". There's nothing I hate more than gross oversimplification.