Students in Quebec have turned to violence to protest against and overturn a proposed modest hike in university tuition by the provincial government. The increase would total $1,625.00 per year per student and would be phased in over seven years at the rate of $232.14 per year. At the end tuition would still be among the lowest in Canada and students in Quebec would still be paying a small fraction of the actual costs of their university education, the rest being borne by taxpayers all across the country.
Students went on strike eleven weeks ago to try and get the provincial government to rescind the increase but the government has held firm and students have turned to violence and vandalism as a result. Student mobs are roaming the streets, blocking transportation arteries, intimidating ordinary citizens, vandalizing businesses and private property, committing violent acts and generally causing mayhem. These mobs are becoming larger and more violent and destructive by the day and there is every indication that they will grow and become even more disruptive until the provincial government backs down or until they are they are stopped.
On no account should the provincial government back down or negotiate with the students and civil authorities should do everything they can to stop the violence and destruction and restore order, to take back the streets from the mobs. Peaceful protest is absolutely legitimate in Canada, but what is going on in Quebec is absolutely not.
If peaceful protest doesn’t work, violence, destruction and intimidation shouldn’t be seen as alternatives, which is exactly what has happened there. The original strike failed, peaceful protest didn’t work and students turned to mobs, violence, destruction and intimidation instead. If that works you can be sure that it will happen again and again in Quebec and the rest of Canada on a whole range of issues raised by society's malcontents, not just by impressionable students who wrongfully think they are being victimized and who live in a world of platitudes and simplistic notions. If mobs get their way in this instance in Quebec we will soon see them everywhere else in Canada too and violence, destruction and intimidation will become legitimized and acceptable and the order of the day. That is why the provincial government in Quebec should not back down or negotiate and that is why civil authorities must bring the unrest to an end and hold lawbreakers fully accountable. Mobs, mob rule, violence, destruction and intimidation are not legitimate or acceptable or the norm in Canada and Canadians must never allow them to be. Rest assured they will if Canadians don’t rise up and stop them.
Leaving aside the ludicrous demands of the students in Quebec and the fact that they are rightfully being seen as self-indulgent, spoiled, coddled children who are having a tantrum because they are not getting their way, plus the fact that the protests have morphed into a socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, anti-freedom movement, the choice for Canadians is really very simple.
Mob rule or the rule of law, that’s the choice.
Jerry Philipson is a retired grandfather who has spent many years working in non-profit social service agencies in Canada and the United States. He holds dual Canadian and American citizenship and has been passionate about politics, civil liberties, freedom and democracy for virtually his whole life. He is particularly interested in the Middle East and America and believes that it is vital for people of good heart and good conscience to speak out against tyranny and dishonesty and to stand up and defend and protect Western values, principles and institutions.
