McGill University business professor Henry Mintzberg is asking many Quebec students, now in their 11th week of protests, to come to their senses.
“You are students, so I assume I can resort to reason, presenting arguments that you will consider, if not necessarily accept,” he writes in the Globe and Mail.
He proceeds to tell the students that they are not “striking” since that’s what you do against an employer. Also, education is heavily subsidized by the government and will continue to be so even with the proposed increases to tuition, “So in a sense, you are striking against yourselves.”
The article would be childishly obvious if it weren’t also rather needed. Yes, higher tution sucks, but it’s something a legitimate government is putting into law.
“There is lots of legislation that I don’t like either, some coming from governments that I deeply dislike, such as the current one in Ottawa. That’s life. It’s also democracy. We fight the legislation we don’t like in the legislatures, not on the street,” Mintzberg writes.
The protestors are, if nothing else, really emphasizing the importance of education. Paradoxically, they are doing so by denying themselves that very same education by boycotting their classes. Well, boycott doesn’t seem to be the right word since the action is only hurting them, not the government. Besides, premier Jean Charest has already amended the proposed fee hike, bringing the increase in over seven instead of five years, as well as increasing bursaries.
Usually, that would be considered a victory. Especially when the general public in Quebec seems somewhat unsympathetic to your cause — never mind the country at large, where people pay much higher tuition — you should really consider packing it in and accepting what concessions you have won.
Globe and Mail