Quebec elections: separatist Parti Quebecois wins minority government

Pauline Marois becomes province’s first female premier as voters throw out Liberal government in wake of student protests

Canadians in the French-speaking province of Quebec have voted for a change of government, electing the separatist Parti Quebecois and making its leader, Pauline Marois, the province’s first female premier.

The PQ is likely to form a minority government after winning fewer seats than required to take power outright, and the result leaves questions over whether it will be able to hold a referendum on leaving the Canadian federation.

The snap election was called after a student strike over raising tuition fees and the Liberal government’s crackdown on student protesters caused unrest across the province.

Former student strike leader Leo Bureau-Blouin, 20, was elected in his district of Laval, making him the youngest elected to the national assembly.

Jean Charest, the leader of the federalist Liberal party, which has governed Quebec for the past nine years, was unseated in his own district of Sherbrook, while his party came in second behind the Parti Quebecois. Support for the party leader has waned due to his handling of the student strike, allegations of corruption in the construction industry and passage of Bill 78 – a widely condemned anti-protest law that brought hundreds of thousands of Quebecois into the streets during the spring.

Marois has promised a tuition freeze until a summit on higher education financing is held, has pledged to repeal Bill 78, and would like to pass a third referendum on Quebec sovereignty. Quebec separating from Canada is a bitterly contentious issue between in the French-speaking province and the election of the PQ only to minority government may indicate Quebec people are not ready to face a third referendum, the previous two having been defeated.

Pictured: Supporters of Pauline Marois and the Parti Quebecois cheer the party’s victory in Quebec’s elections. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty

Who, What, Why: Why does a cabbage cost $28 in Canada?

Would you pay C$28 (US$27; £18) for a cabbage? $65 for a bag of chicken? $100 for 12 litres of water? That’s not the cost of a meal at a world-class restaurant, but the price of basic foodstuffs at supermarkets in the territory of Nunavut, in northern Canada.

Residents in Iqaluit, the territorial capital, and Arctic Bay, Pond Inlet and Igloolik, and sympathisers in the national capital, Ottawa, have been protesting in a bid to raise awareness of the high cost of food in remote communities. So why is their food so expensive?

Nunavut is as large as Western Europe and covers most of the Canadian Arctic, with a population of more than 30,000, mostly Inuit. Its harsh, northern climate means there is no agricultural industry.  

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, indigenous people in the area survived by hunting, fishing and gathering. But lifestyle changes mean local people are now reliant on imported food. And for most of the year, these communities are only accessible by air.

“We don’t have any roads or railways from the south so all goods have to be flown up every day,” says Madeleine Redfern, mayor of the capital, Iqaluit. “Fresh produce, milk, bread is delivered here daily, and less frequently in smaller communities further away.”

Michael McMullen, vice president for the northern Canada division of the North West Company, which runs 132 stores in remote Canadian communities, says getting food into stores in the north can cost 11 times more than it does in the south of the country.

Quebec government under pressure as Canada’s ‘casseroles protests’ expand

Draconian emergency bill introduced to stifle student protests has ‘politicised’ ordinary Canadians, say opponents

It’s just before 8pm in the Villeray district of Montreal. People wander in and out of the shops and bars, and traffic streams down the main road. But gradually the atmosphere changes, as clusters of people begin to congregate at the busy Jarry intersection. Some are in small groups, and others alone; hipsters in shorts and hi-top trainers mingle with parents in hiking boots and khakis. One thing unites them: they are all carrying pots and pans.

Within half an hour, the metro station is closed to traffic and the intersection is shut down. Hundreds of people are banging their pans, drowning out the sound of car horns from frustrated motorists. This clanking cacophony has become a nightly ritual all over Montreal: a remarkably successful street protest against a draconian emergency law enacted to crack down on what began as localised protest against tuition fees.

“This is about people power,” said Carlos Luer, a 53-year-old children’s worker who is attending the “casseroles” (pots and pans) protest for the first time. It wasn’t the students’ demands that brought him onto the street, but like thousands of others, he is motivated by bill 78, a loathed piece of legislation passed by the provincial government in Quebec in a failed attempt to stamp out the student protests .”This government said: ‘Keep your mouth shut.’ But they forget, these are the kids of tomorrow,” Luer said.

This growing crisis has its roots in March 2011, when Quebec’s finance minister, Raymond Bachand, announced that the government would increase tuition fees by C$325 (£203) a year for the next five years. Tuition fees in Quebec are lower than in any other province in Canada, and the government was facing a budget shortfall.

But the large increases in fees angered student groups, and in August a formal campaign was announced to overturn them. In November, 30,000 students defied the oncoming Canadian winter to rally in Montreal against the increases. By February, they were on strike, in small numbers at first, but then with more and more taking part. Daily marches against the increases were happening now, with some 200,000 people taking to the streets of Montreal on 22 March.

But still this might have remained a student-government issue. Polls showed that a majority of people in Quebec backed the increases. The protests also divided along linguistic lines: the English-language press in Quebec – a state where 80% of the population speaks French and which boasts a strong nationalist movement – was largely critical of the student movement, which had its roots largely in the Francophone universities.

Then, after growing frustrated with the student strikes and street protests, the government introduced bill 78. The emergency legislation made it illegal for more than 50 people to demonstrate spontaneously. Would-be protesters were required to submit an itinerary to police eight hours in advance. The law suspended universities’ academic terms until August, and enforced strict restrictions on any individual or organisation blocking pupils access to class. Student groups breaking the law faced fines of up to C$125,000, individual protesters C$1,250.

Bill 78 came into effect on 18 May. A day later, responding to a call on Facebook, a large number of residents of Montreal came out onto balconies and streets, banging pots, pans and anything they could get their hands on. The casseroles protests, inspired by the cacerolazo movement in Chile in the 1970s, has continued every night since.

“I’m very surprised,” said Kevin Audet-Vallee, 24, at a protest last Friday. “Now that the ordinary citizens are in the streets I think the government is really in trouble, because the middle class is in the streets. At first [critics of student protesters] were saying we were radicals. These are not radicals.”

Pictured: Protesters in Montreal bang pots and pans in protest over bill 78 and in support of striking students. Photograph: Peter Mccabe/AP

Nearly 700 people arrested in Quebec protests

Nearly 700 people have been detained in two Quebec cities in the biggest single night of mass arrests since student protests over fees began in February.

Police invoked a controversial new law designed to curb demonstrations as they detained 518 people in Montreal and another 176 in Quebec City.

The protests against a planned rise in tuition charges escalated after Bill 78 passed last week.

The Quebec government insists it will not change its mind on the fee hike.

The march in Montreal late on Wednesday began peacefully, as several thousand demonstrators flooded the central square of Quebec’s largest city.

Police later penned in the protest - adopting a controversial European police tactic known as “kettling” - after reporting they had been pelted with rocks and other projectiles.

Those arrested were released on Thursday and issued with fines of more than C$600 (£370), AFP news agency reports.

Authorities invoked Bill 78, which requires eight hours’ notification before public demonstrations.

Bill 78, passed last Friday, requires marches to follow pre-approved routes, but protesters say it infringes their democratic rights, and have pledged to legally contest it.

Since the passing of the public assembly law, more than 300 people were arrested overnight at a protest in Montreal last Sunday and another 100 were detained in the city on Tuesday.

Quebec rocked by student protests

Students clash with police as Quebec introduces emergency laws to close universities and crack down on tuition fee demonstrations

Quebec’s provincial government, facing the most sustained student protests in Canadian history, has introduced emergency legislation that would shut some universities and impose harsh fines on pickets blocking students from attending classes, as it looks to end three months of demonstrations against rises in tuition fees.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in downtown Montreal on Thursday night as the government introduced the bill, with protests spilling over onto an expressway between stalled cars. Tuesday will mark 100 days since the demonstrations began.

Authorities said 122 people were arrested on Wednesday as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Montreal. Bank windows were smashed and missiles thrown at police.

The prime minister of Quebec, Jean Charest, said the proposed legislation would not roll back the tuition increases. Instead, it would temporarily halt the spring semester at faculties paralysed by walkouts and bring forward the summer holidays. Classes will resume earlier in August.

The legislation contains provisions for heavy fines for students and their federations. Fines range from $7,000 to $35,000 (£4,000 to £22,000) for a student leader and between $25,000 and $125,000 (£15,000 to £78,000) for preventing someone from entering an educational institution. The bill also lays out strict regulations governing student protests, including having to give eight hours’ notice for protest itineraries. A vote on the measure is expected on Friday.

Pictured:Protesters at Montreal university: demonstrations over rises in tuition fees are into their third month. Photograph: Paul Chiasson/AP

Quebec student protests not just about tuition but battle against ‘greedy elites’

Defiant Quebec students had announced the second of what they vowed would be nightly protest marches until the Education Minister “stopped being childish” and agreed to negotiate an end to their 11-week strike over tuition.

But the weather was not co-operating, and as the appointed hour approached Thursday night, a cool drizzle fell on a mostly empty downtown park designated as the meeting point.

Just as it seemed the action would be a dud, the park started filling with people sporting the red square that is the symbol of the student movement. The march began, the crowd swelled and soon they would number over a thousand as they took over major downtown arteries for the next three hours.

“À qui la rue? À nous la rue!” they chanted. Whose streets? Their streets.

Quebecers have never been shy about taking to the streets to air their grievances, but the student demonstrations that have captivated the province this spring are in a different league. Multiple protests occur every day in Montreal alone, with three in the last week turning violent.

Premier Jean Charest announced Friday that, as a concession, he is prepared to spread the $1,625 tuition increase over seven years instead of the previously planned five. He said the annual increase would amount to 50 cents a day after tax credits. Student groups replied immediately that the gesture was inadequate.

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.

Véronique Boulanger-Vaugeois, 30, had ducked out of the rain for an espresso before the march began. She has a degree in social work from Université du Québec à Montréal but is currently unemployed. She recently decided to take a more active part in the student protests after recognizing its potential for broader societal change.

“For me the student movement, the student strike is just one part of everything we have to resolve,” she said. “The student movement is one in which the youth give us the energy, give us the power to refuse what is going on right now.”

Specifically that includes the tuition increases — she has fought for free university since her own student days — and the Liberal government’s northern development plan known as Plan Nord. But there is more. She also sees the protest as a refusal of “the entire capitalist, neo-liberal context that over time ends up having a very harmful impact, both locally and internationally, on the environment and on humanity.”

The previous night’s protest had left shattered windows and prompted police to use tear gas and pepper spray. Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay had despaired that his city was being disgraced around the world. Ms. Boulanger-Vaugeois, however, was unmoved by the mayor’s appeal for calm. “He should hold back his dogs. His dogs are the police,” she said. “It’s not the students who are causing destruction; it’s the police.”

Pictured: The student protest movement has become an outlet for a sweeping range of grievances. Graham Hughes for National Post.

(Source: nationalpost.con)

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Canadian killed in area of Mexico embroiled in drug violence
A Canadian citizen was shot dead in a shopping district in the city of Culiacan, northwest Mexico, in unclear circumstances, police said Monday.

Police found the body of Salid Abdulacis Sabas overnight, with gunshot wounds to the head and lying near nine heavy-calibre cartridge cases, said a statement from Sinaloa state police.

“Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends of the victim,” said a statement from Foreign Affairs. “Our officials in Mazatlan are in contact with local authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance during this difficult time.”

Sinaloa state is the home of Mexico’s most wanted drug trafficker, Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, and one of the most violent states in Mexico.