More than 12,000 protesters take to the streets once again
Members of CUPE joined a crowd of thousands on the streets of downtown Montréal on August 22 to protest against university tuition fee hikes and Law 12 (Bill 78).
As they have on the 22nd for the last five months, starting this past “Maple Spring”, the marchers voiced a variety of grievances not solely related to the tuition fee hike issue.
Besides access to education, the protesters called for adequate funding of public services and social programs.
A coalition of union, community, student, women’s and environmental organizations was also involved in organizing the event.
With an election looming, the protesters were directing their messages largely to the political parties.
Festive and peaceful
After speeches by several leaders of the student movement, the march moved out of Place du Canada at around 3:00 p.m. and dissipated approximately two hours later. The atmosphere was festive and peaceful.
Although the majority of students have now returned to class to finish their winter term, some 96 student associations representing more than 90,000 university and CÉGEP students had opted to observe a day of protest on the 22nd day of this month.