Students protests in Montreal, Canada, over Quebec's plans to raise tuition fees. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images
In Montreal, hundreds of thousands of students have been taking to the streets for weeks, often facing off against riot police. The province has been inundated with news, seemingly by the hour, of shifting tactics and the back-and-forth discussions between striking student groups and the government. Outside, unrest continues. There were more arrests, violence and property damage this week. It's a hell of a story. It's also one few Canadians outside Quebec actually care about. Maybe we should.
The students' grievances aren't just financial, but that's a good place to start: Quebec recently announced a 75% tuition fee increase over the next five years. That came as a shock to Quebecers and the province's powerful student movement, both of whom regard its current cut-rate fees as almost an issue of nationalist pride – a hangover from the province's Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when Quebec emerged from "la grande noirceur" of the Maurice Duplessis government and the firm grip of the Catholic Church, and started demanding more autonomy.
On the surface, such an extreme bump in fees sounds like something worth protesting against, perhaps even smashing a window for. Certainly it's enough for thousands of students to don a small red square – thesymbol for how the move could put them "squarely in the red", or "carrément dans le rouge" – on their lapels in a show of solidarity. But Quebec has the cheapest fees in Canada, and what the rise means in real dollars is part of the reason the rest of the country is indifferent to the plight of Quebec's students.
The rise translates into an extra $325 each year, for a total increase of $1,625 per student. It means that in five years, Quebec students will pay just under $3,800 a year for a basic undergraduate degree – still one of the lowest rates in the country. But those low tuition rates also don't do much for university enrolment. Roughly 30% of Quebecers go to university, compared with just over 50% in Atlantic Canada and over 40% in Ontario and the west – regions with much higher average annual fees. A year of undergrad studies in neighbouring Ontario, for instance, will probably set you back around $5,000.
