Thursday, April 26, 2012

Quebec women's centres strike in support of students

Hundreds of thousands of students have been demonstrating against the reduction of funding for university education in Quebec.

Today, Quebec women's centres went on strike in support of the students, stating:

En effet, un système d’éducation accessible est au cœur de la construction d’une société plus démocratique et plus juste. La lutte qui est en cours concerne tout le monde et tout particulièrement les femmes parce qu’elles avaient largement bénéficié de la démocratisation de l'accessibilité aux études : accès à de meilleurs emplois et à de meilleurs salaires, augmentation de la participation aux débats publics, amélioration de l’autonomie économique et de leur émancipation.

[my rough translation:

Effectively, accessible education is at the heart of the effort to build a just and democratic society. The struggle that is happening now concerns everyone, especially women, because women have largely benefited from making education accessible through access to better jobs and salaries, increased participation in public demate, economic autonomy and emancipation.]

Linking cuts to university education to cuts to health, women, and first nations, they issued a statement via video as well (in French). It states, among other things, they have followed 11 weeks of protest and deplore the use of pepper spray on peaceful student demonstrators, calling it disproportionate and gratuitous:



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