Tweety : je sais pas pour votre cas précis, mais j'ai entendu plusieurs gens (à la télé) dire qu'ils étaient prêts à perdre leur session et reprendre leur cours plus tard. Je sais pas d'où ils venaient, j'espère qu'ils étaient au cégep, mais bon - tout ça pour te dire que je soupçonne les gens d'être beaucoup plus dévoués que toi ! ;)

Rob: we are striking against the government's $103 million cut in the Québec Financial Aid program. Actually, they converted that $103 million, which used to be distributed to students as bursaries, into loans - meaning that graduates face an even higher debt when getting out of school. This is the largest single cut ever. There were other attempts to make our point heard (including letter campaign, marches, phone campaigns, etc) but the current government isn't a kind that cares about what anybody but itself thinks. Personally I agree with the cause, but I think it's pretty contradictory not to attend our classes in order to value the accessibility of education. Right now about 70 000 students are on an unlimited strike and there will be 30 000 more if my University decides to join eventually.

That's the funny thing, every university functions by faculty - we don't. Faculty associations, we are told, don't have the structures that would allow us to vote while the Student Union does: that's why if the GA decides we're on strike, everybody is on strike. I find it pretty radical, especially when taking into consideration that the necessary quorum on the assembly is 700 persons.

What bothered me mostly about the opinions I heard from students this afternoon is how a lot of them really don't get what we're fighting against. A point that keeps being pushed in our face is that Québec students have the lowest tuition rates in Canada. Yes, we do, yes, that's nice - but, hello, this is completely beside the point. The point is the bigger the loans get, the less accessible education becomes to those who need that money. You can't freeze tuition fees and then make the poorest students pay for it. It's simply not logical.

What also bothered me is that some people just follow the majority. Hello, this is democracy - so what if you're the minority?
Take Galia, for example. She's against an unlimited strike; yet she voted in favor. She still had her hand up while they were counting and she was already bitching about it. When I told her: "hello, YOU are saying yes to this!" she replied: "does it look like my vote will make a difference?"
Well, when the result of that very vote is 320-something to 293, yes, I think your vote makes a difference. And I really wonder how many other people are just going with the majority. Because I think that's sad. That's really sad.