The team behind 'Laurence Anyways' attends the film's premiere in Cannes, France. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.) Although Québécois filmmaker and actor Xavier Dolan may be across the Atlantic at the Cannes Film Festival, the government crackdown on civil liberties taking place in his home province doesn’t seem to be out of
Continue readingTag: Jean Charest
From Orangutan: Please Sign the Document to Invalidate Bill 78,
On May 17, the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest filed Bill 78 in the National Assembly, ostensibly as an act to enable students to receive the education provided by the post secondary institutions they attend. Bill 78, however, calls into ques…
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Please Sign the Document to Invalidate Bill 78,
On May 17, the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest filed Bill 78 in the National Assembly, ostensibly as an act to enable students to receive the education provided by the post secondary institutions they attend. Bill 78, however, calls into question much more. Quebec students have contested, for more
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Please Sign the Document to Invalidate Bill 78,
On May 17, the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest filed Bill 78 in the National Assembly, ostensibly as an act to enable students to receive the education provided by the post secondary institutions they attend. Bill 78, however, calls into question much more. Quebec students have contested, for more
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Good riddance, Line Beauchamp,
Thank you for resigning from your position as Quebec Education Minister and giving up politics Monday. Your decision makes the Quebec government just a little bit less corrupt, and, perhaps, just a little bit less incompetent. Best of luck to your repl…
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Good riddance, Line Beauchamp,
Thank you for resigning from your position as Quebec Education Minister and giving up politics Monday. Your decision makes the Quebec government just a little bit less corrupt, and, perhaps, just a little bit less incompetent. Best of luck to your replacement, Michelle Courchesne, herself a former Quebec Education Minister, from
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Good riddance, Line Beauchamp,
Thank you for resigning from your position as Quebec Education Minister and giving up politics Monday. Your decision makes the Quebec government just a little bit less corrupt, and, perhaps, just a little bit less incompetent. Best of luck to your replacement, Michelle Courchesne, herself a former Quebec Education Minister, from
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Dear Chilean Students,
Thank you for expressing your support for the college and university students that are currently striking in Quebec. I am happy that you too have criticized the neoliberal policies of the province’s Jean Charest government. I would also like to convey my gratitude, in particular, to Camila Vallejo (pictured), one
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Quebec Students and the Savage State
Uh oh. It looks like my Quebec student’s victory celebration party, from which I’m still recovering, was a little premature. Students in a half dozen colleges and 10 university faculties and departments voted to reject the agreement on Monday after the Charest government boasted of having won the battle. Students
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: To Line Beauchamp,
What if La CLASSE were a Jewish group, or a Hindu group, or a Buddhist group, or a Muslim group, or in other words, a group whose beliefs you don’t follow, but a group that nonetheless plays an important role in Quebec society? Would you still refuse to negotiate? In
Continue readingTattered Sleeve: Québec Students: You’re Coming Along
After school is over you’re playing in the parkDon’t be out too late, don’t let it get too darkThey tell you not to hang around and learn what life’s aboutAnd grow up just like them, won’t you let it work it out As I type this, thousands of youth are
Continue readingTattered Sleeve: Québec Students: You’re Coming Along
After school is over you’re playing in the parkDon’t be out too late, don’t let it get too darkThey tell you not to hang around and learn what life’s aboutAnd grow up just like them, won’t you let it work it out As I type this, thousands of youth are
Continue readingTattered Sleeve: Québec Students: You’re Coming Along
After school is over you’re playing in the parkDon’t be out too late, don’t let it get too darkThey tell you not to hang around and learn what life’s aboutAnd grow up just like them, won’t you let it work it outAs I type this, thousands of youth are ou…
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Psst Jean Charest,
Did you know that according to a recent study on access to information conducted by Canada’s newspaper industry Quebec was deemed to be “the most secretive” province in Canada? Mr. Charest, as the Quebec Federation of Journalists requests, please take a page out of U.S. President Barack Obama’s playbook and
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Bonjour Jean Charest,
You sure did blow off some smoke and pull out some mirrors Monday when you denounced the Coalition large de l’association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante (CLASSE) for refusing to condemn the vandalism and social disruptions in Montreal. Last I checked, violence is not part of the CLASSE’s mandate, obviously.
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Bonjour Line Beauchamp,
Yet again, you continue to make strange political decisions. First, on Sunday afternoon, you gave media outlets less than an hour’s notice of a press conference that you wanted to hold. Next, at the press conference, you proposed to meet with certain, but not all, Quebec student federations. And then,
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Dear Line Beauchamp,
Why would you offer a proposal to Quebec students that would place them in further debt, and then claim that you knew the students would reject the proposal? Is that not a waste of time, especially when one considers that the student boycott is costing taxpayers $104,000 an hour (or
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Dear Line Beauchamp and Jean Charest,
Why do you both insist that Quebec tuition fees must increase to keep the quality of education at expected standards? This premise is simply incorrect. My readings, for example, have taught me that although the price of attending a post-secondary institution in the United States has risen over the past
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Dear Line Beauchamp,
Doesn’t it bother you, as a woman who is the Quebec Minister of Education, that given that women still do not earn the same salaries as men, raising tuition fees means that women will pay more for their education now and in the decades it takes them to pay back
Continue readingFrom Orangutan: Dear Premier Jean Charest,
Here are some words of advice. You may be making the biggest career mistake of your life by ignoring the hundreds of thousands of protesting students in your Canadian province of Quebec. From what I have read, you are currently the most unpopular provincial leader in Canada, and your Liberal party
Continue reading