Students Protests in Montreal Continue on Tuition Hikes

Quebec government and Quebec’s student representatives have failed to break the deadlock even after three days of negotiations with slightest chance of success.

Though the failure of the talks was writing on the wall as neither Quebec government does not want to back down on increased tuition fees nor students are willing to withdraw their demand of reduction in fees.

The failure of negotiation saw more of the protests in the down town Montreal. Some students were arrested while one police officer received injuries.

The protests and disruptions by the students were in contrary to the fact that both sides had agreed to stop the protests during the meetings to hammer out some sort of compromise on the contentious issue of tuition hikes. However, the protests continued even during the talks.

Some of the protesters threw smoke bombs in the subway system of Montreal that created few problems by slowing down the transit services.

Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand announced last year that tuition fees will increase by $325 a year over a five-year period as a means of increasing university funding and cutting provincial debt. Bachand claimed that the tuition fees are already the lowest in the country and even after the increase will still remain the lowest.

The announced tuition hikes will increase the current average annual tuition in Quebec from $2415 to $3,793 for fulltime students in Quebec by 2017.

Thousands of students have been participating in organized street protests since the announcement. One protest even was able to draw a participation of over 200,000 students.

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