This was the 25^th consecutive night demonstration protesting planned tuition hikes which – after one short and violent clash with officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) – became by the longest demonstration in what is now the longest student strike in Quebec history.

The demonstration began peacefully around 9 p.m., with thousands leaving Parc Émilie-Gamelin and marching through downtown Montreal.

Around 10 p.m., the arrest of one demonstrator triggered a clash between protestors and police near the entrance to Chinatown at St. Laurent and René Lévesque. Fellow demonstrators reacted by shouting for his release, with some throwing rocks and other projectiles at police, driving police north up St. Laurent towards René Lévesque.

One protestor threw a Molotov cocktail at police at René Lévesque. Police responded with pepper spray, smoke bombs, sound grenades, tear gas, and rubber bullets.

Police quickly declared the demonstration illegal, but the majority of protestors regrouped a few minutes later and resumed marching. The march continued through downtown for another six hours and ended around 4 a.m. Thursday morning near Parc Lafontaine.

There was one other incident of vandalism. Marching west on René Lévesque around 1 a.m., protesters passed a line of five police cars and a man standing in his doorway giving protestors the middle finger. Protestors smashed the man’s apartment window in a hail of projectiles, before smashing the back window of one of the police cruisers.

The SPVM reported four arrests and no injuries as a result of the demonstration early Thursday morning.

Bill 78

A frantic day in the municipal and provincial legislature precipitated Friday night’s demonstration.

Late Friday afternoon the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill 78 – a controversial bill proposed by Education Minister Michelle Courchesne – 68 votes to 48. The bill, titled “An Act to enable students to receive instruction from the post-secondary institutions they attend,” suspends the winter and summer semesters for the 11 universities and 14 CEGEPS still effected by the strike until August.

Organizers of the demonstrations of 50 people or more must also provide police with its route and duration at least eight hours before it begins. Police may require organizers to change the venue or route of the demonstration.

Fines for contravening Bill 78 provisions can reach $5,000 for individuals, $35,000 for a senior officer in a student association, and $125,000 for student associations. Fines will be doubled for any subsequent offenses.

The bill has been criticized by several civil rights groups, including the Quebec Bar Association, in part due to its ambiguity in some areas. Section 30, for example, states that anyone “who helps or induces a person to commit an offense” under the bill will also be subject to the fine.

The law went into effect Saturday morning.

Bill 78 (English)

The “anti-mask” bylaw

The Montreal city council passed a bylaw on Thursday banning the wearing of masks at demonstrations “without reasonable motive.” The bylaw, drafted following this year’s anti-police brutality march and scheduled to be voted on in mid-June, was fast-tracked in response to the now daily student protests against tuition hikes.

Both opposition parties in city hall, Vision Montréal and Projet Montréal, voted against the bylaw, but with Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montréal party holding a majority in the council the bylaw passed 33 to 25. The bylaw also went into effect Saturday morning.

Telling the council that the bylaw will be a tool that allows police to “isolate vandals and prevent acts of violence,” Tremblay declared, “It’s time to take back our streets.”

Montreal police chief Marc Parent attended the special council session, saying the bylaw will be used “with discretion, like all the other laws we can already apply to protests.

“When we think there’s a threat to safety it will be used. It’s preventative,” said Parent.

Parent noted that a few years ago only one to two per cent of demonstrations ended in violence, but lately nearly 35 per cent end in criminal acts.

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The email was sent to the Graduate Student Mobilization Group (GSMG). The email was in response to a letter delivered to Principal Heather Munroe-Blum by almost two dozen students last Friday requesting accommodation for striking students during McGill’s exam period.

“The University’s position has been stated early, repeatedly and clearly: the semester will continue on schedule,” Mendelson wrote in the email. “The consequences for incomplete or late academic assignments and missed examinations depend on individual, not collective, circumstances.”

Mendelson’s email added that professors may accommodate students regarding class requirements based on individual circumstances.

The letter – signed by 41 McGill students, professors, and employees, and endorsed by six campus student groups and unions – was originally addressed to Munroe-Blum and Provost Anthony Masi.

The letter requested that the administration push back the submission date for graduate theses by three working days in respect of the three-day graduate student strike, which lasted from March 19 to 22; that they push the extended deadline for grade submission back by one week across the University; and that they publically encourage professors and course lecturers in striking departments who have scheduled exams to work with departmental strike committees “to determine alternative ways of completing coursework.”

Mona Luxion, a PhD student in Urban Planning, Policy, and Design, and who helped deliver the letter last Friday, said in an interview with The Daily that the letter’s requests are “not unreasonable, or any sort of disruption to really all of students at this University.”

“We’re not asking for extensions for particular students, we’re asking for extensions across the board for professors to be able to hand in their grades later, so that they have some room to negotiate on an individual basis, as Professor Mendelson suggests,” said Luxion.

Luxion said the striking student associations will continue to bring the issue up in their meetings with the administration. There is also a rally scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in front of the James Administration building to reiterate the students’ request.

Over 500 students are currently on strike at McGill in protest of scheduled tuition increases of $1,625 over five years. There are approximately 170,000 CEGEP and university students on strike in Quebec in what is now the longest student strike in provincial history.

“There’s going to be ongoing discussion and negotiation to the extent that the University administration is open to it,” said Luxion.

“We’ve made it very clear that we’re happy to meet with them, and so the challenge of course is that their position is a fixed and unchanging one, so there isn’t really much negotiation to be done,” continued Luxion.

Mendelson wrote in his email that providing the extensions would create “undue burdens” on those involved in the evaluations, submission, and processing of grades. He added that it would be “unfair to the vast majority of students who have fulfilled their academic responsibilities and who have worked to meet the deadlines set out in the Calendar and in course outlines.”

“The overwhelming majority of McGill students have continued to attend classes, complete their assignments, and prepare for exams,” wrote Mendelson.

“A comparatively few students have boycotted classes and are now seeking extensions of academic deadlines and leniency regarding the completion of academic requirements,” he continued.

Luxion said all the students currently on strike “understand and accept that there are consequences to their actions.”

“People have gone into this knowing full well that there may be repercussions, and believing that the fight for accessible education is worth the risk that they’re taking. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t also – as members of the University community who support that fight – that we shouldn’t be arguing for some leniency and for some recognition of the fact that this is a legitimate form of political engagement,” said Luxion.

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DESA students had known about the censure for over two weeks – after it was passed at a March 27 English faculty meeting – and planned the action an hour in advance of last Thursday’s meeting. Professor Paul Yachnin read out the ‘whereas’ clause of the motion during the meeting in the Arts Council room.

“This is a feelingly strong expression of disagreement with and disapproval of the actions of the DESA executive, people for whom we care deeply,” said Yachnin, before reading the motion.

The motion condemned the use of hard pickets by English students on March 20, the day after DESA members had voted in a General Assembly (GA) to go on a weeklong strike in protest of scheduled tuition increases. The motion described the “invasion” and “blockading” of classrooms, as well as the “verbal and physical intimidation of and threats to professors and students, and physical mistreatment of professors and students.”

“DESA’s central mission as stated in its constitution is to promote collegiality and community within the department,” read Yachnin.

“The DESA executive must accept responsibility for these incidents, since it enabled them through actions that run counter to the mandate of its own constitution,” he continued.

The vote to censure

In an interview with The Daily after last week’s meeting, Department Chair Allan Hepburn said faculty voted to censure the DESA executive “because a censure is the mildest form of admonition.”

The result of the March 27 vote was made public at the meeting at the request of Associate Professor Denis Salter. Thirteen professors voted for the censure, eight voted against, and two abstained. The meeting lasted three hours, with the motion to censure the only item on the agenda.

Yachnin described the discussion as “lengthy and thorough” and “remarkable” before he read the motion at last Thursday’s meeting.

“The members of the department spoke with their heads and from their hearts,” said Yachnin.

“There were areas of disagreement, but the discussion was open and honest and collegial. It was an exemplary instance of face-to-face democratic discussion,” he continued.

A professor who attended the meeting but asked to remain anonymous described the meeting as “very emotional” and “very tense.”

“One could see that many of the individual professors were very upset” at the actions of picketers the week before, said the professor.

The professor said the faculty meeting had been called by March 22, after the hard picketing of March 20.

The weekend before the faculty meeting, the professor said a number of professors whose classes had been picketed corresponded by email about how to respond to the actions. The professor said the proposed motion of censure, however, was not emailed to all faculty until the evening of March 26.

The professor said that “a particular group of faculty members…clearly collaborated to draft this document” in advance of the meeting.

The professor added that “the concerted preparation and presentation of this motion swayed the majority of those who stayed for the meeting to vote for it.”

In an interview with The Daily after last week’s meeting, Hepburn said the motion “was discussed at length in the meeting…and was heavily amended, and those amendments came from everybody, so I would say that it was collectively authored.”

The other interviewed professor thought “the conditions for such a vote were not very good, were not very appropriate for a gesture that would have such an impact on students.”

“In deciding to censure students, the faculty appeared to pit professors against students in a way that is not certainly a good reflection of what should be happening here,” added the professor.

The professor thought a “lengthier, more deliberate, and more inclusive discussion” within the department was missing from the process, which “should have made it very clear in advance to all the professors in the department that something actually rather significant was at stake in that meeting.”

Why they walked out

DESA President Zoë Erwin-Longstaff said in an interview with The Daily that, “I think we got our point across.”

“It’s not a forum where we could have discussed the censure afterwards,” she continued.

The DESA executive has been at odds with Hepburn since the association first announced it was holding a strike GA on March 16. That day, Hepburn emailed all faculty members in the department, writing that “DESA has no right to strike and no authority to take votes that bind members to strike. Students who want to attend class have the right to do so.”

The DESA GA voted to strike on March 19, and in the ensuing days Hepburn requested the names of each member of the DESA strike committee, as well as committee meeting minutes.  Erwin-Longstaff declined the request after consulting with the committee, citing the “fluctuating” nature of strike committee membership.

Hepburn responded, “The department does not condone secret meetings and committees without a chair or clear membership.”

Ultimately, Erwin-Longstaff said she thought the experience was “a bit of a wake-up call to the English Department that students do have some sort of agency over how things go in the department.”

Mending relations

During the meeting last week, Hepburn said he will be scheduling more frequent meetings with DESA, including meeting with the incoming and outgoing executive.

In an email to The Daily last Tuesday, Hepburn said he hopes to discuss “concrete plans for jointly organized activities” with the DESA executives.

When asked what he thought the DESA executive should have done differently to avoid a censure, Hepburn replied in the email that the executive “should have represented the students in English programs instead of facilitating disruptions to classes.”

During last Thursday’s meeting, Hepburn said he didn’t want the year’s events “to be disruptive, or…to mark some sort of decisive change or vision with the DESA executive and the student body at large.”

“I call upon professors, administrators, and students in this department to show leadership in mending the relations between students and faculty,” he continued.

DESA VP Academic Ryan Healey said Hepburn’s comments were him “imposing on the DESA executive rather than actual lateral communication.”

“He’ll sit down with them next year and just make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Healey.

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For the exam period, which begins tomorrow and runs through April 30, the location of the exam room will not be disclosed until the day before the exam. Students will also be required to show their McGill ID to get into buildings and rooms where exams are being held.

Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson said the administration had been approached by some students “concerned about disruptions to exams similar to disruptions of classes.”

“We just want to make sure that the exams unfold in an appropriate way. We want to make sure that there’s a serene environment,” continued Mendelson.

Students have been on strike across Quebec for over two months in protest of a five-year $1,625 tuition fee increase scheduled to begin in September. Last Thursday morning, riot police broke up a student picket of Concordia’s Hall Building on the first day of their exam period.

Mendelson said the administration is “just taking precautions,” but that they would “be remiss if we weren’t doing the planning.”

“We take this very seriously. It’s our responsibility to provide an appropriate environment for learning and for assessments. It’s a student’s right to expect that, and so we’re just insuring that we’re doing our best to deliver on that,” he continued.

Although students were already required to bring their IDs to exams, Mendelson explained that “every exam period there are some students who forget their IDs, and we want to avoid that because we want to be able to identify McGill students.”

With almost 170,000 students on strike across Quebec, there are five departmental associations still on strike at McGill. The two undergraduate student associations are the Social Work Student Association (SWSA), and the Gender, Sexual Diversity, and Feminist Studies Student Association (GSDFSSA).

The GSDFSSA will be holding a renewal strike general assembly (GA) tomorrow, but since the department only has one scheduled take-home exam, GSDFSSA President and Communications Coordinator Molly Swain said it was unlikely they would picket exams.

“Unless our membership is very strongly wanting us to go and picket other exams I don’t think that that’s necessarily what we’re going to be doing as members of the departmental strike committee,” said Swain.

SWSA, who have been on strike since March 14, will be holding a renewal GA this Wednesday. VP External Echo Parent-Racine said that the association has been voting for soft picketing tactics since their strike began.

“If students are going to be picketing exams that would be more of a hard picket, and that’s not what we have been mandated to do thus far,” said Parent-Racine.

“[Picketing exams] is something that students are concerned about, so I expect it’ll come up at the GA,” she continued.

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Friday morning, a group of about twenty students held a press conference outside the James Administration building before delivering an open letter to Principal Heather Munroe-Blum. The letter – signed by 41 McGill students, professors and employees, and endorsed by six campus student groups and unions – made three requests of Munroe-Blum and Provost Anthony Masi.

The first request was that they push back the submission date for graduate theses by three working days in respect of the three-day graduate student strike, which lasted from March 19 to 22; the second, that they push the extended deadline for grade submission back by one week across the University; and finally, that they publically encourage professors and course lecturers in striking departments who have scheduled exams to work with departmental strike committees “to determine alternative ways of completing coursework…including providing grades of K (incomplete) to all students who have lost time due to the strikes.”

Susan Aberman, Munroe-Blum’s chief of staff, accepted the letter outside the James building. She said Munroe-Blum had “University business off campus.”

The letter calls for a “University-wide response” to avoid “potentially disastrous consequences to students’ academic achievement, and by extension the reputation of the University and the quality of the research it produces,” as a result of the strike.

“Formulating a response at the level of the University as a whole is the responsibility of McGill’s upper administration,” read the letter. “By abdicating their role to provide leadership in addressing the consequences of the strikes at McGill, the administration of this University unjustly penalizes students in a manner contrary to the larger interests of the University.”

The letter added that, “to treat the strike as a matter of individual conscience between professors and students is to put McGill’s teaching staff in an untenable position, caught between opposing pressures.”

There are currently over five hundred McGill students on strike, with some having been on strike for as long as four weeks. During the press conference, Mona Luxion, a PhD student in Urban Planning, Policy, and Design, said the administration “needs to recognize that strike and start to make accommodations for the [striking] students.”

“We’re here as a group of students and professors and members of labour unions, to call on the administration to take some concrete steps in terms of supporting the students who are on strike and recognizing their demands, and making sure that this semester can continue to unfold smoothly,” continued Luxion.

In an interview with The Daily, Luxion said the letter was not asking for the extension of the semester.

“It’s more creating some leeway for the discussion at the departmental level to even happen,” she continued.

Associate Director of Media Relations Julie Fortier wrote to The Daily in an email Friday morning that the administration “will need some time to look at the letter and the requests that it contains” before commenting.

Luxion said that if Munroe-Blum doesn’t reply, “we will certainly be following up.”

At Concordia, some departmental associations have been on strike since March 5. There are currently several thousand students on strike at the university, including undergraduates in the Fine Arts faculty, as well as the Geography and Women’s Studies departments.

Last Wednesday, students from two of the university’s striking departmental associations held a press conference with CLASSE spokespeople Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Jeanne Reynolds. CLASSE is a temporary coalition of striking student associations across the province under the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ).

Gabrielle Bouchard, an undergraduate student in Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, said “there has been a denial of this [strike] from the beginning.”

“Here at Concordia, since the start we’ve been going through the protest movement in a situation where the university administration has shown significant [opposition],” said Bouchard in French.

Concordia Director of Media Relations Chris Mota said on Wednesday that efforts are being made by the universities Deans “to help students get through the year without compromising the integrity of the course[s].”

On Friday, Concordia announced in an email to students that they would waive the $20 fee for applying for Incomplete status, which allows extended deadlines for submitting work for their final grade.

Mota said that Concordia will not extend the semester.

“The university’s position has been the same from the beginning, and it’s not going to change,” she said.

Final exams began at Concordia last Thursday, with about 75 protesters blocking entrance to the Hall Building on Concordia’s downtown campus for 45 minutes before being dispersed by riot police using CS gas.

As for the students continuing to strike through the exam period, Mota said that they’re “accepting the risks.”

“Those who choose not to attend exams when exams are being held, they know the consequences,” she said. “There’s just nothing more we can add.”

At the Wednesday press conference, Nadeau-Dubois said CLASSE attended to show its “unconditional support” for the Concordia students on strike.

“Unfortunately, since the start of the conflict [they] have faced an intransigent and undemocratic attitude in their talks with their administration,” he said in French.

Nadeau-Dubois said he found the Concordia administration’s attitude “difficult to understand,” since administrations at UQAM and some CEGEPs have already begun discussing ways to accommodate striking students academically.

He added that CLASSE also wanted “to warn the administration of Concordia that if they continue in their business-as-usual attitude” tensions would “go up on the campus.”

“Our coalition and our militants will be there on the campus to help the students, to help the strikers, in order to make their democratic-mandated strike respected,” he continued.

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Dubbed the Manifestation Générale Illimitée (MGI) and organized by the independent student group Rouge Illimitée, the day of action involves twelve planned marches, leaving every hour from Square Victoria. According to the demonstration’s Facebook page, the day is designed to “turn the downtown core into a Protest Playground.”

“Now is not the time to back down,” continues the Facebook page. “We’re finished with the ‘training’ marches – after more than a month of protest, it’s time to hit hard!”

The first march left at 7:30 a.m. and headed north from Square Victoria before looping east around Place du Canada. The second march left an hour later and headed in the opposite direction. By the second march, the group had grown to roughly thirty people. Marches later in the afternoon swelled to well over one thousand.

A temporary staging point was set up at Square Victoria. A tent was pitched, with protesters printing on t-shirts and making signs. A number of live performances were held in the Square throughout the day.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesperson for CLASSE, a temporary coalition of striking student associations formed under the Association pour un solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ), spoke to the the purpose of the day of actions.

“The idea was to do something original, to organize multiple marches throughout the day to put the most pressure possible” on the provincial government, said Nadeau-Dubois in French.

Daniel Lacoursière, spokesperson for the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), said they were going to “set a perimeter [for the day] and make sure traffic can circulate safely.”

The beginning of the MGI coincided with a student blockade of the Tour Banque Nationale next to Square Victoria. Around 9 a.m. police declared the blockade illegal, and riot police dispersed the protesters with pepper spray.

Richard Painter, an insurance broker who works in the building, had gotten into an argument half an hour earlier with some marching students on the corner of University and de la Gauchtière while he waited outside the building.

Painter spoke to The Daily after the confrontation, saying he thought students in Quebec “have a very good deal right now.”

“I don’t sympathise too much with them, because they have the lowest student fees in Canada. I think they have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to stop us going to work,” said Painter.

The scheduled tuition hikes would raise tuition fees by $325 a year for five years, an overall increase of $1,625. Quebec base tuition would remain below the Canadian average after the five years.

According to l’Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ), almost 180,000 students are currently on strike across the province. At over six weeks, this strike is the longest student strike in Quebec history.

Tristan Lamour, a student from France who participated in some of the afternoon marches, said he thought the strike is “an interesting movement,” but that he didn’t think the students are going to win.

“I think the movement is very strong, but I have an impression that it is just a very good symbolic action,” said Lamour in French.

Last week, Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp offered to implement a revamped student aid program to appease the striking students. The plan would extend student bursaries and allow students with an annual family income over $60,000 to borrow under the aid program.

Quebec’s major student federations unanimously rejected the government’s proposal on the grounds that it did not address the tuition hike and would increase student debt.

— with files from Laurent Bastien Corbeil

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In Montreal for a conference hosted by the Institute two weeks ago, Clark sat down with The Daily to discuss what has been an eventful year at McGill and in the national political scene.

The McGill Daily: What’s your job at McGill?

Joe Clark: What I am right now at McGill is a member of the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of International Development. I also hold an appointment as a professor of practice at that Institute, but I have not been active in that role for the last two or three years.

MD: What are your thoughts on everything that has happened at McGill this year?

JC: I can’t really comment on that. I was not here for any of that. I’ve seen news reports, but I’m no more informed than any other sort of casual observer of the news.

MD: As someone affiliated with the University, how did you see these events?

JC: Certainly nothing has come to my attention over the last year that would suggest that [the University’s] reputation ha[s] been damaged, but that is more a commentary on the attention I’ve been paying than it is on the actual events. Although I do think – because people know I’m associated with McGill internationally – that if there were some unusual problem it would be drawn to my attention, but none has been.

But this is the time of institutional challenge everywhere, so I don’t think – I’m not trying to be evasive – I don’t think I have anything useful to say about that.

MD: What do you mean when you say this is a time of institutional challenge everywhere?

JC: One instance is the Occupy movement, which was wholly new in the Western world experience. There have also been some quite dramatic events…in unlikely places: Philadelphia; Delhi was shut down for several weeks [over] concern about corruption in the government; in London some of the violence in the streets was in areas that had not been violent before, [with] images of buses being overturned and burned; and indeed the sense of the determination to change that one finds in many objectively [oppressed] parts of the world. Whether it’s the Arab Spring or Iran or elsewhere, this is a time of ferment – and I don’t mean to draw parallels with McGill, or to suggest that there aren’t particular causes here; I’m simply saying that this is a time in which protest is being expressed.

MD: The Quebec student movement has been around for decades though.

JC: I’m familiar with it in the past, yeah. I first learned about…the Quebec student movement when I went to a Canadian University Press (CUP) conference in Quebec City fifty years ago. So I know its strength.

MD: What are your thoughts on what the Conservative Party has done since the election last May?

JC: Well, I didn’t support the merger of my Progressive Conservative Party with the Reform Alliance because I thought the result would not be balanced. I thought that the very strong and positive traditions of my party would tend to be moved aside, and I’m afraid [that I’ve been proven] right… I think that this has been in effect a Reform Alliance government much more than a Progressive Conservative government. What does that mean? It’s certainly clear in international affairs, where its focus has been very narrow on the military and on trade. Much of the emphasis upon CIDA, which had been upon actual development dealing with poverty, has been replaced now by a supportive role [in] trade arrangements, not necessarily in the poorest countries. Our relations with many parts of the world where we had historically strong partnerships have deteriorated. There is an avowed interest in Latin America as a priority, but it’s primarily a trade interest rather than a political interest, and I think that is wasting a Canadian advantage. I’m sorry that’s happened.

I also think there has been an hostility towards some of the Canadian institutions – the CBC’s the most recent – and none of these are fault-free, but I think that they were given a benefit-of-the-doubt under former Progressive Conservative governments, and they’re not now. I’m astounded, frankly astounded, by the degree to which Parliament and Cabinet acquiesce in following, without any apparent questioning, the Prime Minister’s lead. Prime Ministers have always been strong in our system, but almost all others have respected their parties and their parliaments more than Prime Minister Harper does.

MD: What are your thoughts on the NDP?

JC: I find it very fascinating. A lot of people dismiss the number of members elected in Quebec as people who had no interest and no credential[s]. I think that’s a shortsighted view. At various times in my life as a national party leader, I had to find candidates to run in ridings that were not likely ridings for us to win, and it was often hard to find somebody who had actual deep roots there, but my practice was to find somebody who had an interest in politics there, and I think that’s what the NDP did with Jack Layton… The McGill Three [sic], very explicitly, were interested in politics, they had an understanding of it, and so I think two things flow from that: one is that they are likely to be much more able to participate in constructive debate; but secondly, the likelihood is that because they are politically inclined they will make use of the power of governance. So I think the likelihood of their getting re-elected is higher than a lot of other people.

And I don’t know [NDP leader Thomas] Mulcair, except to watch him, and I’ve been very impressed. I think, if he is a difficult personality, as some people say, this gruelling leadership campaign was very good for him, because it forced him to come to terms with his critics and his challenges. I was elected leader of my party in 1976 because people thought, correctly, that I could take on Pierre Trudeau in the House of Commons, whereas not many other people could. And he’s clearly able to take on a strong parliamentarian. I’m interested in his potential, and we’ll just see what happens.

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Since the proposal does not address the government’s planned five-year $1,625 increase in tuition fees, however, some student associations believe the offer is unlikely to end the strike. The strike has been ongoing for over six weeks.

SSMU VP External Joël Pedneault said student associations in Quebec have laid “a pretty clear groundwork” for negotiations with the government – that the government agree to freeze tuition fees, if not eliminate them entirely.

“That whole spectrum of possibilities has just been excluded by the government,” said Pedneault.

“The sense that I’m getting from student organizations in Quebec is that this is not an interesting offer,” he continued.

The government’s new plan would extend student bursaries and allow students with an annual family income over $60,000 to borrow under the aid program.

Pedneault said the proposal “in absolute terms isn’t a bad thing, but I would hesitate to even call the proposal the government made this morning a step forward.”

“It will allow more people to be in debt, but that’s precisely what people are concerned about right now when talking about the tuition increase,” said Pedneault.

The plan also calls for the repayment of student loans proportionate to the income of graduates.

Pedneault said the second proposal has been floated in the past.

“People have been preparing for this eventuality for years at this point, and many student associations have positions specifically against what the government just proposed,” he said.

The changes in student aid would cost a reported $21 million over five years, with the money coming from provincial grants to Quebec universities.

The planned tuition increases would almost double Quebec fees, but they would still remain below the Canadian average.

Beauchamp told reporters in Quebec City on Thursday morning that the plan would be “a gain for many students and their families,” according to the Montreal Gazette.

“The government of Quebec is firm and convinced that students should pay their fair share,” Beauchamp told reporters.

“The debate now is in the student community,” she continued.

Pedneault said that he hoped the student movement continues to demand reforms that “actually concretely reduce the debt loads that students face.”

“The gap between demands of many student associations and what the government offered this morning is still very, very big,” continued Pedneault. “The strength of the current movement is that it’s very impervious to this kind of semi-offer.”

Pedneault predicted a new offer from the government could be forthcoming. According to Pedneault, if student strikes at CEGEPs continue to next Tuesday, the government will have to reopen collective agreements with professors in light of a possible extended or cancelled semester. The current collective agreement allows CEGEP professors two months’ vacation during the summer, according to Pedneault.

Reworking those agreements would “be a massive jigsaw puzzle,” said Pedneault.

“So the government better make another type of offer very soon, since I don’t see many student associations budging from what was offered,” he added.

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Dean of Medicine and Vice-Principal (Health Affairs) David Eidelman wrote in a statement published Wednesday morning that, “Although the report does not identify evidence of research misconduct, it is my conclusion that the Faculty does not currently have all required records and data in hand to assess definitively in regard to research integrity.”

Almost two months ago, Eidelman appointed Rebecca Fuhrer, chair of McGill’s Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, to conduct a preliminary review of the research of John Corbett McDonald, an emeritus professor in the department.

Now, Eidelman said he is seeking further guidance from Abraham Fuks, McGill’s Research Integrity Officer (RIO).

McDonald retired from McGill in September 1988, after over two decades as a McGill epidemiology professor. According to a February episode of CBC’s The National, McDonald received at least $1 million between 1966 and 1972 for research into the health effects of chrysotile asbestos from the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association, which received a large portion of its funding from the asbestos mining giant Johns-Manville.

McDonald’s research concluded that chrysotile asbestos is less harmful than other forms of asbestos, and only deadly when a person is exposed to large quantities of it.

Kathleen Ruff, senior advisor on human rights for the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, said that, “around the world McGill and professor McDonald’s work has been seen as an obstacle to making progress on protecting people from asbestos.”

In an interview with The Daily on Wednesday afternoon, Eidelman said he contacted Fuks last week with questions of how to proceed and “whether a full investigation was necessary or not.”

In his announcement, Eidelman added, “This is not a request to the RIO for an official investigation at this time.”

Eidelman said he is acting under Section 4.2 of McGill’s Regulations Concerning Investigation of Research Misconduct, which states that, “Where a person is unsure whether a suspected incident constitutes Research Misconduct, he or she should seek guidance from the RIO.”

Eidelman said that in order to assess if there has been a breach of research integrity, they would need access to original data, as well as “information about relationships between that person and industry.” According to Eidelman, Fuhrer’s review looked mostly at published works and externally-submitted information.

“Based on what we can see, we certainly do not see evidence of a breach of research integrity,” he continued.

There is no mention of a “preliminary review” into research misconduct in McGill’s Regulations Concerning Investigation of Research Misconduct, and Eidelman said the decision to conduct a preliminary review was “a choice that I made when I first was presented with the information.”

“Usually what we do is we try to put together a package before we send it to the [RIO], even when there’s a formal allegation,” he continued.

Eidelman said that the CBC documentary didn’t qualify as a “legitimate formal allegation of misconduct.”

“But it is something we take very seriously, which is why I immediately asked that we start putting together the information, even in the absence of an allegation,” he said.

The review was criticized by a group of academics and health professionals, who sent McGill a letter calling for an external review of the allegations against McDonald.

Fernand Turcotte, a lead signatory of the letter and professor emeritus of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the Université Laval, said his first reaction is “to trust the honesty of all the mechanisms that are in place.”

“I am not surprised that Dr. Fuhrer hit the edge of the cliff without having access to all the information that she needed to be able to assume or to finish the mandate that was given to her. It seems to me that the Dean will have no choice but to refer the matter to the Research Integrity Officer of the University,” said Turcotte.

“I think it matters a hell of a lot that McGill University – which is an institution that belongs to all of us – gets rid of the smear that it happens to be the last major university adopting a denialist position on the asbestos question,” he continued.

Eidelman said that calling for an external review is not in McGill’s regulations.

“We don’t usually go directly to an external review. Instead, we try to decide whether, under the regulations, there’s a reason for the Research Integrity Officer to be involved,” said Eidelman.

This is not the first allegation levied against McDonald’s research at McGill. In 2002, David Egilman, a clinical associate professor at Brown University and co-signer of the February letter to McGill, wrote then-associate dean of graduate studies and research alleging that McDonald had manipulated data and cited supporting data that did not exist.

McGill responded 16 months later stating that his grievance was “unfounded.” In an interview with the Montreal Gazette after the launch of Fuhrer’s review, Eidelman addressed Egilman’s allegations, saying, “If you ask me, we are unlikely to find anything this time either.”

Eidelman defended his comments in his interview with The Daily.

“What I stand by is the comment that the investigation has been done in the past and that we would take this very seriously,” said Eidelman.

“I also said that we would start from scratch and not assume anything based on the previous review, which is what we’ve done,” he continued.

Ruff, also a co-signer of the February letter, said she hoped the RIO’s involvement would be “a step on the path to a proper investigation.”

“It is time for McGill to do the right thing, and until it does this cloud will certainly continue to hang over McGill,” she said.

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You know it has been a difficult year for the McGill Medical Students’ Society (MSS) and its president Esli Osmanlliu when the MUNACA strike wasn’t the most trying strike of the academic year.

“It’s been a quite challenging year for me and the students in general,” said Osmanlliu.

The oldest student society at McGill – it has existed, in various forms, since 1859 – the MSS entered the academic year in the shadow of a potential strike by Quebec medical residents. The Fédération des médecins résidents du Québec (FMRQ) had been holding a teaching strike since early July, demanding wage parity with residents in other provinces and a reduction in the length of on-call shifts. The strike was upgraded to a general strike in September, leaving Osmanlliu and the MSS with little time to take a formal position.

“[The teaching strike] was quite important in terms of the educational impact it had on clerks,” students in their last two years of the medical curriculum, said Osmanlliu.

“Residents have a crucial role as teachers in the hospital setting,” he continued. “It’s a four-year program – you can’t afford to lose your rotation. You might never again have exposure to that speciality.”

The FMRQ strike ended a few hours after the general strike was called. The MUNACA strike, however, would have a longer and equally severe impact on the MSS. Osmanlliu said the MUNACA strike “was hard on different levels.”

“Very basic stuff like booking a room for a conference or a meeting, all this took much more time, and the people with whom you’re used to interacting suddenly changed,” he continued.

Osmanlliu helped the MSS form a committee tasked with informing students of the impacts of the strike and advocating for its cessation.

Outside of these unique disruptions, Osmanlliu had to further contend with the perennial MSS issues of underexposure and membership workload. He described the undergraduate Medicine curriculum as “pretty dense,” and something that can often make it difficult for MSS members to get involved in the greater McGill community.

“[The workload] makes it harder to reconcile everyone’s agendas and everyone’s schedules,” said Osmanlliu, who himself has to balance his duties as MSS president with his coursework and hospital shifts.

Osmanlliu said he has been trying to involve the MSS more in the McGill and Montreal community primarily through supporting student projects. To this end, Osmanlliu started the Community Involvement Program (CIP) – comprised of 38 student-led groups and clubs – to support students institutionally and financially consolidating projects.

“This year we’re really making a push to facilitate student projects which go a bit more in the sense of community outreach,” he said.

Osmanlliu said the MSS was also pushing for more inter-professional and inter-disciplinary projects involving other McGill faculties as a means of outreach.

“You really realize once you enter the clinical world it’s all about inter-disciplinary teamwork,” he said.

Osmanlliu has also taken steps towards improving MSS governance. Through the CIP, the MSS has created a roundtable for student clubs to solicit feedback, and has created the Committee for Strategic Planning and Community Involvement, a 14-member committee with representation from all four undergraduate years. The committee manages the society’s Community Involvement Fund, reporting back to the MSS executive based on surveys and the committee’s different projects.

“[With] student societies, one of the biggest problems is the very high, very fast turnover rate, so trying to overcome that and making sure that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every semester, we put forward this committee,” said Osmanlliu.

The MSS has been quiet politically this year, with the exception of a March 20 strike General Assembly (GA). More than 25 per cent of MSS members attended the GA, according to Osmanlliu. The vote for a one-day strike for the March 22 provincial day of action failed.

“I think students felt that student democracy won that night, and people realized that the MSS is there to represent everyone, and it’s very positive for a student society – the outcome of that GA,” he said.

In a previous version of this article, it stated that clerks where students in their last two years of pre-med. They are in fact in the last two years of the medical curriculum. The article also stated that the Committee for Strategic Planning and Community Involvement was empowered to make political and budgetary decisions. In fact, the committee manages the Community Involvement Fund and reports to the MSS executive. The article further stated that the FMRQ strike lasted a few hours; in fact it was the general strike which only lasted a few hours. The Daily regrets the errors

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In a departmental meeting last Tuesday, faculty members reportedly debated the motion for several hours. English professor Ara Osterweil, who attended the meeting, wrote in an email to The Daily that “there was much disagreement in the department about how to respond to the actions of the student strike.”

DESA organized a General Assembly (GA) two weeks ago, at which DESA members voted to declare an unlimited general strike in protest of upcoming tuition increases. At a renewal GA the following week, DESA membership voted to end the strike.

The DESA executive has not been formally notified of the result of the vote, said DESA President Zoe Erwin-Longstaff.

“We’ve heard from professors and students – who’ve seemingly heard from professors – that [a censure is] forthcoming,” she said.

Erwin-Longstaff said she emailed Department Chair Allan Hepburn last week requesting minutes from the meeting, but said Hepburn has yet to respond.

“We’ve been kept completely in the dark about this,” said Erwin-Longstaff. “We don’t know what they were voting on.”

When The Daily asked Hepburn about the outcome of the departmental meeting in an email last Thursday, Hepburn did not disclose the result of the vote, saying the meeting had been held to discuss professors’ “experiences of the protest [strike], and how the department might respond to the protest.”

“The department seeks transparent, open communication with DESA and its committees,” Hepburn added in the email.

When contacted by The Daily, Hepburn said he was not available for comment on Monday.

DESA VP Academic and Daily staffer Ryan Healey commented on the executive’s request for the meeting minutes.

“[Hepburn is] all about transparency to us,” said Healey. “That’s what he wanted from us, and he’s not at all giving any back.”

Neither Erwin-Longstaff nor Healey were clear as to the inciting incidents behind the vote, although they both said they knew many professors in the department disapproved of hard picketing tactics employed by students on the first day of the strike. They were also unsure of the specific subject of the censure.

“It could be the exec, because we took this on,” said Erwin-Longstaff, “but there are a wide variety of opinions [on the strike] from across the executive.”

Healey said DESA’s only relation to the department in their constitution is as “a liaison between faculty and students, and that we get money from them.”

Erwin-Longstaff added that she thought DESA had been an effective liaison during the strike.

“While I think that maybe communication during the week of the strike was not as clear as it could have been,” she said, “beyond that we let [Hepburn] know that this was happening, we had met with him every time he’s requested it.”

Osterweil wrote in her email that some “faculty members insisted [in the meeting] that DESA had no constitutional right to ‘strike.’” She added that “it is extremely important that this protest against tuition is not misconstrued as a battle between faculty and students.”

“It has been a trying time for faculty, students, and staff in the English Department, and on the campus at large,” she continued. “During such periods of transformation and crisis, it is especially important to remember that whatever our individual positions on tuition hikes, or the feasibility of certain protest actions, it is important not to allow fractious and divisive actions to distort the debate about larger, and more important questions of equity, justice, and fair representation. This is equally applicable to both students and faculty.”

The post English department censures student association appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The strike only lasted a week, but the subsequent fallout has left the association at odds with Department Chair Allan Hepburn, leaving some students concerned about the effect of the strike on their final grades this term.

Four days before their first strike General Assembly (GA), the DESA executive emailed departmental faculty informing them of the meeting and asking for their “opinions, thoughts, and concerns on the matter.”

President Zoe Erwin-Longstaff said the executive sent the email “not thinking this was going to cause or stir anything. We just truly wanted input.” She added that DESA had enjoyed “wonderful relations” with both Hepburn and the department before this email.

“I was absolutely shocked at how things played out,” said Erwin-Longstaff. “I foresaw [Hepburn] not supporting the strike, but I did not foresee the way he has handled this at all.”

Erwin-Longstaff said that within two hours of receiving the DESA email, Hepburn had emailed every faculty member about the GA, leading with a description of the Arts Undergraduate Society’s failed strike vote from earlier that week.

“DESA has no right to strike and no authority to take votes that bind members to strike. Students who want to attend class have the right to do so,” wrote Hepburn in the email.

He added that “any professor who wishes to cancel a class must contact the Chair of the Department, justify the cancellation, and state how and when cancelled classes will be made up.”

DESA VP Academic and Daily staffer Ryan Healey said Hepburn’s email “set the tone from the start, which is really important for how departmental politics work.”

Four days later, the DESA GA voted for an unlimited general strike. At the end of the week, Hepburn emailed Erwin-Longstaff requesting the names of each member of the strike committee. Erwin-Longstaff declined the request after consulting with the committee, citing the “fluctuating” nature of strike committee membership.

Hepburn responded within ten minutes, saying, “The department does not condone secret meetings and committees without a chair or clear membership.”

In an email to The Daily, Hepburn wrote, “Committee memberships in the Department of English are a matter of public knowledge.”

Hepburn obtained the minutes from the two strike committee meetings, although neither Erwin-Longstaff nor Healey know how.

According to Healey, Hepburn “penciled in the last names of students that he knew or thought he knew” and emailed the minutes to the departmental faculty. Hepburn mistakenly identified two students – U1 Women’s Studies student Molly Swain and Arts senator Matt Crawford – as being members of the strike committee.

“People have been kicked off of campus for flyering,” said Swain, who is an English Literature minor. “Connecting my name with strike committees and hard pickets that I’m not a part of could have potentially led to disciplinary action against me.”

Healey spoke to the potential academic repercussions of Hepburn identifying students in the strike committee to professors in the department.

“If a professor doesn’t like the strike and sees their name on the strike committee minutes, it could influence how they grade their papers,” said Healey.

Healey added that there were “a lot of fears” on the part of members of the DESA executive in particular. Erwin-Longstaff said she was personally worried.

DESA held a GA to renew the strike last week. The renewal vote failed, ending the DESA strike, but a motion condemning Hepburn’s actions passed with only a handful of dissenting votes. Hepburn declined to comment on the motion.

Hepburn confirmed that last Tuesday, faculty members in the English department met to discuss their experiences of the strike and how the department might respond to it. “The department seeks transparent, open communication with DESA and its committees,” he wrote in his email.

Both Erwin-Longstaff and Healey said they had heard from professors that “there will be repercussions” for the DESA strike activity.

“What those repercussions are concretely, we don’t know,” said Erwin-Longstaff.

Both executives said the episode has revealed a lack of clarity over DESA’s role in the department.

“Clearly they don’t think that we have the autonomy or the authority that we insist that we have. That’s been made very clear to us,” said Erwin-Longstaff.

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After almost two hours, a student blockade of the Port of Montreal was broken up by the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). According to the CBC, the police used pepper spray and sound grenades to disperse the students. The students continued marching through the nearby streets where they joined a second demonstration that was scheduled to begin this afternoon at Place Émelie-Gamelin.

The protest began with almost 600 students gathering in front of the Cégep de Maisonneuve. The action was organized by the Société générale des étudiantes et étudiants du Collège de Maisonneuve as part of the ongoing week of economic disruptions in protest of the upcoming tuition hikes.

The students began marching east away from the Cégep at 10 a.m. The students then turned onto Pie-IX and marched down to the Port of Montreal entrance at the intersection with Notre-Dame.

The students blockaded the port peacefully for over an hour, chanting and talking with workers in the Lantic Sugar factory on the corner of the intersection. Police presence was minimal, with a few squad cars closing access to the intersection blocks away and directing traffic.

As with every other action this week, details were kept secret from the majority of the protestors. The Coalition Large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) has been coordinating the week of actions, and McGill students have been designating a “risk level” for every action in terms of the possibility of violence or confrontation with police or other security forces. This morning’s blockade was at a yellow risk level.

Anthony Garoufalis-Auger, a Concordia Political Science and School of Community and Public Affairs student, said he had no idea what the action was supposed to be when he came, “but when I got here I thought that it was a very well-chosen action.”

“A lot of political actors or economic actors have interests in this Port. They’ll definitely be asking the government to make this stop,” he added. “I hope there are other blockades planned for the future. It’s definitely an efficient action that we’re doing today.”

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, CLASSE spokesperson, said the recent outburst of student action has put added pressure on the provincial government.

“Yesterday [Quebec Premier] Jean Charest spoke about the question of loans and bursaries.  Obviously it’s not enough to make us go back to class, but it does nevertheless prove that the government is slowly weakening its position,” said Nadeau-Dubois.

Richard Choquette was blockaded inside the Port this morning driving a Lantic Sugar tanker. He said the blockade was “not a problem.”

“I called the company I’m supposed to deliver it to, and they understand I can’t get through and it’s OK,” he said in French.

Choquette added that, when he was a student, he had protested for Quebec sovereignty.

“It’s true that in those times we had less money when we were student,” he said. “Today’s students are going to become the taxpayers of tomorrow.”

– with files from Erin Hudson

In an earlier version of this article, it stated that CLASSE has been assigning risk levels for each action. The Daily regrets the error.

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Strike activity at McGill last week culminated in nine student associations – representing almost 13,000 students – declaring a strike for the March 22 provincial day of action against tuition hikes. Many of those strikes, however, were held on a limited basis. The morning of March 23, that number dropped by almost 11,000 students.

Members of McGill’s Moderate Political Action Committee (ModPAC) are inquiring into the legitimacy and constitutionality of many of the strike votes held at departmental General Assemblies (GAs) in advance of the March 22 demonstration.

Brendan Steven, ModPAC organizer, said the group was inquiring as to whether the SSMU Judicial Board could “clarify the constitutional status of departmental GAs.”

A ModPAC press release attributed to Steven calls Arts departmental strike GAs “illegitimate, unconstitutional shams,” citing the March 13 Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) GA as the legitimate strike vote. The AUS GA voted against a motion declaring an unlimited strike 609 to 495, with 16 abstentions.

The press release quotes Article 8.7 of the AUS Constitution: “Departmental Associations shall recognize the supremacy of the AUS Constitution, the AUS General Assembly, By-Laws, and Council.”

Steven’s press release added that ModPAC would soon be sending a letter to the administration “calling on them to take action.”

The departments respond

A March 16 email sent from AUS VP Internal Casey McDermott to the Society’s departmental associations asserted that “after consultation with students, departments are free to encourage or discourage participation in protests pertaining to the tuition hikes in Quebec.”

Later in her email, McDermott sought “to clarify the difference between a strike and a boycott, as Concordia and other Quebec universities are only acting under the latter.”

“Unlike a strike, a boycott can be initiated on an individual basis. I would encourage all associations to inform themselves of the opinions of their constituents, and to represent those opinions accordingly,” read McDermott’s email.

The Department of English Student Association (DESA), the largest McGill student association currently on strike with over 1,000 members, claims it has the constitutional authority to hold a strike GA. DESA voted to strike last week, and will hold a GA to continue the strike tonight.

Article 2 of its constitution states that DESA “shall have jurisdiction and final authority over all its activities” and that it “shall not be regulated or subordinated by any other constitution or council” other than its own.

DESA President Zoe Erwin-Longstaff said, “because of those clauses, we were perfectly within our rights to hold the Town Hall and to take this sort of vote.”

The Gender, Sexual Diversity, and Feminist Studies Student Association (GSDFSSA), along with the School of Social Work, are the other two McGill student associations still on strike. Both will also have renewal votes this week. GSDFSSA President Molly Swain spoke to concern about the legitimacy of the departmental GAs.

“The students of the department [came] to us with a request to hold this General Assembly, and then students overwhelmingly voted to do it. So we are mandated to do it,” said Swain.

“We simply exist for our students and our student body. I think that’s all the legitimacy that we need,” she continued.

Quorum legitimacy

Steven’s press release also contends that departmental associations have no procedures in their constitutions for GAs. As such, quorums for the GAs “are being invented on a whim.”

Erwin-Longstaff said quorum for last week’s DESA GA had been set at 75, roughly 7.5 per cent of their membership, “which is very high quorum as things go at McGill.” She noted that quorum for the March 13 AUS GA had been 150 students, roughly 2.5 per cent of membership.

The Art History and Communications Studies Student Association (AHCSSA) will be holding a strike vote tonight at its “Town Hall,” after discussing other possible voting procedures, including making a ballot box available all day. AHCSSA co-President and former Daily Health & Education editor Joseph Henry said the Town Hall will also serve as a “space for people to discuss how legitimate [the Town Hall] is in terms of representationality.”

The post The future of the McGill student movement appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Outside Wilson Hall Wednesday morning, picketing students from the Social Work Student Association (SWSA) held a “strike the fear” picket. Students suspended a “blob” of “fear” from the scaffolding in front of the entrance to the building, with some students hitting it with rolled-up newspaper.

Jade Mathieu, SWSA internal coordinator, said some picket activities on Monday and Tuesday “made tensions arise.”

According to Mathieu, the hard picket line yesterday in front of Wilson Hall was led by striking Nursing graduate students. The School of Social Work shares Wilson Hall with the School of Nursing.

“I really respect the diversity of tactics…[but] we for now are not going to use harder tactics, and we’re going to try to get more support in peaceful ways,” said Mathieu.

Mathieu added the SWSA wanted to “change the atmosphere” around Wilson Hall.

“We wanted to address the different fears that students could have – so fear of admin repression, or the fear of just being in the picket, any kind of fear that students could have – to address it and recognize it,” she said.

Mathieu said SWSA voted at their strike General Assembly last week to use soft tactics.

“We’re just trying to raise awareness of the importance of not crossing the picket line and to try to get people to join us. We’re trying to be positive and to get more and more support for the strike,” said Mathieu.

DESA

The Department of English Student Association (DESA) executive sent an email to all DESA members last night in response to concerns regarding yesterday’s strike actions. The email included a message from the DESA strike committee.

The strike committee opened their message by noting that to their knowledge, yesterday was the first day of an enforced student strike in McGill campus history. They added that they realize “some people felt that [yesterday’s] event and tactics are disrespectful.”

Striking DESA members picketed a number of classes yesterday, including blocking student access to some classes. The DESA strike committee’s message stated that “disrespect is not a tactic in our strike action.”

“We hope to move forward with a friendlier and more cooperative approach to our tactics. We are committed to fostering a positive and respectful picketing environment for the duration of the strike, one that we hope everyone will feel empowered to engage in,” the message read.

“Tensions and varying opinions will inevitably continue to exist, we hope that all members of the DESA community will act respectfully at all times,” the message continued.

DESA voted to join the unlimited student strike – joining over 196,000 students on unlimited strike across Quebec – on Monday.

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