STUDENTS SAY IT WITH SNOWBALLS
By R. Brock
QUEBEC [Deiayea] -- Some 4,000 French-speaking university stun. dents marched on. the provincial legislature here April 1 to demand . free university education. Massing in front of the heavily policed building, they roared their approval as student leaders called for a "new social policy" to end Québéc!s economic planning. The slogans they carried on placards included: . "For a policy for farmers, work~ ers, unemployed, students"; "Less for arms, more for the people"; "Québec belongs to us, let!s take it"; and “The quiet revolution must be a social revolution. tt a
Although originally intended to support the fiscal demands of
the Québeo Liberal government at the Dominion Provincial conference taking place here at the same time, the demands of the students escalated into what was in effect a damning indictment of the government's failure and inability to solve the province!s economic, social, and political problems, And if there was any doubt concern~ ing the basically antigovernment sentiments of the marchers, it was dramatically dispelled when all 4,000 of them turned their backs on Trade Minister Gérard Lévesque, representing the Lesage administration. When he attempted to make himself heard above their tasty heckling, they began pelting him with snowballs,
Premier Lesage had refused to address the ‘students, And their repeated ory "We want Lesage" didn't exactly resemble a fan club slogan, a ”
The march was organized by the student associations of the three French-language universities -- Montreal, Laval, and Sherbrooke -- as well as the classical college students, the Presse Etudiante Nationale, the Normal school students, and the Copains of St.-Henri, Also participating were a small group of "free English students, " mainly from McGill University, The march was supported by the peace movement, including the Combined Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The English-language Canadian Student Union throughout Canada endorsed it, =
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: But the official students! associations of the English umiversities- had declined to participate in what their spokesmen termed "premature" demonstrations, saying they feared "violence" would . erupt and claiming that they opposed the "socialization of education" as demanded by the French students, (The administration of Sir 'George Williams University went so far as to threaten with expulsion anyone who participated in the demonstration.) The English press had for days before the march predicted. bloodshed ahd violence. And even the mass-oirculation French daily La Press had, just previous to the. march, attacked it for embarrassing the government. In view of this opposition, the high degree of participation and orderliness of the marchers was a vivid refutation of all these Cassandras and their hangers-on.
Emulating the Negro larch ‘or Washington’ last summer, the organ~ izers established defence guards to handle discipline and avoid police intervention, In fast, the only incident, a minor one, occurred when a few of these guards’ overzealously tried to proak up some signs belonging to the militant separatist group, the ‘Front. Républicain pour 1! Indépendence .
Both in their speeches and in a hard-hitting. eleven-page brief. which they presented to the Québec government, the students demon- — strated the broad aims behind the march, As Pierre Marois, president of the University of Montreal students! association, said: ‘It is © not for ourselves that we demand free education, but for our '!moral members,' who are as intelligent as us, if not more, and who vegsetate today pocause they did not have the necessary money "to continue their education,"
“Their brief pointed out: "We are perfectly aware that the in-. vestment of astronomical sums in education will not in any way settle the problem of chronic ‘unemployment which strikes so hard the workers of Québec," :
' Moreover, it said, “most fishermen and farmers live in insecurity and have completely inadequate incomes, They are exploited by middlemen, incapable of coping with foreign competition and are viotims of a badly organized market. They often have only the choice between going into debt and becoming the eternal slaves of the credit companies, or abandoning the land of their fathers and joining the multitude of non-skilled workers on the labor market of the urban centres,"
Thus, the brief concluded, "if free education is not accompanied by a sufficient economic amelioration of the underprivileged..classes it will remain a measure which will profit above all the bourgeois | classes in the same way as family allowances allow certain people to obtain more comfort, without being in any way a really effective solution in families where the father is chronically unemployed. nt.
Calling for economic planning, the brief warned against ‘WPeare
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ing to go against certain interests, for it is certain that, left to itself, economic development will still be confined to already strongly industrialized areas, and always_to the profit of the possessing classes, on both sides of the [U.S.] border."
It also condemned as "completely unacceptable" the expenditure by Canada of 23 per cent of its $7 billion budget on "national defense," while the provinces lack sufficient funds to carry out the proper "sooial policies."
ONTARIOtS HOSPITAL