As student associations vote one after the other to reject the most recent government offer, and as questions are increasing exponentially about how and when a solution to the current political crisis will come, the student movement received another wave of support today as 500 artists signed on to a public letter supporting the strike.

Including the likes of comic artist Julie Doucet, well known directors Sylvie Van Brabant, Hugo Latulippe and Paule Baillargeon, and certainly students and teachers of the arts, it's another indication that as the strike stretches through a 13th week, support continues.

The letter was published today on http://artistescontrelahausse.org. It reads in part:

The dramatic tuition increase being imposed by the Liberal government will further threaten equitable access to education and will bury future generations under massive debt. It represents a neoliberal policy of austerity economics that targets the social infrastructure of Québec and reinforces systemic social inequalities.

The assault on education is also an assault on culture. Artists and cultural workers also produce knowledge, they engage in the vitality of public discourse and ideas. The ideology underlying the current changes in the universities, of which the tuition hike is only one aspect, is the same ideology that aims to privatise and commodify our cultural production.

This isn't the first time artists have spoken out. Earlier in the spring, a short video was produced featuring 15 or so well known Quebec artists, during the Jutra awards for the best in Quebec cinema, several artists wore red squares on stage, and on May 1 another 153 artists also signed on to another open letter.

You can read the full letter below, or visit http://artistescontrelahause.org for more information.

Les artistes solidaires avec la grève générale des étudiants et étudiantes du Québec

Quickly translated from the great post by Simon Tremblay-Pépin of IRIS here.

So the Charest government has made a new proposal to end the crisis.

Costed-out proposals

First, the government proposes the tuition fee increase be spread out over 7 years, as opposed to 5. This increase includes indexation to the rate of inflation during the two extra years; the increase therefore goes from $1,625 to $1,779. Economist Gérald Fillion explains this well on his blog.

The government also proposes offering $39 million more in bursaries, available to households earning less than $45,000 per year. The government says this increase in bursaries will cost nothing to taxpayers, as it will be funded through the existing tuition fee tax credit. The tax credit costs the government $140 million; so it will be reduced by nearly 30 per cent.

There's no doubt that bursaries are more interesting than tax credits (bursaries are immediate, whereas tax credits come after expenses). At the same time, we cannot consider these bursaries as having a completely 'new' impact on accessibility to higher education. In fact, families that have decided, “I will pay for my child's studies because I'll have access to a tax credit,” will now find that argument less convincing. This reduces - although doesn't eliminate - the impact of these new bursaries.

Moreover, on April 5, the Minister of Education announced an increase in loans that would be financed through existing funding to universities – funding which the schools would need to compensate for by seeking out more donations. Therefore, with these new proposals (like the previous ones) the government puts no new money on the table, it proceeds only to make a few accounting operations - some of them slightly advantageous - by moving funds around.

Non-costed measures

Two elements that the government did not focus upon as much in its 'overall solution' (because they were already presented on April 5) are in reality important steps backward. This...

I support the student strike. I think other people should too. I'll argue with people who are in favour of tuition fee increases; I think it's a legitimate discussion though, and believe there are intelligent arguments in favor of the hike. I just don't agree with them.

I wanted to get that out of the way so there are no pretensions here. Each journalist has their opinion about the strike and fee increases, but we don't hear them because these opinions either a) are not supposed to exist or b) are not supposed to matter. I think there are ways to produce accurate and fair reporting even through your own bias; I try to do it myself.

But those biases are there, and we all have opinions. There is nothing more frustrating, though, than when opinions and biases are passed off as scientific fact.

And that appears to be what is splashed across pages two and three of La Presse today. While some La Presse columnists have been sympathetic to the strike, their editorial pages have not. This does not de facto deligitimize their coverage of the strike. But it does raise some serious questions.

Today's article states the the Quebec population are 60 per cent in favor of the tuition fee increase, while 60 per cent also believe the government should negotiate with students. Maybe those numbers are correct, and that would be disappointing, but that's fine. The issue, though, is that La Presse and polling agency CROP can't say whether or not the numbers are correct, and that is highly problematic.

In the fine print of the infographic they have showing the poll results, they state that:

Méthodologie: Le sondage a été mené en ligne auprès de 800 répondants les 28 et 29 mars derniers. Les résulats ont été pondérés afin de refléter la distribution de la population adulte du Québec selon le sexe, l'âge, la région et la langue maternelle des répondants. Compte tenu du chractère non probabiliste de l'échantillon, le calcul de la marge d'erreur ne s'applique pas. [emphasis mine]

This means that 800 people were surveyed online; the results were sorted to reflect the Quebec population, but it is a non-probabilistic sample. That's...

This is an open letter written by Anna Kruzynski and Eric Shragge, professors at the School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University,

Tuesday March 13th, 2012.

Two weeks ago, the undergraduate students in our School voted to go on strike; last week, our graduate students joined the ranks. This week, all students, graduate and undergraduate alike, will be boycotting classes. As Concordia faculty, we fully support the strike. Here are the top ten reasons why.

1. Tuition is an obstacle to post-secondary education. Studies show that as tuition rises, significant segments of the population will make the rational choice to not pursue post-secondary education. More debt is simply untenable for families who are already struggling to make ends meet. Like high school was 50 years ago, university education has today become a prerequisite for most jobs. It is also during university studies that students become self-reflexive and critical thinkers. University education must be accessible to all, irrespective of income.

2. This strike is for all of us. Tuition is a user fee. Just like the health tax. User fees are part and parcel of the neoliberal trend towards privatisation of public services. Each person, rich or poor, is expected to pay a fixed rate in exchange for services, rather than paying according to their revenue through taxation on income. User fees are an attack on the universality of public programs and on the common good. Unlike the comments of Concordia’s Provost, we do not believe that free services are of lesser value. Should we go back to having tuition in high schools? Students are currently the proxy, but the underlying issue impacts everyone.

3. The government is ignoring mounting criticism. For over two years now, workers, organisations, students, ordinary folks, have been denouncing the Liberal government’s plans to institute austerity measures to stimulate the economy. All kinds of tactics have been used – letter-writing, petitions, memoirs, and symbolic street protests. This government has responded by ignoring, marginalising or repressing all those who dare question its priorities. The time has come to use stronger tactics.

4. All reforms are the result of conflict over interests. History shows that all the good that the...