Click here to access article by Keith Jones from World Socialist Web Site.
It is very telling that this Detroit based Trotskyist website has been providing the best English coverage of the striking student movement in Quebec. Left Canadian English coverage is, as they say, "deafening by its silence". To be sure, Canadian corporate media is covering it, but from a ruling class perspective.
I did a survey this morning of liberal/left websites in Canada: I have arranged them in an order from liberal to left: Straight (Vancouver), The Dominion, Tyee, The Media Co-op, and Rabble. I could not find any recent reports of events in Quebec from the first two, some scattered and tangential reports from The Media Co-op (even in their Montreal based co-op), and finally more substantive reporting from Rabble.
(Note: The recently passed Quebec Bill 78, that is referred to in the article, severely restricts protest demonstrations on or near universities in Quebec.)
Reporting from this website appears to me to offer the best left analysis of the political forces engaged in this struggle. However, they have their own bias which supports much more radical action and is harshly critical of CLASSE’s leadership (in order to boost their own leadership), which may not be justified given the lack of broader political support from unions and the English speaking parts of Canada. I found Rabble's reporting a bit too optimistic about the student's struggle while lacking in political analysis.
One can be righteously militant and wrong if conditions do not support more radical action. Any left activist movement must carefully pick its battles like any guerrilla force: attack targets wherever conditions favor victory. Meanwhile, engage in more political work to raise consciousness necessary to bring final victory. Choosing the wrong battles can lead to cynicism, apathy, and despair.
