Students hold pro-Palestinian strikes and protest across Quebec

Chants and speeches broke the quiet that surrounded the shuttered campus of Dawson College in downtown Montreal Thursday, as student protesters held a rally calling for Quebec post-secondary institutions to divest from companies with ties to Israel and called on the federal government to take a stance against the war in Gaza. 

Dawson's administration announced earlier this week it would cancel classes Thursday after the student union at the school voted to take part in a Quebec-wide strike organized by the Coalition de Résistance pour l'Unité Étudiante Syndicale (CRUES), a coalition that includes student unions in universities and junior colleges across Quebec.

The organization says its objective is "the liberation and the end of genocide in Palestine and the Middle East," according to a statement on the CRUES website.

The group also wants "institutions, corporations, the federal government and the provincial government sever all ties with Israel," it said in a news release.

Tameem Hartman, a member of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) Dawson, said his group wants to show its support for Palestinians and pressure academic institutions into taking action against the war, notably by divesting entirely from companies with ties to Israel.

"Our message is: disinvest and take a clear position against the genocide," Hartman said. He was among the couple hundred student protesters holding a rally outside Dawson College on Maisonneuve Boulevard. 

They sang, "One: We are the students! Two: We won't be silenced! Three: Stop the bombing now, now, now!" and "In our millions, in our millions, we are all Palestinians!" 

Other student unions are also participating in the strike, including AGEM, which represents 8,300 students at Collège Montmorency, according to CRUES.

Some smaller associations that represent students at Concordia University, Université du Québec à Montréal and Université de Montréal, and some representing groups at other CEGEPs, are also taking part in the strike.

Most of the student groups are striking both Thursday and Friday, but some are striking on only one of the days. The Dawson Student Union is striking Thursday and AGEM is striking Friday.

Thursday afternoon, the students at Dawson walked to the nearby Concordia University campus, where another protest was being held.

Philippe Beauchemin, the vice-president of internal affairs and communications for Dawson's student union, explained that SPHR Dawson had brought a motion at the union's recent annual general meeting to show solidarity for students "facing repression and against the genocide in Gaza."

Beauchemin said 700 people showed up to the meeting, more than double the typical attendance, and that 64 per cent had voted in favour of the motion, leading the student union to participate in the strike. 

"We're here to give a voice to our students. We believe it is their democratic will that we are on strike today," Beauchemin said, adding the student union requested the college be closed for the day to avoid conflicts inside and outside of classes.

At Université de Montréal earlier in the day, a small crowd gathered. 

Emile Lemousy, a master's student in philosophy and a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party at the university, said he was decrying his school's "silence for not denouncing what is happening in Palestine" and its unwillingness to divulge its investments. 

"When we speak to students, it's something that touches them. It worries them because it's something we're financing with our money and we want to have a say," Lemousy said. 

Lemousy hopes the two days of strikes will reignite a larger student movement for Palestinians. 

"We saw that that last spring's encampments destabilized universities. It forced them to recognize student mobilization as well as the contradiction (in values) of their investments in Israel," he said. 

Lemousy said he was not aware of any plans to re-establish pro-Palestinian encampments at universities in Montreal, but that he wouldn't be surprised if they returned.