Student protest in Montreal

Great pictures. STUPID protest...

Seriously? They are complaining because there tuition is going to double... from $1600 a year to $3200 a year...

In Ontario, I already pay nearly $6000 a year, and my girlfriend pays over $7000. Their tuition doubled is STILL ONLY HALF~! Get over it.

Tuition well spent..........it's "their" tuition, not "there" tuiton

Are you honestly criticizing my grammar? a) I was typing fast without any focus on my grammar or spelling; b) I used the word "their" twice in the sentence and I accidentally typed it incorrectly once; so clearly I KNOW it's "their" not "there" and c) I don't recall saying I was spending $6000 a year on an English degree...

Plus I'm not even entirely sure what your point is. Because I'm a university student I must type every sentence with the utmost care and meticulous spell checking? Have you been to a university? Ever? Half of the people are genuine idiots.

So yeah, my tuition is well spent; and I never claimed that it wasn't. I don't mind spending $6000 a year on my education. I was saying that they should grow up and deal with it and join the rest of us.

For the record; using more than three periods in a row is poor grammar. What you are trying to do is called an ellipsis and it is only three periods. (You also spelled tuition wrong; but only once out of two attempts ;))

Oh well. Guess that's why I'm a photographer and not a writer.
 
Why would you put a sign people cant read? :lol:

4365d1331897954-student-protest-montreal-image-176495087.jpg

Isn't Montreal in French Canada?
 
I was just kidding folks lol
 
The sign says: "That justice be done for all the victims of repression".

The demonstrations by students against tuition fee increases are noisy, but they do not represent all of the students. Some claim as many as 80% for, other claim the numbers are as little as 20%. Compared to other places, tuition in Quebec is cheap. But people here often don't care what goes on elsewhere.

The annual march against police brutality has a habit of degenerating into violence. In this edition the larger body of protesters (anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 depending on who you talk to) were trying hard NOT to allow the event to be hijacked by a group of anarchists that pops up routinely at these events. These characters tend to wear masks and be dressed in black or dark clothing. They have been seen coming to the events carrying heavy backpacks, which one presumes were filled with rocks. The police don't help matters, by doing mass arrests instead of focusing on the touble-makers.

That was on Thursday.

Yesterday, on Sunday, the same street witnessed the largest St-Patrick's Day parade we've had ever in Montreal, helped by the unseasonal warm temperatures. No arrests, no drama. Now that is more like Montreal.
 
Thanks everyone for the kind comments. It was interesting for me to be able to document an event like a protest since I have never done this before. I had fun doing it.
 
The sign says: "That justice be done for all the victims of repression".

The demonstrations by students against tuition fee increases are noisy, but they do not represent all of the students. Some claim as many as 80% for, other claim the numbers are as little as 20%. Compared to other places, tuition in Quebec is cheap. But people here often don't care what goes on elsewhere.

The annual march against police brutality has a habit of degenerating into violence. In this edition the larger body of protesters (anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 depending on who you talk to) were trying hard NOT to allow the event to be hijacked by a group of anarchists that pops up routinely at these events. These characters tend to wear masks and be dressed in black or dark clothing. They have been seen coming to the events carrying heavy backpacks, which one presumes were filled with rocks. The police don't help matters, by doing mass arrests instead of focusing on the touble-makers.

That was on Thursday.

Yesterday, on Sunday, the same street witnessed the largest St-Patrick's Day parade we've had ever in Montreal, helped by the unseasonal warm temperatures. No arrests, no drama. Now that is more like Montreal.

Montreal is such a great city, and as much as everyone assumes that french is what you hear spoken most, in Montreal english is spoken just as much. There are places just outside Montreal that are pretty much english communities. The mayor of Pointe-Claire doesn't even speak french. The signs however are all in french.

The protesters that show up and look to cause trouble are the same ones that show up everywhere, they have an agenda of violence, and should be delt with as the police see fit. The problem is that the innocent always end up getting caught in the middle.
 
I can't read French but I assumed it was about hockey.
 
The sign says: "That justice be done for all the victims of repression".

The demonstrations by students against tuition fee increases are noisy, but they do not represent all of the students. Some claim as many as 80% for, other claim the numbers are as little as 20%. Compared to other places, tuition in Quebec is cheap. But people here often don't care what goes on elsewhere.

The annual march against police brutality has a habit of degenerating into violence. In this edition the larger body of protesters (anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 depending on who you talk to) were trying hard NOT to allow the event to be hijacked by a group of anarchists that pops up routinely at these events. These characters tend to wear masks and be dressed in black or dark clothing. They have been seen coming to the events carrying heavy backpacks, which one presumes were filled with rocks. The police don't help matters, by doing mass arrests instead of focusing on the touble-makers.

That was on Thursday.

Yesterday, on Sunday, the same street witnessed the largest St-Patrick's Day parade we've had ever in Montreal, helped by the unseasonal warm temperatures. No arrests, no drama. Now that is more like Montreal.

Montreal is such a great city, and as much as everyone assumes that french is what you hear spoken most, in Montreal english is spoken just as much. There are places just outside Montreal that are pretty much english communities. The mayor of Pointe-Claire doesn't even speak french. The signs however are all in french.

The protesters that show up and look to cause trouble are the same ones that show up everywhere, they have an agenda of violence, and should be delt with as the police see fit. The problem is that the innocent always end up getting caught in the middle.

We often see the same thing down here (US). There were always 'those' people showing up at Tea Party protests and of coarse the liberal media focused solely on them (when they weren't trying to ignore the protests completely) to make the whole group seem like nut jobs. Natually they did the exact opposite when the Occupiers hit the scene but while some of there smaller protests maintained order the bigger ones usually grew so far out of control that they couldn't cover it up.
 
Imagemaker, the former major of Pointe-Claire was anglophone, but did talk in French. The current mayor is fluently bilingual, and the city business is conducted 100% in French, although the reality is that the population mix is pretty much 50/50, and it is rare to find someone who is truly unilingual. In the greater Montreal area, I'd say 80-90% are fully bilingual, and maybe 30% are trilingual or more. Outside the greater Montreal area, the language situation changes and becomes 90-95% francophone (french-speaking), with notable regional exceptions such as in the Eastern Townships.

Part of the nationalist propaganda is to simplify the historical narrative, writing out whole chapters of contributions by various non-french pioneers and immigrants. Reality is much more nuanced and far more complex than simple storylines will have you believe. Anyways, enough of political observation.


@andreanefraser: your shots were pretty good, although a bit on the dark side. I knew these events were going on, and stayed away because they can be very unpredictable. The anarchists are very good at making sure innocent bystanders are between them and the police.
 
Imagemaker, the former major of Pointe-Claire was anglophone, but did talk in French. The current mayor is fluently bilingual, and the city business is conducted 100% in French, although the reality is that the population mix is pretty much 50/50, and it is rare to find someone who is truly unilingual. In the greater Montreal area, I'd say 80-90% are fully bilingual, and maybe 30% are trilingual or more. Outside the greater Montreal area, the language situation changes and becomes 90-95% francophone (french-speaking), with notable regional exceptions such as in the Eastern Townships.

Part of the nationalist propaganda is to simplify the historical narrative, writing out whole chapters of contributions by various non-french pioneers and immigrants. Reality is much more nuanced and far more complex than simple storylines will have you believe. Anyways, enough of political observation.


@andreanefraser: your shots were pretty good, although a bit on the dark side. I knew these events were going on, and stayed away because they can be very unpredictable. The anarchists are very good at making sure innocent bystanders are between them and the police.

Ah ok, I was shotoing a swim meet in Pointe Claire last year and the mayor was an anglo, he did attempt a few lines in french. It really surprised me that he didn't know french, I was told he had been mayor for quite a few years. I know that when you get out into the rural areas that the language is pretty much all french. I'm afraid my growing up in Ottawa and not learning french is one of those regrets I have.
 

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