Québec student campaign against government austerity, 2014-2015

Between fall 2014 and spring 2015, students in Québec led a mass protest campaign against government austerity measures and neoliberalism, centered in Montreal. The campaign responded to an April 2014 announcement by Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard that the Liberal provincial government would cut $3.7 billion in funding for education, healthcare, daycare programs, and other public sector services in the 2014-15 fiscal year. The campaign entailed at least 46 protests including mass strikes and demonstrations led by various student-led organizations, especially by students at Francophone post-secondary schools in Montreal. Many actions were part of the Printemps 2015 movement (Spring 2015), initiated by the social sciences student association at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), as a decentralized and loosely coordinated coalition of student associations, labour unions, community groups, and other people. On Halloween 2014, an estimated 10,000 disgruntled zombies, witches, students, labor unions (also on strike), and public sector employees from more than 85 groups took part in the “Austerity: A Horror Story” march through Montreal. A November 29, 2014, demonstration was attended by more than 125,000 people in Montreal and Quebec City, according to organizers with Collectif Refusons l'Austerité, and it incldued student unions, public sector employees, and social service groups. On March 23, 2015, approximately 60,000 post-secondary students went on strike against the government's budgetary policies, some for one day and some for a month. On April 2, the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSÉ) led a one-day boycott of classes representing between 100,000 and 135,000 Quebec students. Participants in these actions included UQAM and Université de Montréal students as well as students at Concordia University, McGill University, and CEGEPs (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel, the publicly funded pre-university institution exclusive to the Quebec education system). On International Workers' Day (May 1), several coordinated protest events were organized in Montreal to advocate for workers' rights and oppose the austerity measures, with hundreds of community groups and dozens of labor unions, including a campaign by CEGEP teachers' unions. At many of Montreal protests, local police deployed technologies such as pepper spray and a smoke bomb, stopped demonstrations, and detained and arrested participants. Their actions often escalated when anarchists destroyed property and resisted security and police intervention. The Liberal provincial government refused to make concessions. Protests continued into fall 2015, and public sector unions made modest inroads in contract negotiations with the province later that year.