Students protesting the provincial government’s planned tuition increases appear significantly lacking in understanding of legitimate democratic practice.
Protest leaders carry on as though the entire post-secondary student population is up in arms and eager to hit the streets in support of the boycott of classes – a boycott for which only some students have voted and in which many do not wish to participate.
Just over 170,000 out of 485,000 CEGEP and university students have registered a vote in support of the boycott. That’s not much more than a third, and far short of a democratic majority.
There are also what sound like reliable accounts that the votes that were taken were conducted in a manner that falls drastically short of conventional democratic standards.
A glaring example is the Concordia University “strike vote” on Wednesday, in which 67 per cent of those taking part voted in favour of cutting classes in support of the protest. That certainly seems like a hefty majority by any democratic standard. If Quebecers voted that way in a sovereignty referendum it would surely be rated as clear under the Clarity Act.
As it was, however, only about 1,700 Concordia students attended the meeting at which the vote was taken, out of a total student body of 35,000. Therefore fewer than four per cent of the university’s students formally backed the boycott.
There were other problems with the way the vote was conducted that render it a caricature of democratic process. The same problems are cropping up at other schools where strike votes are bring taken.
The Concordia meeting was held in a hall with limited space, and many who wanted to attend were refused access. There was reportedly no concession to neutrality by those organizing the vote, and no allowance of equal time for arguments for and against the strike proposal.
The leadership of the Concordia Student Union was heavily in favour of a walkout. It papered the school with pro-strike posters, and its representatives, decked out with the red-square symbol of the protest, handed out pro-boycott leaflets to people entering the hall.
Had the last federal election been conducted like this, voters would have been greeted at polling stations by scrutineers wearing Conservative (or Liberal, or NDP, or Bloc) badges and plying them with party pamphlets at the door before they had a chance to cast their ballot.
Then there is the voting procedure at these assemblies. Rather than by secret ballot, the modern democratic norm, the vote is taken by a show of hands. Not only does this make for an unreliable count, but it leaves those in the minority open to intimidation by the majority, something which has also been widely reported.
On the basis of such flawed procedures the protest leaders claim democratic legitimacy to conduct a strike that, had it been called in this manner by a duly constituted labour union, would be patently illegal. And yet they feel empowered to block access to classes in some cases to students who have a legitimate right not to participate in the boycott or cause mayhem in the streets.
Students can choose to cut classes, but they do not have any legal right to strike. Nor are their student associations real unions, even though they call themselves that. For legitimate unions to call a strike, it must be supported by a majority of the membership in a secret-ballot vote, a democratic fundamental these student leaders blithely dismiss.
No wonder a backlash movement is forming against these press-gang tactics. The new Coalition étudiante pour l’association libre has emerged to speak for what its leaders credibly claim is the majority of students who do not support the strike and simply want to get on with their education.
The sooner the people pushing this strike get back to their studies the better. They clearly have a lot to learn about democracy and the exigencies of the real world.