Over the past month, significant measures have been taken by the administration at York University to limit freedom of speech and to stifle democratic dissent. This has included an outright ban of the Students Against Israeli Apartheid group (SAIA), at least until 2014. This ban followed a wave of student organizing around the issue of Israeli imperialism and the occupation of Palestine.

Over the past year, there has been an unprecedented interest amongst students across Canada in the fight against rocketing tuition fees. In light of the Quebec student movement, impressive efforts were made by a growing layer of active students across the country to spread the movement to the rest of Canada. However, we need to be honest with ourselves; as we approach the end of the autumn semester, there is unfortunately little political activity to be seen among the students in English Canada. Why isn't a student movement being built in English Canada? Is it because the students are not interested in collective struggle? Are the youth content with the status quo?

A bleak future awaits today's youth as they are being forced to bear the brunt of the capitalist crisis despite having had nothing to do with its creation. Youth are facing challenges today that are unprecedented in history and they are living less stable and secure lives than previous generations. While record amounts of wealth is being accumulated in private hands, and billions of public dollars are being handed out for bailouts and tax cuts to the banks and corporations who are responsible for the crisis, our generation is expected to live with increasing barriers to accessing post-secondary education and with fewer opportunities for secure employment. How can youth escape this crisis?

The common goal of every student and their representative union at this point in time should be the complete abolishment of tuition fees. We are re-publishing an article written by Fightback activist, Jahan Niroomand, on the importance of the student movement fighting for free education and which first appeared in the YorkU Free Press, a student publication at Toronto's York University.  Jahan also helps to organize the Socialist Fightback Club at York.

Over the past month, thousands of students across Canada have joined in massive displays of solidarity with the Quebec student movement.  This solidarity movement has not been limited to just students; it has also included the participation of trade unionists, young workers, teachers, and parents.  It has even caught the imagination of residents and onlookers who have joined in the casserole-inspired demonstrations marching through neighbourhoods in Toronto and other cities. The opportunity is there to build the student movement and build towards strike action. We must be able to present students with a strategy and method for actually carrying out such a struggle.

The Quebec student movement has not just caught the imagination of youth and workers in Quebec and the rest of Canada — the movement is gaining support all over the world.  Today, we publish a few reports and pictures from supporters of the International Marxist Tendency in different countries who have rallied in solidarity with striking Quebec students.

The Quebec student movement has provided a beacon of hope for working people and youth across the world. The attempt by the Charest government to nearly double tuition fees in the province has sparked massive resistance. After some 16-weeks of student strikes and mass demonstrations, the government is shaking. This experience displays that mass mobilization, not lobbying, is the most effective method of fighting for accessible and free education.  The following article’s purpose is to outline how students across Canada can spread the movement to their campuses — to do precisely what the corporate elite fear — and to outline some important lessons that can be drawn from Quebec.

We have received word that two student unions in Quebec have passed resolutions in support of the open letter to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), which calls for the mobilization of a student strike in the rest of Canada. The following is an English translation of the resolution passed by the Political Science and Law Association at UQAM ( l'AFESPED), and by the Philosophy Students Association at l'Université de Montréal ( l'ADEPUM).  The original French resolution follows the English.

Some 300 students in Toronto came out in solidarity with the 250,000-strong demonstration in Montreal on Tuesday, 23rd May.  The Toronto rally was spontaneously organized by a loose alliance of Ontario student activists who wished to demonstrate that Quebec students are not alone. This is a direct challenge to the attempts by the corporate-owned press and among pro-business politicians, especially in English Canada, to isolate Quebec students by labelling them as “entitled”. This point has been used to justify state repression. This demonstration served to cut across this isolation, and to show that students across Canada are willing to fight.

Fightback activists in English Canada have taken the initiative to spread the inspiring Quebec student strike across the country. In addition to launching an open letter calling on the Canadian Federation of Students to organize strike ballots for free education and to support the Quebec movement, Fightback's Farshad Azadian recently appeared on Sun News Network and Newstalk 1010 (CFRB) to defend the movement.