Montreal police arrested at least 13 people this week during a massive protest against a decision to increase university tuition.
Demonstrators threw rocks, snowballs and ice at police officers. They damaged vehicles. They broke windows.
How much will tuition rise, you ask? Is it five thousand dollars? One thousand dollars? Try $70, which will require any student who works for Quebec’s minimum wage ($10.15, beginning in May) to work for fewer than seven hours.
Tuition will be indexed to cost-of-living increases in future years.
As CBC reports, the generally peaceful protest was organized by the Association for Student Union Solidarity, a militant union of students that claims 70,000 members across Quebec.
Police branded Tuesday’s protest as illegal around 2 p.m. local time because, according to authorities, organizers did not give the government an itinerary.
The march went on, though. Thousands of demonstrators showed up, according to The McGill Daily. Some demonstrators pelted police officers with various objects — mostly snowballs — while riot police formed barriers and tried to make the protesters scatter as the fracas wound its way through downtown Montreal.
By 5 p.m., the protest had mostly subsided.
One of the arrested protesters now faces charges related to terrorism, reports Global Montreal.
Denis Marc Pelletier, 29, has languished in jail since his arrest on Tuesday. The seven charges against him include possession of an arson device and possession of explosives.
The explosives were in the form of two Molotov cocktails, police said.
Other charges stem from a message Pelletier left on his Facebook page referencing shootings that have occurred in Canada in recent decades. There was also a cryptic reference to “terrorism 2.0,” notes Global Montreal.
