About

Welcome to Red Square Nova Scotia, a site dedicated to showcasing actions in solidarity with the Quebec student strike taking place in Nova Scotia. We’re glad our red squares caught your attention, and stay tuned for more!

This site was created out of the interest of a loose group of activists in Halifax.

We’re made up of students, community members, workers, who are all interested in solidarity actions with the Quebec student strike.

We hope to educate and update the public in Nova Scotia about what is happening in Quebec, tying it into socio-economic issues we see here.

We’re doing outreach and organizing events to fight for accessible education, and support public services.

Hundreds of thousands of students have been on strike from classes for over 100 days protesting the proposed 75% increase to fees under Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s government. In November 2011 approximately 30,000 people took to the streets and since then, momentum has been growing.

On March 22nd 2012 a mass mobilization occurred gathering 200,000 people. Tuesday May 22nd marked the 100th day of the strike, with the biggest protest in Canada’s history bringing together 300,000-400,000 people. It was a sea of red, the symbolic colour of the movement.

In Nova Scotia, students paid the highest fees in the country for 20 years until recently; students here now pay the third highest fees in the country and graduate with on average $31, 000 in student debt.

Nova Scotia students and their supporters continue to put pressure on the government to re-invest in college and university, reduce fees, and drop student debt in order to achieve a truly accessible, equitable and just system . Yet the provincial NDP government continues to raise fees and decrease funding. Quebec (and Newfoundland and Labrador, where fees are half of those in Nova Scotia) is an example of how government’s can prioritize accessible education. For these reasons (and many more) many Nova Scotians are in solidarity with the Quebec student strike in Nova Scotia and are opposed to Law 78, a law that prevents these students and their supporters from organizing protests against these hikes.

Here we will post links to articles, advertize events and make available materials for you to print off in solidarity with striking students in Quebec. To suggest content or for more information email halifaxquebecsolidarity@gmail.com.