Saint Patrick's Day. It arrived in a fashionable way (like every year for that matter) and left before the eyes of a drunk Montreal population. To sum up the extravaganza in Larry David's words, it was "pretty pretty pretty good." Make sure to emphasize the good. Seriously. Regardless, as fun and joyous an occasion Saint Paddy's was, it appeared to leave a bad vibe with many of Quebec's youth. Suddenly, they all just developed this crazy tendency to protest and strike: police brutality, tuition hikes, you name it. Surprisingly there has been no unrest concerning there not being enough Nutella on the shelves at Provigo. Or maybe there was.
Coming from a small town in Connecticut, seeing a protest of 200,000 angry students was mindblowing. I've never seen a huge protest, and in comparison the Occupy Montreal movement was a joke in terms of size and audacity. Here, we should really emphasize the word 'mindblowing' for that was exactly what it was. To sum things up briefly, McGill has declared that it will raise tuition over the next few years. Quebec students don't like it. Most other people are indifferent to it. As far as I can see, paying less than $4000 per year to attend a fine institution like McGill should be embraced, not rebuffed. As much as I would love to pay only that much, I am more than sufficed with my international tuition rate, because it is still extremely cheaper than paying $55,000 per year to attend Boston University. Honestly, the best solution to this problem would be to stop admitting Quebec students. However, that doesn't seem too likely. They'll probably start protesting that too. So, it seems that whatever McGill does, Heather Munroe Blum is going to get heat for it. It seems that not many people realize just how little she can do in this situation. She cannot simply give a public announcement and say that that everyone else's tuition will be raised, whereas Quebec students will continue paying the same price as before. It's important to think of this in terms of common good. No one likes tuition hikes. BUT, if they are going for good reasons, then it's important to embrace them, because strikes don't seem to be working too well.
So, we have an interesting dilemma on our hands. Personally, I don't really care what the decision will be to this. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, nor do I want anyone to have to suffer as a repercussion of these activist movements and strikes. It's all just being blown out of proportion. It's kind of like your girlfriend getting pissed at you for over a week because you agreed she looked chubby in a picture after being harrassed to agree for the past hour. It's like you can do whatever you want in regards to this situation...but it won't change anything. The situation itself has to subside, relax, and think things over. Thus, do you get the mildly uncreative metaphor? Things will be fine, just as long as everyone stops protesting and actually thinks of a reasonable way to deal with this issue. There have been worse issues before. If Greece can just go bankrupt and start from scratch, I'm sure McGillians can figure out this pickle.
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