What a bloody mess. And I'm getting sick and tired of seeing it.

No one will ever mistake UQAM for Harvard: there is a radical edge to this downtown university.

I suspect most of the students in this latest season of discontent just want to get on with their studies, but there are some very bad apples who like to break things and like to bully for whatever their self-serving interests might be.

They can protest the price of milk all day if they want.

Protest to their heart's content.

But the moment they start preventing other students from getting an education, the moment they disobey a court injunction, then it is the right thing to move in and do whatever it takes to stop their action.

Bringing in Montreal police was the right call and so is expelling any student who acts illegally.

These are criminal issues.

But many of the teachers at Protest U on St. Denis are backing the dissident students as if the university is some sacred ground where the inmates should be running the prison.

It is public property built with public funds and subject to public laws.

I think these masked and violent protesters building their barricades see themselves as latter day incarnations of fictional characters from Les Miserables.

The thing is, it seems no one knows what these students are protesting.

They say it’s austerity although it appears many have no idea what it's all about.

Quebec comedian Guy Nantel put together a brilliant item where he interviewed the malcontents last week. One of them seems to think austerity is pretty much the same as inflation:

“Austerité est un synonym d'inflation? Oui,” went the interview.

 

And asked to name the education minister or the premier, here's what he got:

“Qui est le ministre de l'education du Quebec?

‘Lucien Bouchard

‘Qui est le premier ministre du Quebec?

“Cest une bonne gars avec un barbe.”

 

Of course, Lucien Bouchard is the education minister. He made a political comeback and joined the Liberals.

Let's move on to the Double Jeopardy round.

The premier, the one these protesters see as the CEO of Evil Incorporated, there was not a chance this young would-be revolutionary could name him.

This tells me that if these students had any idea what was good for them, they would be spending more time in the classroom and less on the streets.

Clearly, too many of them haven't a clue.

It's such a troubling situation, so sad, and just another kick in the teeth for Montreal.

Gerard Deltell walks away from a fortune

But on the other hand sometimes, just sometimes, you get your faith restored in politicians.

I've always liked Gerard Deltell, a former TV reporter, resolutely federalist and pretty much a straight shooter.

He is quitting the CAQ and Quebec politics to run for the federal Tories and he did something you never see: he is not taking his national assembly departure bonus, nor is he taking his pension until he is 65.

“Yes I left on the table half a million dollars. It’s the first time that someone does that in political history I am the one doing that and I’m pretty proud of that. Let the people decide if it’s a good or bad decision,” said Deltell.

Now taxpayers will still have to pay about half a million dollars for a by-election to replace Deltell, so it looks like a wash.

Too bad most don't have the same convictions to give up half a million dollars.

He did the right thing.

Too bad the protesting students with the encouragement of their self-styled Che Guevara professors can't tell right from wrong.