MONTREAL - Students with an axe to grind were once again protesting in locations throughout the city Wednesday.
The group CLASSE and its supporters turned the downtown core into a "protest playground," with marches throughout the area. The first protest march left Victoria Square at 7 a.m., and another took place every hour until 6 p.m. Marches also continued in the evening, along Ste-Catherine and Bishop Sts. For real-time updates on where marches are taking places, follow the SPVM on Twitter or search the hashtag #manifencours.
Several thousand students are in their third month of boycotting CEGEP and university classes as a protest against incremental tuition fee hikes that will amount to $1625 by 2017.
Employees at the National Bank office at 600 de la Gauchetiere West were not able to enter their building Wednesday due anti-tuition-hike protesters were blocking each entrance.
Some employees were already inside, and in a workplace mishap a woman on the 11th floor fell and hit her head.
When ambulances arrived, police refused to allow them inside until the protesters had left the scene. It took about 20 minutes for paramedics to reach the woman, who was taken to hospital.
Around 8:30 a.m., the National bank asked protesters to leave. When they refused, police declared the protest illegal and warned protesters they would be forcibly removed.
At 8:45 a.m., police used pepper spray and then the riot squad to disperse the students, apparently without any injuries. One 23-year-old man was arrested.
Office workers were then able to enter the building.
Universite de Montreal student Roxanne Roy said the demonstration intended to send a message.
"We really want to stand our ground. We're fighting for our rights in a certain way, we want to be heard," she said.
Meantime, at Concordia University, students were calling on the administration to help prevent "dropped" courses and work to reschedule missed classes like some other institutions have done.
"It doesn't really matter if it was people on the picket line or people who could not access classes that could not be made up," said student Gabrielle Bouchard. "How can you honestly ask those people to write exams and write papers and know what they're supposed to know?"
CLASSE spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said he supports that point.
"We want to warn the administration of Concordia that if they continue in their ‘business as usual' attitude, I think the tension will go up on the campus," he said.
