So, the victorious Parti Québécois, who believe so much in education, who spent all spring and summer hand-wringing and moaning about how that mean, mean Jean Charest was just so… so mean because he wouldn’t invest in Quebec’s youth, and whose election was a massive and historic victory because they cancelled those terrible, evil, neo-liberal tuition fee hikes, has just cut subsidies to all universities’ and colleges’ by five percent.

Oh, and the cuts aren’t coming next year, they’re coming this year.  The one that’s already more than half over.  So, in fact, based on what actually remains of the budget year, the cut’s add up to something closer to 12%.

Of course, I’m sure that the province’s teaching staff, many of whom supported the students publicly – yes, I’m looking at you, Anarchopanda – and joined in their brave resistance to “The Man” will view this development with good cheer.  I forsee them gladly – no, gleefully – agreeing to have their salaries cut so they can show that they’re ready to do their part, and make sure that under no circumstances are students forced to pay another penny towards their education.  Because that’s what solidarity means, isn’t it?

And of course student leaders will be asking universities to publicize the fact that those shortened library hours, those cancelled course sections – that they’re all thanks to the Red Square movement.  In fact, I’m sure that at this very minute, they’re planning a massive new wave of demonstrations in which students will bang pots and pans through the east end of Montreal, in a huge percussive show of support for the Parti Québécois and its cutbacks.

No?  You don’t think so? Wait, you don’t think that students feel shocked and betrayed right now, do you?

Surely not.  Surely everyone understood at the outset that the province was broke and that the alternative to tuition hikes was precisely this kind of cutback.  Surely everyone understood that government spending is limited by the size of the taxbase, and that in a province as highly taxed as Quebec, when you promise something as expensive and unnecessary as a continuation of a misguided tuition freeze, that somehow, someway, it has to be paid for.

No?  You don’t think they understood all of that?  Well, they must be feeling pretty silly today, mustn’t they?