![\"Group](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0328-city-student-strike-6064.jpg\")
Students are joined by other groups in a protest rally in downtown Montreal on Friday, March 27, 2026. Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\nMore than 1,000 striking post-secondary students flooded downtown Montreal on Friday, marching in protest after the Quebec government slashed financial aid and demanding it boost funding for their CEGEPs and universities.<\/p>\n
The demonstration was part of a weeklong strike involving more than 65,000 students across Quebec, organized by the student union Coalition de r\u00e9sistance pour l\u2019unit\u00e9 \u00e9tudiante syndicale (CRUES). Protesters are pushing the provincial government to restore student financial aid, which was cut by $25 million in Quebec\u2019s 2026-2027 budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to become increasingly inaccessible. Only the most privileged people will have access to education. Is that really what the government wants?\u201d said Elki Mercier, a spokesperson for CRUES.<\/p>\n
Students are joined by other groups in a protest rally in downtown Montreal on Friday, March 27, 2026. Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the latest blow to Quebec\u2019s higher education system under the Legault government, which has also introduced a cap on international students<\/a> and a 33-per-cent tuition hike for out-of-province students<\/a>, both of which have contributed to a drop in enrolment<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mercier, who is in her first year at l\u2019Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al, is relying on loans to pursue her studies.<\/p>\n \u201cOften, that\u2019s not enough to feed myself \u2014 and for many (students), it often means having to choose between housing and food,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The protesters gathered at Dorchester Square around 1 p.m. Friday before marching east along Ren\u00e9-L\u00e9vesque Blvd. and then turning onto Robert-Bourassa Blvd.<\/p>\n Many pinned red felt squares to their jackets and bags, which protester Nour El-Hage from C\u00e9gep de Saint-Laurent said was \u201cinspired\u201d by the red square symbol used in the 2012 Maple Spring student strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a colour that in the history of Quebec student movements has a lot of meaning,\u201d El-Hage said.<\/p>\n Teachers from Dawson College stood alongside the students, warning the social costs of these cuts \u201care going to be greater than any savings they could possibly justify.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe budget cuts have decimated a large part of our school. We\u2019ve lost employees. We\u2019ve lost jobs. We have trouble keeping our staff,\u201d said Emilie Richer, who teaches in the mathematics department.<\/p>\n Dawson teacher Antonia Fikkert said education is an investment for the future of the province and worries about the long-term impacts of the cuts on both her students and her own children.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really, really worried about the ability of our population in the future to think critically about the government, to live in a society that\u2019s diverse, multicultural. To be smart and critical about AI, about all of these challenges around the world,\u201d she said. \u201cThe government is completely emaciating our ability to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gazette reached out to the Ministry of Higher Education for comment, but did not get a reply in time for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 striking post-secondary students flooded downtown Montreal on Friday, marching in protest after the Quebec government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-566360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}