0:00:00.391,0:00:05.898 Our next speaker, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the leader of the student movement. 0:00:24.621,0:00:28.074 Welcome, welcome, thank you, this is a bit amazing. :) 0:00:28.074,0:00:32.906 I'm Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, and for 54 days, today, 0:00:32.906,0:00:35.858 I have been on strike. 0:00:36.673,0:00:40.540 For 54 days, I have been fighting. 0:00:40.540,0:00:44.658 54 days of fight, 54 days of police batons. 0:00:44.658,0:00:49.941 of tear gas, of pepper spray, me, my friends, my comrades 0:00:49.941,0:00:52.639 the students of Quebec. 0:00:52.639,0:00:56.472 54 days of striking against the Liberals, 0:00:56.472,0:01:02.758 against the bosses, against the cops, against contemptuous columnists 0:01:02.774,0:01:07.191 54 days, and we have already won. 0:01:07.191,0:01:09.227 Already, we have won over cynicism 0:01:09.227,0:01:12.088 Already, we have won over powerlessness 0:01:12.088,0:01:15.972 Against those who said just a few weeks ago 0:01:15.972,0:01:18.239 that the people of Quebec were dead 0:01:18.239,0:01:21.424 and that its youth were not much better. 0:01:21.424,0:01:25.052 That is why, I believe, I'll use this platform that has been offered to me today 0:01:25.052,0:01:29.621 to warmly thank the Prime Minister of Quebec 0:01:29.991,0:01:32.677 Mr Jean Jean Charest. :) 0:01:37.292,0:01:41.739 Thank you Mr Charest, you have given us 0:01:41.739,0:01:44.729 an unshakable confidence in ourselves. 0:01:44.729,0:01:53.053 Thank you Mr Charest to have shown us what we could do against you. 0:01:53.053,0:01:56.189 But by now, by now, you are on probation 0:01:56.189,0:01:59.707 You have declared war on an entire generation. 0:01:59.707,0:02:03.814 We have marked the ground of the history with a permanent mark. 0:02:03.814,0:02:08.825 From now on, Quebec's history will never be read without stopping here. 0:02:08.825,0:02:18.073 You have shown us the violence of your world, to let us -- perhaps -- imagine ours a little bit better. 0:02:18.073,0:02:21.960 Because we aspire to something more than your dying world. 0:02:21.960,0:02:27.070 We aspire to more than your dollar-sign education, than your laboratory schools, 0:02:27.070,0:02:30.953 and to more than your "Me Inc." society. 0:02:30.953,0:02:33.020 By now, we trust ourselves 0:02:33.020,0:02:35.873 By now, we trust the power of history 0:02:35.873,0:02:38.741 We trust our classmates 0:02:38.741,0:02:42.322 And by now trust the people of Quebec. 0:02:42.322,0:02:43.850 And it won't stop here. 0:02:43.850,0:02:49.441 Our anger, the students' anger, already resonates to the four corners of the province 0:02:49.441,0:02:56.455 and the ears of our children, our nieces, of our cousins resonate with it. 0:02:56.455,0:03:01.723 Striking is a school. For us, this spring, it will have been the best schooling. 0:03:03.416,0:03:07.189 ... and it will have been free no less :) 0:03:13.389,0:03:15.814 Striking-school this spring will have been for us 0:03:15.814,0:03:18.284 the best of training, a free training. 0:03:18.284,0:03:21.658 We learned this spring, we learned for real. 0:03:21.658,0:03:27.601 We learned what injustice is, what violence is, what the violence of a system is. 0:03:27.601,0:03:32.453 We learned what cayenne pepper tastes like, we learned what tear gas smells like. 0:03:32.453,0:03:35.950 And above all, we learned resistance. 0:03:35.950,0:03:41.433 Hundreds of thousands of us leaned to fight harder than we ever had in our lives. 0:03:41.433,0:03:45.869 to fight harder than anyone ever did in Quebec's history. 0:03:45.869,0:03:48.457 Our strike, it is not merely the matter of a generation, 0:03:48.457,0:03:50.191 It is not merely the matter of a spring. 0:03:50.191,0:03:52.924 It is the matter of a people, it is the matter of this world. 0:03:52.924,0:03:56.342 Our strike is not an isolated event. Our strike is just a step, 0:03:56.342,0:03:59.588 It is just a moment along a much longer route. 0:03:59.588,0:04:03.925 Our strike is already victorious. It is already victorious 0:04:03.925,0:04:09.164 because it made it possible to see this road, that of resistance. 0:04:09.164,0:04:11.615 This is the true meaning of our strike. 0:04:11.630,0:04:18.819 250'000 people don't take to the streets just to avoid paying $1625 extra. 0:04:29.434,0:04:36.540 This is the meaning of our strike. In perseverance, and in a continued disobedience. 0:04:36.540,0:04:40.223 This spring, we planted the seeds of a revolt 0:04:40.223,0:04:43.322 which, perhaps, might not grow for many years still. 0:04:43.322,0:04:48.841 Yet already, we can say that the people of Quebec are not asleep. 0:04:48.841,0:04:52.074 Nor are its youth. 0:04:52.074,0:04:54.973 Maybe they have the hardest clubs. 0:04:54.973,0:04:58.357 Maybe they wear the thickest armors. 0:04:58.357,0:05:01.757 Maybe they own the largest newspapers. 0:05:01.757,0:05:04.473 Maybe they have the thickest wallets. 0:05:04.473,0:05:07.613 We, however, we have the toughest spirit. 0:05:07.613,0:05:09.804 We have the courage of the oppressed, 0:05:09.804,0:05:12.164 We have the force of the multitude. 0:05:12.164,0:05:14.419 But above all, above all, 0:05:14.419,0:05:17.139 We are, simply stated, right. 0:05:27.401,0:05:31.040 We are right to stand. We are right to shout. We are right to protest. 0:05:31.040,0:05:36.012 We are right to strike. We are right to block entry to our cegeps. 0:05:36.012,0:05:37.834 To block entry to our universities. 0:05:37.834,0:05:43.494 We are right not to be intimidated by the injunctions of a small-minded jerk 0:05:43.494,0:05:47.514 who lost his debate in the House, and who has parents rich enough to buy him a lawyer. 0:05:47.514,0:05:50.234 It is right to fight against this. 0:05:50.234,0:05:52.462 Against a world... 0:05:59.908,0:06:03.947 Right to fight against a world that tries to cut off our wings, 0:06:03.947,0:06:07.457 who wants to discipline us through debt and work 0:06:07.457,0:06:10.475 Yet this fight is not only the student's fight. 0:06:10.475,0:06:14.380 It must not be only the student's fight. 0:06:14.380,0:06:16.146 Because the individuals 0:06:16.146,0:06:21.680 who want to increase tuition fees, who perhaps will increase tuition fees. 0:06:21.680,0:06:25.959 the individuals who invented the health tax, the people who invented the 'Plan Nord'. 0:06:25.959,0:06:29.771 The people who have laid off the workers at Aveos 0:06:29.771,0:06:34.737 the people trying to lay off workers at Rio Tinto, Alcan, Alma 0:06:34.737,0:06:39.716 the people trying to stop the Couche Tard workers from unionizing. 0:06:39.716,0:06:42.723 All these individuals are the same. 0:06:42.723,0:06:46.576 It is the same people, with the same interests, in the same groups, in the same political parties, 0:06:46.576,0:06:48.285 in the same economic institutes. 0:06:48.285,0:06:52.964 These individuals are a single elite, a gluttonous elite, a crass elite 0:06:52.964,0:06:55.438 a corrupted elite. 0:06:55.561,0:07:00.128 An elite who sees nothing in education but a human capital investment. 0:07:00.128,0:07:03.017 who sees nothing in a tree but a sheet of paper 0:07:03.017,0:07:05.797 and who sees nothing in a child but a future employee. 0:07:05.797,0:07:08.238 These people have a plan... 0:07:14.930,0:07:18.204 These people have convergent interests, converging political projects. 0:07:18.204,0:07:20.146 It is against them that we have to fight. 0:07:20.146,0:07:23.134 Not only against the Liberal Government. 0:07:23.134,0:07:28.846 Today I can, I believe, give a voice to the wish, 0:07:28.846,0:07:33.206 the dearest wish of the students currently on strike in Quebec 0:07:33.206,0:07:38.779 to become a springboard. Let our strike be a springboard for the next protest 0:07:38.779,0:07:40.089 a much broader protest 0:07:40.089,0:07:43.447 much deeper and much more -- yes -- radical 0:07:43.447,0:07:48.317 against the political direction of Quebec in recent years [bravo!] 0:08:04.548,0:08:06.798 If there is a Quebec tradition to protect 0:08:06.798,0:08:09.709 it is not poutine or xenophobia. :) 0:08:09.709,0:08:14.579 If there is any Quebec tradition to protect, 0:08:14.579,0:08:17.396 it is the one Quebec's students are carrying today. A tradition of fight, 0:08:17.396,0:08:21.630 of union fights, of student fights, of the people's fights. 0:08:21.630,0:08:27.511 And to speak of this fight, I could not finish my statement today... 0:08:27.511,0:08:30.340 without offering you the words of Gaston Miron: 0:08:31.478,0:08:35.764 "forward, forward, we are moving, our heads like a delta" 0:08:35.764,0:08:37.803 Good-bye, farewell 0:08:38.787,0:08:41.581 on our return, we will have the past on our back 0:08:41.873,0:08:44.688 and after all this time throwing our hate at all forms of peonage 0:08:45.226,0:08:48.236 we will have become terrible beasts of hope. " 0:08:48.505,0:08:49.983 Thank you.