Striking Quebec students agree to talks

MONTREAL - The latest round of negotiations between student leaders and the government will begin Monday in Quebec City.

Students made the announcement Sunday evening as business leaders met in downtown Montreal to discuss the economic impact of Quebec's social unrest.

Michel Leblanc, president of Montreal's Board of Trade, invited the mayor, Quebec's finance minister and representatives from the business and tourism industry to get a "global picture" of the impacts of the student strike.

Leblanc told QMI Agency Sunday afternoon that businesses in the downtown core like hotels, restaurants and retails stores have seen sales drop by 15%, on average.

"But of course you get higher numbers," he said. "There are stores that are reporting 60% less business."

As the business leaders met, Martine Desjardins, head of one of the three main student federations, told QMI Agency that "everything will be on the table" during the fourth round of negotiations, which begin Monday.

However, she would not say whether or not her federation would accept a tuition fee increase.
"The member associations will vote on whatever offer the government makes," she said.
Student associations rejected the government's latest offer at the end of April.
About 150,000 students, roughly one-third of Quebec's post-secondary student population, are on strike over the government's plan to raise tuition by $1,800 over seven years. Monday will be day 106 of the strike.
Thousands of people march through the streets of Montreal and other large Quebec cities every night. Montreal has had 33 consecutive nights of marches.
The people at the nightly protests in Montreal speak as much about their anger towards Quebec's emergency law as they do about the tuition fight.
Quebec's emergency legislation was enacted on May 18. It imposes harsh financial penalties on anyone caught preventing students from attending classes and bans spontaneous protests across the island.
Student leaders, along with labour unions, are among 70 organizations that have taken the government to court over the law. They claim it infringes on the charter rights of expression, assembly and association.
Many of the law's provisions have been flagrantly ignored and the night protests have grown in size since the law was enacted on May 18.
A cacophony of clanging breaks out in neighbourhoods across the island every evening as thousands of people bang pots as they march down the streets. Many bang pots from their balconies.
As hundreds marched through residential streets in the west-end Montreal neighbourhood of NDG, people walked out of their homes with a pot and joined the protest, Elana August said.
The Concordia University graduate student lives in the area and said she couldn't remember protests in her part of the city.
She said she and her mom were part of the hundreds who marched through NDG on Saturday evening.
"I have never seen such a sense of community," she said.