Like many, I grew up believing that the world as I knew it was a given. It was a world where rights were respected, where the entire population had a social safety net to protect them from life’s uncertainties, where the rule of law prevailed. In retrospect, I can only acknowledge the naiveté of these ideas, which nonetheless made me proud of Quebec, like many others, I imagine. I believed I lived in a just society, concerned with the common good. 

Later, I understood that what I had taken for granted was not self-evident, that there were places on the planet where these rights did not exist, that not everyone benefited from them in the same way, but above all, that these rights were the result of social struggles and not of the magnanimity of those in power. I understood that the rich and powerful never let a single ounce of this power slip from their grasp without it being wrested from them, most often through hard-fought battles. I also understood that unions had played a crucial role in these struggles, which certainly explains why the government is attacking them today. 

Understanding that the social gains we enjoy were won through struggle also makes it clear that they can be taken away if we are not vigilant. They are not to be taken for granted. Someone could try to take them away from us. 

We are at a point in history where our hard-won rights are being challenged. Here, as elsewhere, governments are attacking the rights of the people: in France, Argentina, the United States, Canada, Quebec… The CAQ’s offensive against union and social rights is part of this international rise of the right and far right. In very concrete terms, “our” government is attacking our rights to health, education, housing, the environment, our right to association, and our freedom of expression, to name just a few. If we don’t react now, we’ll be playing catch-up for decades. 

We shouldn’t think the CAQ is doing this by mistake, or that it doesn’t understand what it’s doing. On the contrary, it understands it perfectly well. The government is being strategic. By claiming to want to reduce the power of unions, it’s disguising its attacks on the rights of the entire population. At the very moment it’s attacking civil society and seeking to limit its political influence, the CAQ is introducing a “constitutional” bill that would prohibit hundreds of civil society groups from challenging parliamentary decisions in court. It’s not just unions that are being targeted, far from it. The attacks also target community groups, citizens’ groups—in short, civil society as a whole. 

We are at a historic turning point, facing a government that wants to set Quebec back decades in terms of human rights and democracy. We can hardly trust the other parties likely to succeed it in power, who at best remain silent, and at worst loudly proclaim their support for the right-wing offensive led by the current government. This is why the demonstration on November 29th is one of the most important in years, if not decades. 

This government no longer has the legitimacy to govern, much less the legitimacy to impose such historic democratic setbacks and attacks on civil rights. We must force it to back down, and it is through the strength of our numbers that we will succeed! 

Personally, I don’t want to have to wonder in ten or fifteen years what more I could have done to fight the CAQ’s anti-social and anti-union attacks. That’s why we must do everything we can today to mobilize for the November 29th demonstration and the next phases of the “Stand Together” campaign. 

Talk to your classmates, colleagues, family and friends, now is the time to act. 

Solidarity! 

Bertrand Guibord, president of the CCMM-CSN