Why is the Left Freaking Out Over This Maclean's Cover?

Simply? Because it's true.

More than a little too true for their tastes.

All across Canada, it's been an impossible subject to avoid. Militant students in Quebec have taken to the streets in protest to a government plan to increase Post Secondary tuition in the province by $325 a year, each year for a period of five years.

Even after all the increases, Quebec would still have the lowest tuition in all of Canada. But that isn't enough for these students, who demand that somehow tuition be kept indefinitely frozen at a level far below what is needed to sustain Quebec's post secondary education system.

Normally, the left is all about "sustainable development." Unless they're the ones who have to sacrifice in order to ensure that things are sustainable. Then they're steadfastly opposed to it. But I digress.

Over time, the Quebec protests have turned more and more violent, more and more thuggish. Students who decline to go along with the protest have not only had their semester shut down, but have in some cases even been threatened by their more militant peers.

Even the Black Bloc has made the scene. And as Canadians grow ever more tired of the hysterics and thuggery overrunning Quebec's streets, the fever is spreading. The Montreal bus driver's union has voted to refuse to transport police officers to the scene of any riot, and to refuse to transport arrested protesters away from any riot.

Incredible.

Some aligning themselves with these students have even taken it upon themselves to produce this.

No one should be shocked that the left are so eager to attribute brilliance to themselves. It's just what they do. But the failure to address the simple criticism of the self-righteous sense of entitlement of Quebec students is simply astonishing.

 Even more astonishing is witnessing students who already pay more tuition than students in Quebec getting onside with Quebec's students, almost as if they imagine that if the Quebec government can be broken, so can their own governments.

All of this makes it clear that far too many students in Canada haven't come to grips with a simple, central fact about this issue: which is that someone has to pay for post secondary education.

In Quebec, to date, it's actually been whichever provinces may be considered a "have" province under Canada's equalization formula. In the past this has included Ontario, currently includes Alberta and Saskatchewan, and will eventually include Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

So if students in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were to demand the same tuition as Quebec, just who would pay for post secondary education in Canada? Who would pay for it if some of these activists got what they wanted and university tuition was free?