In Montreal, hundreds of thousands of students have been taking to the streets for weeks, often facing off against riot police. The province has been inundated with news, seemingly by the hour, of shifting tactics and the back-and-forth discussions between striking student groups and the government. Outside, unrest continues. There were more arrests, violence and property damage this week. It's a hell of a story. It's also one few Canadians outside Quebec actually care about. Maybe we should.

The students' grievances aren't just financial, but that's a good place to start: Quebec recently announced a 75% tuition fee increase over the next five years. That came as a shock to Quebecers and the province's powerful student movement, both of whom regard its current cut-rate fees as almost an issue of nationalist pride – a hangover from the province's Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when Quebec emerged from "la grande noirceur" of the Maurice Duplessis government and the firm grip of the Catholic Church, and started demanding more autonomy.

On the surface, such an extreme bump in fees sounds like something worth protesting against, perhaps even smashing a window for. Certainly it's enough for thousands of students to don a small red square – the symbol for how the move could put them "squarely in the red", or "carrément dans le rouge" – on their lapels in a show of solidarity. But Quebec has the cheapest fees in Canada, and what the rise means in real dollars is part of the reason the rest of the country is indifferent to the plight of Quebec's students.

The rise translates into an extra $325 each year, for a total increase of $1,625 per student. It means that in five years, Quebec students will pay just under $3,800 a year for a basic undergraduate degree – still one of the lowest rates in the country. But those low tuition rates also don't do much for university enrolment. Roughly 30% of Quebecers go to university, compared with just over 50% in Atlantic Canada and over 40% in Ontario and the west – regions with much higher average annual fees. A year of undergrad studies in neighbouring Ontario, for instance, will probably set you back around $5,000.

All of this in the face of Quebec's grim finances. The province's debt has grown by about $50bn in under a decade, and now sits at around $184bn – a whopping 55.5% of its GDP. Hence, the attempts to find some money in order to get that number down, perhaps to 53% by 2016.

Since the backlash started, Quebec's Liberal government – due to run an election soon – offered a compromise of sorts, expanding its loan programme that would cushion the blow for lower-income students. It was an olive branch, but it wasn't enough. Polls across the province show that while people might not like the tuition hike, they're not fans of civil disobedience, either. That's good news for the Liberals, and somewhat bad news for the students. But, they plan to stick it out. After all, the strike is "unlimited," and no matter what, the students still fear an encroaching corporatisation of Quebec's institutions – those cherished as a part of its identity.

In Anglo Canada, the whole thing has flown somewhat under the radar, overshadowed mostly by a fascinating provincial election in Alberta, the other restless child of federation, and the Conservative government's botched F-35 fighter jet procurement. Federal MPs in Ottawa also shy away from the issue, not wanting to make an inter-jurisdictional mess. And it's not their problem, anyway. One Quebec MP told me: "I'm not going to get in there," but that he just hoped his daughter could go back to class.

But forget him. And forget the other news for a minute, too. Maybe Quebec's students should be forcing Canadians to ask some simple questions.

So far, for most of Canada, the protests could be dismissed as just another case of Quebecers wanting more than is reasonable, but, then again, what is reasonable? How much is a degree worth? The rest of Canada can point to its high tuition fees and ask why Quebecers aren't paying more. Or we could ask why we're paying so much. Quebec clearly cannot continue funding education without reaching a breaking point, but it's a matter of priorities. Perhaps the rest of the country should ask itself why cheap tertiary education isn't one.

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