medical student protest

[ochodias]

sounds like an oxymoron eh? medical students protesting.... impossible!  well - i saw it.  it was really interesting. at first people were afraid to chant anything... like they all had the impression they might be doing something wrong if they were too loud... even most of the organizers had never been to a protest in their lives.  for anything.

Comments

[ochodias]

well... none of the people standing on the sidewalk were doctors. they were students. about the whole rich people wanting more money thing- it's hard for me to get upset that they make ~40% less than they would in Ontario - but they make a good point that it's impossible to keep anyone in the province with that discrepancy, making conditions here shittier... and the downwards spiral continues. so... is it fucked up that the most powerful and well paid group is protesting when gp's and nurses and everyone else in medicine deals with just as much of a provincial pay discrepancy with way way lower incomes? or is it kind of cool that they're taking a stand when less powerful groups can't, to potentially try to make conditions better by keeping specialists in the province? or should they really be happy that maybe Quebec is stopping specialist wage inflation across the country and every specialist should be paid less? (although that makes absolutely no sense since it's not like what they're not being paid is going to nurses, who make that much less in quebec than ontario... so much that they make as little as 14$ an hour)
i don't really know. but yeah, i don't care if they make 200 vs 350 thousand a year. either seems pretty crazy.

[ochodias]

hey jesse,

i take it all back. specialists are rich and don't realize that the price of living in quebec is way lower here and that's why they're getting paid less. and instead of getting themselves thrown in jail for protesting, they're basically making students protest on their behalf. and apparently there's no lack of specialists here compared to the rest of canada anyway - so their argument that people are leaving isn't true... at least yet.

so, you were right in the first place. except that the students aren't protesting for any reason except that they want to go back to school.