A march in solidarity with protesting Quebec students Tuesday night drew a modest crowd of about 300 students and supporters.

The peaceful protest wound its way from the George Brown College campus on King St. E. up to Ryerson University, ending at the intersection of Yonge and Bloor. With felt carre-rouge pinned to their shirts, the crowd banged pots and pans and shouted the now-familiar slogans of the Quebecois student strike.

In spite of the relatively small turnout — a similar march last week reportedly drew over a thousand people — those who marched on Tuesday remained optimistic.

MAX THOMSON/THE VARSITY

Xavier Le France, a veteran of the Quebecois student strike movement, addressed Tuesday’s crowd as they paused before the Ryerson Student Union Building.

“This is a very good turn out tonight. I’m really excited about that, but it’s too small, right?” He compared those assembled to the core “network of activists” that comprised CLASSE in the years before protests broke out this spring.

“This is just the beginning,” declared Sarah Jayne King, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students’ Ontario division. “We need to start developing the structures on our campuses to work towards real student action in this province.”

Although many protestors spoke passionately about their hopes for a student strike in Ontario this fall, student leaders have acknowledged that the infrastructure that enabled Quebec’s protests — general assembly-like bodies working at the university departmental level — does not yet exist in Ontario. But that did not dampen protestor enthusiasm over the importance of their movement.

“What’s happening in Europe, what’s happening in the Arab world, is happening right now in Toronto,” said Clement Nocos, a U of T student, sounding a familiar theme echoed by other speakers.

MAX THOMSON/THE VARSITY

“Students issues and movements have always been at the foreground of revolutions all over the world,” said Roxy Cohen, an organizer with the Ontario Students’ Mobilization Coalition.

Tuesday’s march was organized by the OSMC, a loosely structured network of community activists and student lobbyists. The group was founded at the end of May and is backed by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).

In a gesture of solidarity with their sister organizations in Quebec, the CFS has donated $30,000 to the ongoing student strikers in Quebec. CUPE 3902, a local U of T union that includes teaching assistants, also donated $20,000 in recent weeks.

Explaining the OSMC’s aims, Jacob Hodgins, president of the Laurentian Students’ Union, said, “Only a movement robust enough to apply sustained and meaningful pressure on governments and administrations, and willing to stand firm in its resolve to achieve free and accessible education, has the ability to win this struggle.

“We must not rule out organizing for a strike action as they have done in Quebec, as this is the most power leverage students have in this struggle.”

-With files from Lia Kim