(Photograph) - Student demonstrators made their presence felt during McGill University's 175th anniversary celebrations. The 40 students disrupted the 45-minute opening ceremony and confronted McGill chancellor Gretta Chambers while she was speaking. A marching band struck up to drown out the protesters, organised by members of the Canadian Federation of Students, who claimed that accessible high-quality education was being threatened by cutbacks.
They also want their principal, Bernard Shapiro, to stop pushing for deregulation of fees. Quebec students pay Can$1700 (Pounds 850) for an undergraduate programme, the lowest in Canada and McGill has been hit with a 6.3 per cent cut in provincial funding. Organiser Erin Runion, a postgraduate student, said McGill would "turn into an elite model of an American university" if it set its own fee levels. Dr Shapiro told CBC Radio that the university would have to increase revenues to deliver quality education. It would be "elitist intellectually but accessible financially", he said.