In 2012, Quebec saw the largest and longest student strike in North American history. The strike, which counted hundreds of thousands of participants at its height, helped bring down a Liberal government and reversed a planned tuition fee hike of over 80 percent. When the dust settled, the tuition hike was cancelled, and the government that had imposed it was defeated. Leftists across North America looked to the students, and the large swathes of society that had backed them, for inspiration in their struggles.

Six years later, Quebec is entering its second election campaign since that strike, and one might expect that the coalition of over 40 percent of the population that backed the students has brought a leftist political option to the threshold of government, right? Not quite.

Like many other places, major issues face us as the October 1 election approaches. Climate, housing, inequality, and two decades of austerity cuts to the public services we hold dear.