Why student protests in Quebec have gone to pot. And pan. Clanging kitchenware has caught on across the country. We talk to the man who cooked up the idea in Montreal and delve into the history of this boisterous banging.

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Today's guest host was Erica Johnson.

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Casserole Protests - pots-and-pans movement founder

We started this segment with the sound of the nights in Montreal since Bill 78 was passed. The bill seeks to limit protest, but it just seems to have increased them as people grab pots and ladles and clobber the night away. And it's not just students taking part in the so-called "casserole protests".

Demonstrations continue after negotiations between student leaders and the Quebec government broke off yesterday. The most militant student group, CLASSE, encourages all Montrealers to bring their pots and pans to Jeanne Mance Park on Saturday afternoon for what they hope will be the biggest casserole event yet. This type of protest was actually cooked up somewhere else.

We aired a clip from a kitchenware protests from Argentina in 2001 and Iceland in 2009. Both were in response to economic crises. In a few minutes we'll talk about the birth of these cacophonous calls for change.

But first the man being credited with initiating the pots-and-pans movement in Quebec is a teacher of politics at CEGEP Saint-Hyacinthe, a college southeast of Montreal. François-Olivier Chené was in Montreal.

Casserole Protests

We started this segment with a clip from was from the CBC archives... part of a report on CBC Radio's Sunday Morning August 14th, 1983.

Casserole protests are almost as common as dinner in Latin America. The Spanish name is "cacerolazos" and they became prominent in the early 70's in Chile.

Phillip Oxhorn is a professor of political science at McGill University and the Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of International Development. He was in Waterloo, Ontario this morning. And Carolina Echeverria is a Chilean-Canadian artist and she was in Montreal.

This segment was produced by The Current's Lara O'Brien, Kristin Nelson and Pedro Sanchez.

Other segments from today's show:

• Outlawing Weight Discrimination
• Almost There: The Family Vacation, Then and Now