Quebec CEGEP students on edge after schools receive bomb threats

Students of Montreal's three English colleges say although their schools were never evacuated, Tuesday's news of bomb threats was enough to make them feel stressed and anxious.

"It's scary because we are in exam sessions, and we have a lot going on. This puts more pressure on us. It's just scary," said Dawson student Maria Garzon.

Dawson was just one of 71 schools in the province and in the Ottawa region that received a threatening email from an anonymous mailer.

All the schools were searched, and several were evacuated as a precautionary measure.

Police did not find a bomb in any of the schools.

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Dawson College was searched but never evacuated. Many students said they still felt shaken, given the school's history.

In 2006, a gunman stormed into the school and opened fire, killing one student and injuring 19 others before turning the gun on himself.

"That [bomb threat] makes me feel really scared. I had no clue. I thought after 2006 everything would be fine," said Dawson student Siamand Omar.

"We had the shooting at Dawson so...I'll come back to class because we are now in exam session but I will be scared a little bit because it's a big thing. If we have a bomb, I don't want to risk my life," said another student, Janet Manengue.

Administrators at Dawson only found out about the threatening email hours after it was sent.

The email was received around Tuesday around midnight, but it was sent to a generic address that is not often checked.

Dawson spokeswomanDonna Varrica told CBC News that when someone saw the email Tuesday morning, police were immediately called in. Campus security had also been combing the premises.

"We would never put students' lives at risk. We've been there. We had a huge tragedy happen to us. So student security is number one. If there's any kind of threat, the evacuation happens within seconds. So for us not to have called an evacuation, there simply wasn't any reason," Varrica said.

At CEGEPde Ste-Hyacinthe, all staff and students were ordered to leave the building at around 10 a.m. The CEGEPalso sent out mass emails telling people classes were cancelled until tomorrow.

"We don't take threats like this lightly. We have the security of the people it's very important to us," said Vronique Blain, spokeswoman for CEGEPde Ste-Hyacinthe.

Threats to be investigated as terrorist act

Interim Quebec Security Minister Pierre Moreau said the note cited anger at teachers' unions and quality of education as the main motivations for the threats.

"The nature of the email is a threat that bombs would be placed in schools, CEGEPS and some school buses as well because they are opposed to the way the teachers in Quebec and Ontario are dealing with the students," said Moreau, adding that the threats will be investigated as a terrorist act.

"Because of the large population that is concerned by the threat, even though there would be nothing found in the search," Moreau said, "I think it would respond to the definition of a terrorist act, according to law."

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard also had harsh words for the perpetrators.

"We will allow the investigation to take its course they have to know that they will be prosecuted, and that the investigation will be rigorous, if we are successful in identifying them," Couillard told reporters Tuesday at the National Assembly. "It's unacceptable. It's condemnable Words escape me. It's criminal."

Town mayor upset with response

The mayor of Gros-Mcatina, a town situated on Quebec's Lower North Shore near the Labrador border, saidhe wasdisgusted with the way Tuesday'sbomb threats were handled in the region.

Randy Jones said there is only one police station in Blanc-Sablon to serve dozens of communities along the eastern coast, forcing him to send hismunicipal inspector to check inside the local school for anything unusual before students could be let back in.

"I don't think that the government of Quebec, or the police force, or the public security has the right to gamble with the lives of the people of the Lower North Shore. And that's exactly what they're doing," Jones said, adding thatemergency crews are difficult to reach at times because there is no cell phone service.

Jones said he's afraid people will start leaving the region because they don't feel safe.