Calling it “non-negotiable,” McGill University’s president says the encampment on the lower field “must be dismantled quickly.”
In a letter to the McGill community, Deep Saini said while he supports the right of members of the McGill community to protest and express their views by legal means, “no one, let alone individuals from outside McGill, has the right to set up an encampment on the University’s property.”
His letter comes hours after a judge rejected a request from two McGill University students for a court injunction to limit where protesters can go on campus.
Saini has also offered to hold a “forum” to discuss the protesters’ demands “if members of the McGill community in the encampment permanently leave the encampment immediately.”
The plaintiffs who sought the injunction had argued the pro-Palestinian encampment on the school’s lower field created a “dangerous, hostile, aggressive and violent environment.”
“There are Canadian values, there are Quebec values, but they are not the values of hate, they are not the values of intimidation, they are not the values of harassment,” said the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Neil Oberman, on Tuesday. “No Canadian, no Québécois will tolerate that or accept it and neither should the court.”
The plaintiffs sought an immediate end to protests within 100 metres of any McGill University building to ensure students could access the facilities.
“It is premature, at this stage, to conclude that the situation will not be resolved adequately and non-violently with progressive police intervention, which a court order would not necessarily encourage,” the judgment reads.
In a statement, McGill University reiterated it did not seek the injunction but was named as an interested party.
“We are encouraged by the judge’s finding that ‘the demonstrators … are illegally occupying the premises by camping there. However, it must be emphasized that McGill University, contrary to the plaintiffs’ claims, was proactive, applied the process it set out, tried to negotiate an agreement for a progressive dismantling with the respect of certain conditions, gave warnings in the absence of an agreement and, finally, called for police assistance as a last resort, in order to put an end to this situation.'”
A lawyer for the Students Society of McGill University (SSMU) argued in court that blocking free speech in such a large area of downtown Montreal is wrong.
“It’s abusive because basically what it’s asking for is to block out a big part of downtown to all protests, so peaceful protests, protests of any kind,” said Sibel Ataogul, the lawyer representing the SSMU. “For us, that’s an egregious violation of the fundamental freedoms that we enjoy in Canada and in Quebec and in Montreal.”
Demonstrators started camping out on the school’s grounds last weekend to demand the university divest from funds they claim are connected to Israel.
They say they want McGill to divest from Israeli companies it says are “complicit in the occupation of Palestine.”
They say they also want the school to cut academic ties with Israeli institutions and denounce Israel’s offensive in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
The Israeli offensive has led to more than 34,000 Palestinian deaths, according to the local health ministry.
The encampment in Montreal is one of a wave of similar protests across university campuses in the United States linked to the Israel-Hamas war.