McGill says security concerns forced the dismantling of encampment

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An escalation of security issues and violence left McGill University with no choice but to order the dismantlement of the pro-Palestinian encampment that had been on its downtown campus for 2½ months, university officials said Thursday.

Any future encampments will be dealt with “swiftly,” and McGill students who participated in the encampment will face penalties that could include expulsion.

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“There were acts of intimidation, harassment, damage to property, occupations of university buildings, clashes with the police and an assault on one of our security guards,” Fabrice Labeau, vice-president of administration and finance for McGill University, told The Gazette.

“On top of that, recently we learned that the people in the camp were not McGill people anymore, but mainly exterior activist groups. And the people who were sleeping in the camp were actually mainly unhoused people.”

Protesters had refused entry to Montreal firefighters for security checks since the start of the encampment, rats were present on the site, and ambulances were called for two drug overdoses in the last week, Labeau said.

A private security firm hired by McGill moved in during pre-dawn hours Wednesday with excavators, dump trucks and security personnel to tear down the longest-running pro-Palestinian encampment on Canadian university grounds. They were aided by Montreal police and officers with the Sûreté du Québec, many clad in riot gear, who set up a security perimeter around the campus. One protester was arrested and charged with assaulting a security guard during the dismantling operation.

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Political rumblings had been escalating in recent weeks, with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante accusing McGill last Friday of exhibiting a “lack of leadership” in the matter. Her criticism came a couple days after Quebec ministers chastised her administration for being “too passive” with the multiple protest encampments that had sprouted on public property and at universities in the city.

Labeau said McGill had tried all possible options, including asking Montreal police to remove the protesters, which they refused to do; filing for an emergency legal injunction to have the protesters removed, which was rejected by a Quebec Superior Court judge; and negotiating with the protesters, which Labeau said went nowhere because they refused “to move an inch.”

Ultimately, the university imposed its legal right “for the owner of a private property to require individuals who set up camp on their private property to leave,” Labeau said.

The dismantlement was orchestrated in co-ordination with the city and police forces. The move was decried by numerous organizations, including the Law Students for Palestine at McGill, who called it “a flagrant display of contempt for the judicial process” inflicted on “those standing in principled opposition to apartheid, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide.”

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Demonstrators on Wednesday denied McGill’s claims the camp was infested with rats and had visible unsanitary conditions, calling them “baseless” and part of McGill’s “smear campaign.” They added that the university never negotiated in good faith.

Protesters called on pro-Palestinian Montrealers to converge on Phillips Square at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

Demonstrators at the McGill encampment said the university refused to respond to their demands that McGill divest from funds or companies they’ve identified as being part of the Israeli war effort in its fight against Hamas, which began after Hamas fighters invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

Labeau responded that McGill said publicly it would pursue some of the proposals put forth by the protesters, including increasing its level of transparency for its equity holdings, and investigating whether or not the university should invest in companies that make significant revenue from weapons manufacturing. But protesters were also demanding McGill divest from holdings in Canadian banks because they’re involved with Israel, and cut ties with Israeli universities, neither of which is going to happen, Labeau said.

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“It’s a fundamental part of the mission of a university to educate and teach,” he said. “And I find that it’s important for everybody to unite through education and teaching and not divide through education and teaching.”

Students had earlier been offered an amnesty clause if they quit the encampment, but refused, Labeau said. The school will be pursuing disciplinary processes for those who violated the student code of conduct, and will decide on sanctions that could range as high as expulsions.

In response to those arguing McGill has stifled freedom of expression by dismantling the encampment, Labeau said the university is a “great supporter of freedom of expression. We do tolerate protests on campuses as long as they’re within the boundaries of the laws and our policies. … This encampment was illegal. It was a source of intimidation, violence and harassment.”

Eta Yudin, Quebec vice-president for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, applauded the dismantlement of the encampments at McGill and elsewhere, saying they had become “centres to target Jewish students and the Jewish community with antisemitism.”

“In the long term, (McGill needs to) address the core, which is the incidence of antisemitism on campus, and the use of a podium, and what Jewish students are experiencing on campus,” Yudin said, “and that’s I think a longer game.”

Jason Magder of The Gazette contributed to this report.

rbruemmer@postmedia.com

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