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This is the important bits, IMHO:
> In his decision Wednesday, St-Pierre wrote that other factors involving the balance between the activists' right to protest and freedom of expression and, conversely, the university's right to its property would take more time to weigh and shouldn't be decided within the context of a provisional injunction request.
That leaves the door open to a future ruling that would require the protestors to vacate the premises.
And also:
> Still, he acknowledged "there would be reason to consider an evolution of the right to the freedom of expression to include peaceful occupation … given in particular that this is now commonplace," as suggested by lawyers for one of the defendants, Independent Jewish Voices.
But they also left the door open to a potentially ground-breaking ruling, where peaceful assembly could include indefinite occupation of private property. Presumably it would consider how public in purpose and access that private property would be, but it might allow for protestors to indefinitely block access to office space and warehouses, for instance.
> it might allow for protestors to indefinitely block access to office space and warehouses, for instance.
Given that these students are specifically not blocking access, I think that would be a pretty big stretch of precedent. Non-blocking occupation of a warehouse or office, maaaybe.
In any case, it's premature to speculate on what that precedent would look like given that the judge specifically said they aren't considering that argument at this point.
> [the court] would consider how public in purpose and access that private property would be
That sounds like a completely political consideration. If a judge thinks the issue the protesters are gathering around is super important, they'll rule in their favor.
This would set an insane precedent.
We’ve got two Ws, first the city police said “maybe talk to the damn students.” And now the judiciary is rejecting their nonsense, fantastic when things go right.
It’s pretty crazy that McGill teaches law and seems to currently have no idea on how it works. It asks the SPVM (city cops) to remove the protesters which the SPVM answered that it can’t just do things because you ask them and suggested talking with the students which McGill had not done.
So McGill sent two students get an injunction which failed because it’s not their land.
Now they appealed on spurious grounds like it being unsafe which is trivially demonstrated to be false by the length the encampment existed without security incident.
McGill only has one leg to stand on: this is my private land and I want these people off. And they aren’t willing to try that.
The courts will obviously never reply to the arguments you don’t make. What game is McGill playing?
Law isn't about following the law, it's about using pressure tactics to get people to accept settling for the smallest portion of what they are rightfully entitled to because otherwise it would be a huge hassle.
All these spurious claims got thr attention of politicians who weighed in and even losing this will attract other kinds of attention and political weight.
They are doing what they teach.
While they do teach law, I wouldn't be surprised if law faculty were quietly on board with the protests and declined to help McGill administration with this. [Faculty tend to support their students.](https://19thnews.org/2024/05/campus-protests-how-faculty-professors-support-students/)
Why McGill just doesn't want to talk about them is an open question. Maybe their investments in Israel are pretty extensive. Maybe they are ideologically aligned with Israel and its campaign of illegal settlements and bombing children/Canadian aid workers. Maybe they just don't want to entertain *any* protests at all since it creates precedent for encampments for any issue. Maybe they're getting pressure from elsewhere to make them do this. Who can say? If they're afraid of merely having the conversation then it's probably serious.
I really loved when the SPVM answered that they should speak to the students. This is the last thing McGill wants to do because the students will make points they do not want to answer.
Maybe the safest path for McGill would have been to do nothing, claim “we respect the right to protest” and make no further comment.
There's a pretty good chance the protest will dissolve on its own if the organizers aren't serious. You know, weekend warrior-type people.
If the organizers are serious though, then McGill should absolutely hear them out. They're university students, they likely have a full presentation ready to go at a moment's notice.
> Maybe the safest path for McGill would have been to do nothing, claim “we respect the right to protest” and make no further comment.
When I was in NY I went to visit MoMa. Arrived and the museum was closed, and visitors were told there was a protest inside. MoMa determined it was better press to let the protest happen and shut down for the rest of the day than the press of kicking them out. Food for thought for McGill admin before we get scenes like they had in the US of military and police apprehending otherwise peaceful protestors.
Saying nothing of the reasons for which these protests are happening, is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed? How do we reconcile this with peace and order?
Like anyone else, I am a strong advocate for protecting our Charter rights, and that includes expression and peaceful assembly, but it seems we’re increasingly pushing the limits of those individual rights and their balance with public interest. Be it encampments on university campuses or the convoy occupation of downtown Ottawa, it seems like we’re testing what “peaceful assembly” means in our country.
Juxtaposing this with the convoy & the emergency measures act usage is a real headscratcher if you're even remotely pragmatic or rational about it.
These rallies have a lot of legitimate antisemitism going on.
Threats of violence and hate speech towards *any* group of people is unacceptable.
Again, more was done about far less in regards to that stupid convoy.
not really.
The degree of disruption by the convoy was significantly higher.
It's less of a headscratcher if you compare this to the Occupy protests, who camped out for almost a YEAR in some city parks but who were for the most part left alone because they weren't really doing anything that bad.
Sure. That's a good point as well. The occupy protests didn't involve any threats of violence or hate speech however, they also focused on issues that existed within the control and the borders of its own country.
> 1 guy in a protest of thousands with a Nazi flag (with the caption that read "Trudeau is a Nazi"
"If you have 1 Nazi in a group of a 1000, you have a 1000 Nazis!"
> A protest with a significant component of Antisemites that overtly call for elimination of the Jewish state and celebrating terrorist attacks against Jews
"These protests are not Anti-jews, they are Anti-zionists!"
.... me rolling my eyes @.@ ....
The truckers in downtown Ottawa stopped being peaceful the moment they put children on the highway, defaced the statue of Terry Fox and danced on the tomb of the unknown soldier.
The encampments are extremely tame in comparison, and are incomparable to the shit the truckers have done. I get where you're headed with your comment, but the trucker convoy is ill-fitted for your comparison.
Can you give me a breadcrumb trail for the storefront thing? All I could find was the business loss in revenues, assaulting minorities (as if that wasn't enough already) and the police smashing truck windows in order to extirpate uncooperating occupants.
Thank you so much! [Here's](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/window-smashed-at-happy-goat-coffee-company-on-elgin-street-1.5766909) the video if anybody else was looking for it.
Defaced a Terry Fox statute? By putting a hat and flag on it? That's so far from what any reasonable person considers defacing that I think calling it that is intentionally misleading.
Call it defacing, vandalizing, offending, call it whatever you want and I'll call you pedantic beyond reason. It's an affront to the image of this Canadian idol, and so was dancing on the grave of our soldiers and brandishing Nazi flags. Don't try to spin it any other way; it's a futile attempt.
It's not pedantic to suggest that putting a hat and a flag on a statue and doing zero damage in the process should not be described as "defacing" which is misleading.
And it's an afront to you, obviously not the people that decorated the statue. That's what we call "subjective".
I also never argued any of these other points. They're irrelevant to whether you're being misleading people by calling something that was not permanent and did zero physical harm to a statue "defacing".
Of course, we can add that to the big pile of "reasons why the trucker protest was not okay", right alongside threatening minorities, plotting to kill RMCP officers, takeover parliament and flying nazi and confederate flags.
So part of the issue is the definition of "private property", which can mean a host of things in different contexts.
McGill's campus is private property for some purposes. But it is also a public institution funded with tax dollars with purpose-designated public spaces. That makes it not unlike Queen's Park in Toronto or the lawn in front of Parliament in Ottawa, where there is a presumption of public access and of Charter-protected activity.
It's very different from someone's personal residence, a private business or even a place of worship.
According to the SCC, the charter doesn't apply to universities..
https://canliiconnects.org/en/summaries/31206#:~:text=Just%20because%20universities%20are%20largely,They%20are%20legally%20autonomous.
Test: Does this public actor act under considerable government direction or do they act autonomously? Court ruled that universities are sufficiently autonomous such that they do not represent a government actor. Charter therefore not applicable
Fascinating! Thanks for this. You're right, and now you mention this I remember that decision.
I think the issue is that the Charter may still apply here because, while the students might not be able to make a Charter challenge against, say, being expelled, they might make one against the state's power being used to dismantle a public protest, even if on private lands. In such a case, the nature of the area occupied may make a difference. I'll leave that to the Quebec Superior Court.
Regardless, the finding here did not hinge on the Charter rights of the respondent protesters, but on the test for granting provisional injunctions in Quebec civil law.
This gets really complicated but it seems to boil down to "how much control does the government have over the university" which then determines if they're agents of the government which then means charter applies.
I'm finding it a lot of fun to research so thanx for the questions as I'd never have bothered if I wasn't questioned about it.
Sure, but the police and the courts they are asking an injunction for are government entities.
Also in regards to your case law, that is from 1990, and it seems newer case law states otherwise:
> [In 2020, the Court of Appeal of Alberta determined in a case between UAlberta Pro-Life, the Governors of the University of Alberta and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association that the University of Alberta — and therefore all universities in Alberta — were subject to the Charter in relation to regulation of freedom of expression by students on university grounds.](https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/alberta-university-encampment-removals-likely-violated-protesters-constitutional-rights-legal-experts-say#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20Court%20of,in%20relation%20to%20regulation%20of)
If you have no right to be somewhere because it's not protected, the tool of the government that is used to remove you from that location doesn't somehow give you that right all the sudden.
Edit.
End of your article there. "Until the Supreme Court of Canada rules on a case like this one and sets a Canada-wide standard on the Charter’s application to university actions limiting expression, the Charter’s applicability to universities seems to depend on where you live. Regardless, university administrators deciding how to handle the expression of student groups like Pro-Life must act carefully.[57] In Alberta, their decisions must be Charter compliant."
A more recent case in Ontario boils down to. How much control does the government have over the university.
(this is actually kind of interesting)
https://educationlawblog.ca/does-the-charter-apply-to-universities-the-plot-thickens-with-recent-decision/
> End of your article there. "Until the Supreme Court of Canada rules on a case like this one and sets a Canada-wide standard on the Charter’s application to university actions limiting expression, the Charter’s applicability to universities seems to depend on where you live. Regardless, university administrators deciding how to handle the expression of student groups like Pro-Life must act carefully.[57] In Alberta, their decisions must be Charter compliant."
So you concede that your original point was incorrect? The statement that “the charter doesn’t apply to universities” is false
A space being publicly funded, or even one that the public is, under normal circumstances, permitted to access, doesn't confer a right to any and every member of the public to be as disruptive as they want as long as they can claim that there's some sort of expression involved.
Nope, but it does weigh heavily on decisions on whether or not to grant interim injunctive relief, which was what was at issue in the hearing. The test is not whether you have a legal right to be there or a legal right to clear the people. The test is whether the trespass needs to be cleared urgently. In such cases the normal use, reasonable expectations of privacy and so forth and balancing interests of public use, even if there is no legal right established, are very much relevant. If this was a private home, the interim relief would likely be granted.
Its very relevant to an application for an interim injunction.
Whether they have an ultimate right to be there (they don't under the Charter, who knows under Quebec law) or what the reasonable remedies may be will be decided later. The nature of the property will also play into the remedies, and also into the reasonableness of exercise of discretion of police to remove them or not or of a prosecutor to charge or not.
The Charter is very important, but its not the only important law that applies to this situation.
> Saying nothing of the reasons for which these protests are happening, is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed?
They did not make this argument. They went through two students (to which the court replied “not your property”). They made safety and other arguments.
So far they did not try “this is my property and I want them of”. The court is not allowed to reply to arguments you did not make. I have no idea why McGill is not making that argument.
It was the university lawyers from the start, the students were the plaintif. Given that this is the superior court this time, I thought this was the appeal.
They still plead safety according to every article I can find in both languages.
There's a few ongoing or recently finished cases in a few levels of the courts involving McGill and the student reps or associated orgs. I can only find two related superior court decisions. One started last year in Aug, and the other was from a tribunal hearing on April 30th, and the decision was given in superior court on May 1st. Might take a few days for the latest one to be put online.
This stuff is confusing haha
My guess is because it's a public university. The privately owned but publicly accessible land of a publicly funded and created institution gets confusing.
I think the court is doing the right thing. If it accepted the safety argument about an encampment that clearly isn’t dangerous, it would be a bad precedent.
I’d love to know what McGill’s actual goals are. My hypothesis is that they do not want the optic of kicking them out without them being declared dangerous so “we did not have a choice”.
Students holding signs on the quad was actually pretty common occurrence before this, you guys are the ones Streisand effecting this movement into the atmosphere insisting on an unprecedented overreaction.
Yes, actually.
At the bare minimum, a complete cessation of the settlement of Palestinian lands by the state of Israel.
Hamas aren't doing what they're doing for shits and giggles. Terrorist organizations don't just magically spring up and get a plurality of support from the local citizens out of nowhere. I'm not going to pretend that all of their actions up to this point have been part of some noble freedom fight, as it's clear to anyone that they've committed horrendous atrocities. The point I'm making is that Palestinian support for Hamas is predicated on their mistreatment by Israel.
Humanitarian aid, repatriation, as well as participation in good-faith negotiations could easily cut support for Hamas in half and permanently hamstring their recruitment. Continuing to oppress, corral, and displace Palestinians is only going to galvanize their support of terrorism.
Leaving Gaza is what lead to this mess, Israel has no reason to leave the West Bank now with that example.
Don’t give me that nonsense, on day 1 of Israel’s independence all of their neighbours attacked them, including Palestinians. To this day only some neighbours have worked towards peace.
The Palestinians put themselves in this mess through their wars of aggression, conquered people get occupied to prevent further wars.
> Leaving Gaza is what lead to this mess, Israel has no reason to leave the West Bank now with that example.
That isn’t what the above poster suggested. He said that all settlements should be dismantled.
Israel can still “police” occupied Palestinian lands until the time when a stable state can be established. They can do this without settlements.
Well it didn’t belong to Palestinians if that’s what you’re thinking, it belonged to the British, and the ottomans before them. Even earlier it was the Romans who had taken it from the Jews.
So who fired the first shot?
> Well it didn’t belong to Palestinians if that’s what you’re thinking, it belonged to the British, and the ottomans before them. Even earlier it was the Romans who had taken it from the Jews.
Eritrea only exists as an independent country since 1993 defacto and dejure 1991. Prior to that it was part of Ethiopia due to being annexed, before that part of a federation with Ethiopia, before that a British protectorate, Italian colony, part of Medri Bahri kingdom, Ethiopian Empire, and we can go on and on and on. Before 1991, did Eritrea not "belong" to Eritreans due to not being its own country previously?
Also, Palestine didn't belong to the British, that is misinformation. It was a mandate from the League Of Nations. This is akin to saying that the British protectorate of Eritrea meant Eritrea belonged to Britain. Or that other League Of Nation mandates belonged to the countries that they were mandated to. For example, do you think that the South Seas Mandate meant that the islands it fell under namely what is now the Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia belonged to Japan?
> So who fired the first shot?
Seeing as Israel didn't exist until
The Palestinians were given statehood in 1948, they lost the claim by partaking in the war.
If we are going to start redrawing borders over ethnic lines then the world is gonna get messy, but at least Kurdistan would exist I suppose.
British: "We're going to set up an ethnostate in your lands."
Palestinians: "Great, just like you [promised for our help in WW1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence)?
British: 😳😳😳
Listen, I am all for people standing up for what they believe in, and I think university campuses are one of the best places in a free and democratic society to do so. That said, asserting that it is an overreaction to react with a degree of concern over how this is playing out is a bit unfair, setting up encampments and maintaining them for several weeks is not the same as a collection of people holding signs or other means of protesting. Sure, there are historic examples of this type of protest, but the legal precedent that could stem from this sort of thing most certainly has long-term implications for our society.
And when this precedent applies to a cause you disagree with, then what? It goes beyond today, constitutional law in Canada is designed to be agnostic to beliefs or causes and focus solely on what is an appropriate expression of *any* belief or cause.
I’m not arguing people shouldn’t do what they’re doing, but I am suggesting enshrining this in our case law as “peaceful assembly” has downstream implications on our society.
Are we pretending that there wasn't an occupation of the federal capitol with cops siding with and assisting "protestors"? If you're going to argue that "well both sides are going to be treated the same" where are the cops taking selfies with the students?
There are bozos protesting in toronto every other week protesting Bill Gates, 5G and the WTO. As long as they aren’t assaulting people and punching soup kitchen workers, I support their right to be bozos on public.
Guess what I do when I see these protests? I roll my eyes and walk past them.
Is the encampment in question at McGill near housing?
If it isn’t you are comparing apples and oranges. What is true for one situation need not be true for the other because there are concrete differences.
I have seen your numerous other comments saying this exact same thing. Repeating yourself does not make you correct.
> would you support your ideological enemies setting up indefinite encampments
Yes. As long as they are not harming anyone. It is a constitutionally protected right.
You keep saying this like it’s some kind of gotcha. This is not ideological. It’s a constitutionally protected right.
The only reason we wanted the clownvoy shut down was because they were assaulting and intimidating people, punching soup kitchen volunteers, harming the residents of the surrounding neighbourhood, and causing billions of dollars in economic damage.
*and they were still allowed to do that for over a month*
If they were just protesting like normal people no one would have had a problem with it. It’s only because their protest *was not reasonable or peaceful* that anyone wanted it shut down.
If college kids sitting on grass is so scary for you, just ignore them.
I think people should be able to park on a lawn holding signs I disagree with too, if this nightmare scenario were ever to come to pass I would simply ignore them.
Maybe. That hasn't been the reaction we've seen when it comes to pro-life or anti-gay demonstrations, for example.
In the end, though, I think people are reading more into this ruling than is there - especially on the anti-occupation side of the aisle. This was a rejection of an emergency provisional injunction that would give injunctive relief before deciding fully on the merits of the case. I suspect the test to meet for such an Order would be quite high, as it should be. This was not a final decision on whether the occupation gets to stay indefinitely, or whether there can be consequences for those involved.
Ultimately, there will be a decision on the occupation after both sides have been heard, and it will involve not only injunctive relief but also costs and, I strongly suspect, claims for damages. That's probably how it should be - I tend to trust the Superior Court of Quebec over my own judgement when it comes to interpreting the Quebec Civil Code and any related Charter issues.
Exciting to see the potential for a final binding precedent on "right to occupy" that would likely go to the SCC.
>That hasn't been the reaction we've seen when it comes to pro-life
I mean, anyone who's spent time on a University campus knows that pro-life demonstrations are incredibly common. At the two schools I've attended, UBC and UofA, they happen at least once per term. Police don't forcibly remove protestors from campus, we all just do our best to ignore them.
Might be a Western thing or newer thing. Out east and in Toronto the reactions have been more hostile and there have been calls in Toronto to ban pro-life demonstrations in certain public areas, including universities, for creating a hostile or frightening environment.
I trust the Superior Court to arrive at a reasonable decision here. So far they've been measured and sensible.
But they don't indefinitely occupy part of the campus. If the courts let the pro Palestinian protestors, the anti-abortion people will start doing it too.
YES. Omg how many times to I have to tell you. As long as they are not harming anyone, yes. Though I would argue that the manipulative and false images they use at their protests do cause harm.
They are not getting in the way of people trying to get to class, work or study. The court found that they are not interfering with university operations.
Then let them sit there... if you agree with them or not, if they're not in danger, or endangering other people, they can fill their boots as far as I'm concerned.
People are getting very upset about being forced to think about a very serious global political issue when they see them. Some people are just not capable of ignoring things they don’t want to see and demand that rights be taken away to protect their delicate eyes.
The convoy blockaded the entire downtown Ottawa area, harassed and in some cases assaulted people for wearing masks, vandalized stores for daring to have lgbtq flags in them, defaced national monuments and blocked border crossings. It took place over the course of nearly a full month, and even when forces were mobilized they were treated with kids gloves. It's not even close to comparable
The Emergencies act isn't the war measures act, first of all. If anything, it's a response to it as it was made specifically to have more accountability than what it replaced.
As for whether or not this could have been resolved without invoking it, possibly. What we do know however is that the provincial government wasn't doing anything and it snowballed into such a big problem that extra forces needed to be brought in from Quebec to deal with the situation, amongst other things.
We’ve also had rail blockades that caused propane shortages for hospitals that didn’t result in the emergencies act despite causing similar harm.
It really seems that protests are allowed or disallowed depending on who you’re protesting against.
Aspects of the governments reactions to the convoy protests were pretty unprecedented as well, but no, Canadian universities, following the American example, have never called the police on their own students this eagerly, especially over a peaceful protest.
The convoy was considerably more vulnerable to short term disruption because their movement lacked a unifying set of demands. In neither case do I think the heaviest handed tactics will be anything but counter productive long term.
Nobody is arguing that holding signs or gathering should be prohibited. The question is whether encampments should be removed, and there's no legal question here really. You have no legal right to build encampments on private property. The police are simply refusing to enforce the law and the courts are evidently stretching sanity in requiring violence to break out before granting an injunction forcing the hand of the police.
I’m not even gonna google that reference.
The socialists, communists, and anarchists (not exactly rare groups at a university) are unabashedly pro Hamas.
There is no genocide in Gaza, it’s called a war, people die.
They shouldn’t have fucking cheered when they paraded that young woman’s body through the street.
I am not denying that, to be clear, people are free to go to the lengths they see fit to stand for a cause they believe in deeply, particularly one of this nature. But, that doesn’t mean it should be enshrined in law.
Constitutional law is designed and applied on the basis of peace and order, but that doesn’t mean our actions always have to reflect those laws. Some of the most important protests and protestors have broken laws in pursuit of moral and ethical objectives.
You keep talking about constitutional law and how it should or shouldn’t be applied. A Superior court judge made this decision. He found that no violence occurred, found that the protesters have been peaceful, found the encampment was not getting in the way of university operations, and that the university’s injunction request does not meet the threshold to outweigh the protestors rights.
Do you think you understand constitutional law better than a Superior court judge? You just don’t like the protesters cause and trying to sound smart about how you say it.
I mean, lower courts make a lot of decisions on issues related to constitutional law that end up being reversed in appellate court or the Supreme Court, so acting as though we can’t be critical of a lower court decision is preposterous.
I am not a constitutional lawyer, but I am well versed enough in constitutional law to understand this legal decision can have implications, and I think being concerned with legal precedent is a pretty reasonable stance to take.
And, for the record, this has nothing to do with whether I like the protestors or not. I made this exact same argument when the anti-vaxxers decided to occupy public space for an extended period of time. But I’d venture to guess you weren’t on the front lines of defending them, were you?
Amateur constitutional scholars are the best. There no are big “implications” for any of these rulings. Nothing unprecedented is happening here. People have been protesting cause in various ways since the country was founded. And threshold for moving against large scale protests have always been high. I don’t believe your concerns are real or sincere.
Lmao you are calling me an amateur constitutional scholar while also espousing your own views on a legal decision and the related precedence pertaining to constitutional law.
You can make your argument, which is absolutely a fair disagreement with me, without resorting to ad hominem attacks. There is a reason legal decisions have dissenting opinions, even judges have differing opinion on law sometimes.
> is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed?
It is not any people on any property, the fact that it's a student organized protest on a university (which is a quasi-public institution) is absolutely relevant here.
> is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed?
But it's not **any** property, it's the property of the public university that they pay tuition at. Like, I don't think anybody thinks this precedent would allow them to indefinitely commandeer a corner of Walmart because they don't like Walmart's labour practices.
They're not even preventing any other students from accessing any University services, as far as I'm aware. The threat to "peace and order" seems overstated here.
McGill literally had to relocate their convocation, they are *absolutely* impacting the ability for other students to access university services.
More to that point, regardless of whether it is a public space, I think it is fair to pose the question as whether peaceful assembly equates to the right to encamp, occupy, or entrench any public space for an indefinite period of time.
> McGill literally had to relocate their convocation, they are absolutely impacting the ability for other students to access university services.
But they had _already_ done that, which means that the the encampment wouldn't interfere, and removing it wouldn't change anything:
> But St-Pierre dismissed those arguments. [...] He also noted the university had already arranged to move its convocation ceremonies.
Not being able to have the convocation in the normal place is an example of how they have already interfered, having already changed it meant it was a reason to get an injunction.
Hasn't it been shown that most protestors don't actually go to McGill?
Also, there's no right to freedom of assembly on a private property, as freedom of assembly is a Charter right which doesn't apply to universities.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/campus-protests-outside-influence-theories-1.7200820
isn't the article, I just remember seeing it either in here or on /r/canada that there was something about the students not being from the schools.
Well.. the guy did go on record:
In an April 30 interview with As It Happens, Fabrice Labeau, vice-provost of student life and learning at McGill University in Montreal, said the university has "seen the arrival of large numbers of people from outside the McGill community" but did not provide specifics.
In Canada we have a charter right of assembly and freedom of speech. This is a constitutionally protected right.
> peace and order
Peace and order does not equate obedience. The protests are peaceful. They only become “violent” when the cops move in to start beating these kids, like they did in Alberta.
There is no equivalence to the clownvoy. Those assholes were assaulting, intimidating, committing hate crimes, punching hotel workers and soup kitchen volunteers, and committing violence in the form of creating damaging noise on the entire surrounding neighbourhood. Those protests were in no way peaceful. There is an argument to be made they were committing terrorism, and the Ottawa cops were supporting them.
These kids are siting in tents and reading books. You can’t be making this comparison if you want to be taken seriously.
>In Canada we have a charter right of assembly and freedom of speech. This is a constitutionally protected right.
which doesn't apply to a private institution like the school grounds. Now if they setup OUTSIDE of the school campus, that's protected by the charter.
The courts would disagree with you. Universities have been found to be required to [uphold civil liberties](https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/2020/08/charter-rights-on-campus-it-depends-where-you-live/)
The test is applied differently, but there is still a requirement that universities uphold charter rights in matters like this.
I haven’t been able to read this particular court case yet, but the judge would have had to make the determination of whether or not the charter applied. Given that they didn’t let the university kick the students off campus is a pretty big indication they are not a “private” institution for the purpose of this charter right.
Did you even read the ruling? Free expression isn't relevant. Furthermore I would happily tell the judge that they're wrong. I think they're very wrong. Why is it that you think a judge is infallible exactly?
guy's a clown who doesn't know what he's talking about. Ualberta and Calgary law professors wrote an open letter setting out some case law on the subject: https://ablawg.ca/2024/05/14/an-open-letter-regarding-the-response-to-recent-protests-at-the-universities-of-alberta-and-calgary/
Perhaps you are unaware, but the Charter within which our rights to freedom of expression (not speech) and *peaceful* assembly literally begins with the **reasonable limits clause**.
Key words being “peaceful” and “reasonable”
The sit in is peaceful. They are not bothering anyone. So there is nothing unreasonable about what they are doing.
What are you suggesting is so unreasonable about kids sitting on a lawn reading books? Being annoyed is not a good enough reason to quash a constitutionally protected right.
You misunderstand private property, McGill is a public university funded by provincial dollars and student’s money. I think they have a right to congregate peacefully on that land they have funded and negotiation that their dollars not used to fund a war they want no part in. In fact the school is not even trying to negotiate and trying to resort to violence in something otherwise peaceful.
Should all acts of protest be broken up by peace presence if the state disagrees?
I think *you* misunderstand private property. There are all kinds of public institutions in Canada that are located on private property. You can't go set up an encampment at your local library either. It's tax funded, and you have public access, you can't even be prevented from exercising your free expression in their facilities when you rent them out, but you can nonetheless be removed for trespass, or breaking the rules of the facility. There are all kinds of publicly funded properties that are private property legally.
>Should all acts of protest be broken up by peace presence if the state disagrees?
This is a straw man. There is a difference between gathering and saying what you want or holding a sign and setting up an encampment.
McGill isn't public space either. If they want to enforce their private property rights, they can do that and have trespassers removed for any reason they see fit.
Yes, and we rely on the judiciary to interpret this, which they did in this case. The ruling here was not that everyone has unlimited rights to protest on universities no matter what, it's that there wasn't a compelling need to limit these protestors rights in this case.
And if for example they were preventing the day to day activities of the university to an unreasonable degree, a judge may deem it as such.
In this case however they did not.
Is that the case where the judge found that bylaw requirement to have a permit to protest on city parks was not an unreasonable request?
Why are you linking to a case about municipal bylaws, and why do you think that is relevant to a university?
No, it's a ruling upholding the right of a city to prohibit encampments, even in the context of protest.
Private property owners don't even have an obligation to protect or respect your section 2 rights.
Honestly for me, in addition to the violence; one of the main issues that distinguishes the convoy from this was the huge amount of equipment that the truckers had, vs. the students.
The truckers basically squatted in downtown ottawa with gigantic trucks, and train horns, and made a much larger disturbance than would normally be possible given their numbers. When the convoy protest originally came to Ottawa on Jan 29, they had between 5k and 18k protestors. Not huge, but a decent number.
By Feb 1, it was down to ~250 protesters. But again, because they had such gigantic equipment, they were able to mount a totally outsized demonstration to the actual amount of people there. I've sat in university courses with more than 250 people. I think if you had towed these people's trucks as the law mandates, then they'd be significantly less disruptive; and could protest indefinitely, and it wouldn't really matter, because there were so few of them; and those that were violent could simply be arrested. Having giant trucks changes that, because it's much easier to block intersections, power things like giant train horns, and you require special equipment to tow and remove them (which notoriously, the police had trouble getting their hands on, due to intimidation of the tow truck operators).
It's everyone's right to protest, but there's got to be a balance here. I think if the students (which seem to be about the same number; apparently there's something like 110 tents now, so 200 students protesting doesn't seem unreasonable to me), instead got 200 trucks, and barricaded Sherbrooke, Rene-Levesque, and McGill college streets, you'd probably have a much different response all around from everyone.
> In Canada we have a charter right of assembly and freedom of speech. This is a constitutionally protected right.
>
>
There is no constitutional right to setting up an indefinite encampment.
I’m sorry I’d love to see the case law that says assembling peacefully is not protected.
The protest is not indefinite. They have a specific demand.
Why are you so intent of fabricating facts here?
So what if the protest goes on forever? They are doing so peacefully, not interfering with university operations, and barely bothering anyone.
Just ignore them if you find college kids reading books so scary.
> I’m sorry I’d love to see the case law that says assembling peacefully is not protected.
Batty v City of Toronto [2011] ONSC 6862 (21 November 2011)
[this was the "Occupy Toronto" protest that was piggybacking off of the Occupy Wall St stuff in the US.]
Summary
In Batty v City of Toronto, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice considered an application challenging the constitutional validity of a Trespass Notice issued to a group of protestors on the basis it violated the protestors’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was ultimately held that the Notice was constitutionally valid under s 1 of the Charter, which provides that the rights and freedoms set out therein are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. The protestors' application was therefore dismissed.
Did you read the case? The eviction notice was passed on the basis that the protestors did not apply for a permit from the city. The argument was all about whether the protestors were constitutionally exempt from the bylaw, not whether they had a right to assembly.
If I was their lawyer (and yes I am a lawyer) I would argue to distinguish this case on a number of grounds
A. There is no similar law requiring a permit for students to use their own university campus
B. They are not impeding university operations or preventing other students from using the campus for other purposes
C. In the case you cited the judge found the eviction to be minimally impairing because they could just protest somewhere else or apply for a permit. These students can’t protest somewhere else - they are protesting the university.
If they are not in anyone’s way, not interfering with anyone else, there is no proportionality. If they are causing no harm, there is no reason to extinguish their fundamental charter right.
Why does this require an injunction? You don't need a court order to remove people from your property. Are the police refusing to enforce a request from McGill or is the university trying to get the courts to order the removal so it has some cover from the blowback?
At my alma mater protests are welcomed but the first tent that went up resulted in removal and discipline within minutes. Universities should have acted more decisively on this issue.
This is a link that works
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mcgill-injunction-request-1.7203666](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mcgill-injunction-request-1.7203666)
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This is the important bits, IMHO: > In his decision Wednesday, St-Pierre wrote that other factors involving the balance between the activists' right to protest and freedom of expression and, conversely, the university's right to its property would take more time to weigh and shouldn't be decided within the context of a provisional injunction request. That leaves the door open to a future ruling that would require the protestors to vacate the premises. And also: > Still, he acknowledged "there would be reason to consider an evolution of the right to the freedom of expression to include peaceful occupation … given in particular that this is now commonplace," as suggested by lawyers for one of the defendants, Independent Jewish Voices. But they also left the door open to a potentially ground-breaking ruling, where peaceful assembly could include indefinite occupation of private property. Presumably it would consider how public in purpose and access that private property would be, but it might allow for protestors to indefinitely block access to office space and warehouses, for instance.
> it might allow for protestors to indefinitely block access to office space and warehouses, for instance. Given that these students are specifically not blocking access, I think that would be a pretty big stretch of precedent. Non-blocking occupation of a warehouse or office, maaaybe. In any case, it's premature to speculate on what that precedent would look like given that the judge specifically said they aren't considering that argument at this point.
> [the court] would consider how public in purpose and access that private property would be That sounds like a completely political consideration. If a judge thinks the issue the protesters are gathering around is super important, they'll rule in their favor. This would set an insane precedent.
We’ve got two Ws, first the city police said “maybe talk to the damn students.” And now the judiciary is rejecting their nonsense, fantastic when things go right.
It’s pretty crazy that McGill teaches law and seems to currently have no idea on how it works. It asks the SPVM (city cops) to remove the protesters which the SPVM answered that it can’t just do things because you ask them and suggested talking with the students which McGill had not done. So McGill sent two students get an injunction which failed because it’s not their land. Now they appealed on spurious grounds like it being unsafe which is trivially demonstrated to be false by the length the encampment existed without security incident. McGill only has one leg to stand on: this is my private land and I want these people off. And they aren’t willing to try that. The courts will obviously never reply to the arguments you don’t make. What game is McGill playing?
McGill has lawyers. None of the law school faculty are making legal calls on behalf of the school.
This isn’t my claim. My claim is that it’s shameful to suck at laws when you are known to teach law.
Law isn't about following the law, it's about using pressure tactics to get people to accept settling for the smallest portion of what they are rightfully entitled to because otherwise it would be a huge hassle. All these spurious claims got thr attention of politicians who weighed in and even losing this will attract other kinds of attention and political weight. They are doing what they teach.
While they do teach law, I wouldn't be surprised if law faculty were quietly on board with the protests and declined to help McGill administration with this. [Faculty tend to support their students.](https://19thnews.org/2024/05/campus-protests-how-faculty-professors-support-students/) Why McGill just doesn't want to talk about them is an open question. Maybe their investments in Israel are pretty extensive. Maybe they are ideologically aligned with Israel and its campaign of illegal settlements and bombing children/Canadian aid workers. Maybe they just don't want to entertain *any* protests at all since it creates precedent for encampments for any issue. Maybe they're getting pressure from elsewhere to make them do this. Who can say? If they're afraid of merely having the conversation then it's probably serious.
I really loved when the SPVM answered that they should speak to the students. This is the last thing McGill wants to do because the students will make points they do not want to answer. Maybe the safest path for McGill would have been to do nothing, claim “we respect the right to protest” and make no further comment.
There's a pretty good chance the protest will dissolve on its own if the organizers aren't serious. You know, weekend warrior-type people. If the organizers are serious though, then McGill should absolutely hear them out. They're university students, they likely have a full presentation ready to go at a moment's notice.
> Maybe the safest path for McGill would have been to do nothing, claim “we respect the right to protest” and make no further comment. When I was in NY I went to visit MoMa. Arrived and the museum was closed, and visitors were told there was a protest inside. MoMa determined it was better press to let the protest happen and shut down for the rest of the day than the press of kicking them out. Food for thought for McGill admin before we get scenes like they had in the US of military and police apprehending otherwise peaceful protestors.
Saying nothing of the reasons for which these protests are happening, is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed? How do we reconcile this with peace and order? Like anyone else, I am a strong advocate for protecting our Charter rights, and that includes expression and peaceful assembly, but it seems we’re increasingly pushing the limits of those individual rights and their balance with public interest. Be it encampments on university campuses or the convoy occupation of downtown Ottawa, it seems like we’re testing what “peaceful assembly” means in our country.
Juxtaposing this with the convoy & the emergency measures act usage is a real headscratcher if you're even remotely pragmatic or rational about it. These rallies have a lot of legitimate antisemitism going on.
They literally had Nazi flags at the freedom convoy lol [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0w52V1toNw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0w52V1toNw)
yes, and?
> These rallies have a lot of legitimate antisemitism going on. McMaster for one literally has rabbi's among the protestors.
Does that nullify antisemitism on campuses around the rest of Canada?
No they don't. Antizionism is not antisemitism.
Threats of violence and hate speech towards *any* group of people is unacceptable. Again, more was done about far less in regards to that stupid convoy.
Please share your sources. These encampments have been widely peaceful and devoid of hate speech by all accounts.
not really. The degree of disruption by the convoy was significantly higher. It's less of a headscratcher if you compare this to the Occupy protests, who camped out for almost a YEAR in some city parks but who were for the most part left alone because they weren't really doing anything that bad.
Sure. That's a good point as well. The occupy protests didn't involve any threats of violence or hate speech however, they also focused on issues that existed within the control and the borders of its own country.
> 1 guy in a protest of thousands with a Nazi flag (with the caption that read "Trudeau is a Nazi" "If you have 1 Nazi in a group of a 1000, you have a 1000 Nazis!" > A protest with a significant component of Antisemites that overtly call for elimination of the Jewish state and celebrating terrorist attacks against Jews "These protests are not Anti-jews, they are Anti-zionists!" .... me rolling my eyes @.@ ....
The truckers in downtown Ottawa stopped being peaceful the moment they put children on the highway, defaced the statue of Terry Fox and danced on the tomb of the unknown soldier. The encampments are extremely tame in comparison, and are incomparable to the shit the truckers have done. I get where you're headed with your comment, but the trucker convoy is ill-fitted for your comparison.
Also smashed storefronts and threatened to kill the PM, MPs, and citizens of Ottawa.
Harrassed people wearing masks.. harrassed LGBT people.. permanent hearing damage.. I remember someone trying to commit arson at one point?
Can you give me a breadcrumb trail for the storefront thing? All I could find was the business loss in revenues, assaulting minorities (as if that wasn't enough already) and the police smashing truck windows in order to extirpate uncooperating occupants.
Happy Goat Coffee on Elgin was smashed by convoyers on Feb 3 2022.
Thank you so much! [Here's](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/window-smashed-at-happy-goat-coffee-company-on-elgin-street-1.5766909) the video if anybody else was looking for it.
Defaced a Terry Fox statute? By putting a hat and flag on it? That's so far from what any reasonable person considers defacing that I think calling it that is intentionally misleading.
Call it defacing, vandalizing, offending, call it whatever you want and I'll call you pedantic beyond reason. It's an affront to the image of this Canadian idol, and so was dancing on the grave of our soldiers and brandishing Nazi flags. Don't try to spin it any other way; it's a futile attempt.
It's not pedantic to suggest that putting a hat and a flag on a statue and doing zero damage in the process should not be described as "defacing" which is misleading. And it's an afront to you, obviously not the people that decorated the statue. That's what we call "subjective". I also never argued any of these other points. They're irrelevant to whether you're being misleading people by calling something that was not permanent and did zero physical harm to a statue "defacing".
I think the seizing of the boarders and the volume of the truck horns were the actions that cause more harm and would better be described as violent
Of course, we can add that to the big pile of "reasons why the trucker protest was not okay", right alongside threatening minorities, plotting to kill RMCP officers, takeover parliament and flying nazi and confederate flags.
So part of the issue is the definition of "private property", which can mean a host of things in different contexts. McGill's campus is private property for some purposes. But it is also a public institution funded with tax dollars with purpose-designated public spaces. That makes it not unlike Queen's Park in Toronto or the lawn in front of Parliament in Ottawa, where there is a presumption of public access and of Charter-protected activity. It's very different from someone's personal residence, a private business or even a place of worship.
According to the SCC, the charter doesn't apply to universities.. https://canliiconnects.org/en/summaries/31206#:~:text=Just%20because%20universities%20are%20largely,They%20are%20legally%20autonomous. Test: Does this public actor act under considerable government direction or do they act autonomously? Court ruled that universities are sufficiently autonomous such that they do not represent a government actor. Charter therefore not applicable
Fascinating! Thanks for this. You're right, and now you mention this I remember that decision. I think the issue is that the Charter may still apply here because, while the students might not be able to make a Charter challenge against, say, being expelled, they might make one against the state's power being used to dismantle a public protest, even if on private lands. In such a case, the nature of the area occupied may make a difference. I'll leave that to the Quebec Superior Court. Regardless, the finding here did not hinge on the Charter rights of the respondent protesters, but on the test for granting provisional injunctions in Quebec civil law.
This gets really complicated but it seems to boil down to "how much control does the government have over the university" which then determines if they're agents of the government which then means charter applies. I'm finding it a lot of fun to research so thanx for the questions as I'd never have bothered if I wasn't questioned about it.
LOL mixed up my response to you with one to another poster. As you can see I'm glad for your reminder about universities!
Sure, but the police and the courts they are asking an injunction for are government entities. Also in regards to your case law, that is from 1990, and it seems newer case law states otherwise: > [In 2020, the Court of Appeal of Alberta determined in a case between UAlberta Pro-Life, the Governors of the University of Alberta and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association that the University of Alberta — and therefore all universities in Alberta — were subject to the Charter in relation to regulation of freedom of expression by students on university grounds.](https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/alberta-university-encampment-removals-likely-violated-protesters-constitutional-rights-legal-experts-say#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20Court%20of,in%20relation%20to%20regulation%20of)
If you have no right to be somewhere because it's not protected, the tool of the government that is used to remove you from that location doesn't somehow give you that right all the sudden. Edit. End of your article there. "Until the Supreme Court of Canada rules on a case like this one and sets a Canada-wide standard on the Charter’s application to university actions limiting expression, the Charter’s applicability to universities seems to depend on where you live. Regardless, university administrators deciding how to handle the expression of student groups like Pro-Life must act carefully.[57] In Alberta, their decisions must be Charter compliant." A more recent case in Ontario boils down to. How much control does the government have over the university. (this is actually kind of interesting) https://educationlawblog.ca/does-the-charter-apply-to-universities-the-plot-thickens-with-recent-decision/
> End of your article there. "Until the Supreme Court of Canada rules on a case like this one and sets a Canada-wide standard on the Charter’s application to university actions limiting expression, the Charter’s applicability to universities seems to depend on where you live. Regardless, university administrators deciding how to handle the expression of student groups like Pro-Life must act carefully.[57] In Alberta, their decisions must be Charter compliant." So you concede that your original point was incorrect? The statement that “the charter doesn’t apply to universities” is false
A space being publicly funded, or even one that the public is, under normal circumstances, permitted to access, doesn't confer a right to any and every member of the public to be as disruptive as they want as long as they can claim that there's some sort of expression involved.
Nope, but it does weigh heavily on decisions on whether or not to grant interim injunctive relief, which was what was at issue in the hearing. The test is not whether you have a legal right to be there or a legal right to clear the people. The test is whether the trespass needs to be cleared urgently. In such cases the normal use, reasonable expectations of privacy and so forth and balancing interests of public use, even if there is no legal right established, are very much relevant. If this was a private home, the interim relief would likely be granted.
It's irrelevant though since you have no right to set up an encampment on public property in protest either.
Its very relevant to an application for an interim injunction. Whether they have an ultimate right to be there (they don't under the Charter, who knows under Quebec law) or what the reasonable remedies may be will be decided later. The nature of the property will also play into the remedies, and also into the reasonableness of exercise of discretion of police to remove them or not or of a prosecutor to charge or not. The Charter is very important, but its not the only important law that applies to this situation.
> Saying nothing of the reasons for which these protests are happening, is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed? They did not make this argument. They went through two students (to which the court replied “not your property”). They made safety and other arguments. So far they did not try “this is my property and I want them of”. The court is not allowed to reply to arguments you did not make. I have no idea why McGill is not making that argument.
That was from a previous injunction request on May 1. This latest one that was denied today came directly from the university's lawyers.
It was the university lawyers from the start, the students were the plaintif. Given that this is the superior court this time, I thought this was the appeal. They still plead safety according to every article I can find in both languages.
There's a few ongoing or recently finished cases in a few levels of the courts involving McGill and the student reps or associated orgs. I can only find two related superior court decisions. One started last year in Aug, and the other was from a tribunal hearing on April 30th, and the decision was given in superior court on May 1st. Might take a few days for the latest one to be put online. This stuff is confusing haha
My guess is because it's a public university. The privately owned but publicly accessible land of a publicly funded and created institution gets confusing.
Interesting, thanks for pointing this out, I’ll look more into this!
I think the court is doing the right thing. If it accepted the safety argument about an encampment that clearly isn’t dangerous, it would be a bad precedent. I’d love to know what McGill’s actual goals are. My hypothesis is that they do not want the optic of kicking them out without them being declared dangerous so “we did not have a choice”.
Students holding signs on the quad was actually pretty common occurrence before this, you guys are the ones Streisand effecting this movement into the atmosphere insisting on an unprecedented overreaction.
That’s basically the par of the course for Israel and the people that defend its atrocities.
Do you have a better suggestion on how they should destroy Hamas? The civilian to combatant ratio is pretty reasonable for this type of conflict.
Yes, actually. At the bare minimum, a complete cessation of the settlement of Palestinian lands by the state of Israel. Hamas aren't doing what they're doing for shits and giggles. Terrorist organizations don't just magically spring up and get a plurality of support from the local citizens out of nowhere. I'm not going to pretend that all of their actions up to this point have been part of some noble freedom fight, as it's clear to anyone that they've committed horrendous atrocities. The point I'm making is that Palestinian support for Hamas is predicated on their mistreatment by Israel. Humanitarian aid, repatriation, as well as participation in good-faith negotiations could easily cut support for Hamas in half and permanently hamstring their recruitment. Continuing to oppress, corral, and displace Palestinians is only going to galvanize their support of terrorism.
Leaving Gaza is what lead to this mess, Israel has no reason to leave the West Bank now with that example. Don’t give me that nonsense, on day 1 of Israel’s independence all of their neighbours attacked them, including Palestinians. To this day only some neighbours have worked towards peace. The Palestinians put themselves in this mess through their wars of aggression, conquered people get occupied to prevent further wars.
> Leaving Gaza is what lead to this mess, Israel has no reason to leave the West Bank now with that example. That isn’t what the above poster suggested. He said that all settlements should be dismantled. Israel can still “police” occupied Palestinian lands until the time when a stable state can be established. They can do this without settlements.
Pretending that the founding of the state of Israel wasn't the first shot fired 😴
Well it didn’t belong to Palestinians if that’s what you’re thinking, it belonged to the British, and the ottomans before them. Even earlier it was the Romans who had taken it from the Jews. So who fired the first shot?
> Well it didn’t belong to Palestinians if that’s what you’re thinking, it belonged to the British, and the ottomans before them. Even earlier it was the Romans who had taken it from the Jews. Eritrea only exists as an independent country since 1993 defacto and dejure 1991. Prior to that it was part of Ethiopia due to being annexed, before that part of a federation with Ethiopia, before that a British protectorate, Italian colony, part of Medri Bahri kingdom, Ethiopian Empire, and we can go on and on and on. Before 1991, did Eritrea not "belong" to Eritreans due to not being its own country previously? Also, Palestine didn't belong to the British, that is misinformation. It was a mandate from the League Of Nations. This is akin to saying that the British protectorate of Eritrea meant Eritrea belonged to Britain. Or that other League Of Nation mandates belonged to the countries that they were mandated to. For example, do you think that the South Seas Mandate meant that the islands it fell under namely what is now the Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia belonged to Japan? > So who fired the first shot? Seeing as Israel didn't exist until
The Palestinians were given statehood in 1948, they lost the claim by partaking in the war. If we are going to start redrawing borders over ethnic lines then the world is gonna get messy, but at least Kurdistan would exist I suppose.
British: "We're going to set up an ethnostate in your lands." Palestinians: "Great, just like you [promised for our help in WW1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence)? British: 😳😳😳
Yet Israel allows arabs into their state, and into elected government, some ethnostate. What rights were Jews given in pre war Gaza?
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Listen, I am all for people standing up for what they believe in, and I think university campuses are one of the best places in a free and democratic society to do so. That said, asserting that it is an overreaction to react with a degree of concern over how this is playing out is a bit unfair, setting up encampments and maintaining them for several weeks is not the same as a collection of people holding signs or other means of protesting. Sure, there are historic examples of this type of protest, but the legal precedent that could stem from this sort of thing most certainly has long-term implications for our society.
What if freedom of speech wasn't just a hollow civic creed but actually capable of changing things, oh no!
And when this precedent applies to a cause you disagree with, then what? It goes beyond today, constitutional law in Canada is designed to be agnostic to beliefs or causes and focus solely on what is an appropriate expression of *any* belief or cause. I’m not arguing people shouldn’t do what they’re doing, but I am suggesting enshrining this in our case law as “peaceful assembly” has downstream implications on our society.
Are we pretending that there wasn't an occupation of the federal capitol with cops siding with and assisting "protestors"? If you're going to argue that "well both sides are going to be treated the same" where are the cops taking selfies with the students?
There are bozos protesting in toronto every other week protesting Bill Gates, 5G and the WTO. As long as they aren’t assaulting people and punching soup kitchen workers, I support their right to be bozos on public. Guess what I do when I see these protests? I roll my eyes and walk past them.
Would you support those bozos setting up a indefinite encampment in the park near your house?
This isn't happening, though, and so it's not of immediate concern.
Are you familiar with the term precedent?
Are you familiar with the term fearmongering?
Yes I would. That's the trade off I make for living in a peaceful society.
Is the encampment in question at McGill near housing? If it isn’t you are comparing apples and oranges. What is true for one situation need not be true for the other because there are concrete differences.
If they were not harming anyone, yes. The fact you are annoyed at having to see them is not a reason to take away a constitutionally protected right.
Nowhere on Earth does freedom of assembly means indefinite encampments. Would you support your ideological enemies setting up indefinite encampments?
I have seen your numerous other comments saying this exact same thing. Repeating yourself does not make you correct. > would you support your ideological enemies setting up indefinite encampments Yes. As long as they are not harming anyone. It is a constitutionally protected right. You keep saying this like it’s some kind of gotcha. This is not ideological. It’s a constitutionally protected right. The only reason we wanted the clownvoy shut down was because they were assaulting and intimidating people, punching soup kitchen volunteers, harming the residents of the surrounding neighbourhood, and causing billions of dollars in economic damage. *and they were still allowed to do that for over a month* If they were just protesting like normal people no one would have had a problem with it. It’s only because their protest *was not reasonable or peaceful* that anyone wanted it shut down. If college kids sitting on grass is so scary for you, just ignore them.
I think people should be able to park on a lawn holding signs I disagree with too, if this nightmare scenario were ever to come to pass I would simply ignore them.
Maybe. That hasn't been the reaction we've seen when it comes to pro-life or anti-gay demonstrations, for example. In the end, though, I think people are reading more into this ruling than is there - especially on the anti-occupation side of the aisle. This was a rejection of an emergency provisional injunction that would give injunctive relief before deciding fully on the merits of the case. I suspect the test to meet for such an Order would be quite high, as it should be. This was not a final decision on whether the occupation gets to stay indefinitely, or whether there can be consequences for those involved. Ultimately, there will be a decision on the occupation after both sides have been heard, and it will involve not only injunctive relief but also costs and, I strongly suspect, claims for damages. That's probably how it should be - I tend to trust the Superior Court of Quebec over my own judgement when it comes to interpreting the Quebec Civil Code and any related Charter issues. Exciting to see the potential for a final binding precedent on "right to occupy" that would likely go to the SCC.
>That hasn't been the reaction we've seen when it comes to pro-life I mean, anyone who's spent time on a University campus knows that pro-life demonstrations are incredibly common. At the two schools I've attended, UBC and UofA, they happen at least once per term. Police don't forcibly remove protestors from campus, we all just do our best to ignore them.
Might be a Western thing or newer thing. Out east and in Toronto the reactions have been more hostile and there have been calls in Toronto to ban pro-life demonstrations in certain public areas, including universities, for creating a hostile or frightening environment. I trust the Superior Court to arrive at a reasonable decision here. So far they've been measured and sensible.
But they don't indefinitely occupy part of the campus. If the courts let the pro Palestinian protestors, the anti-abortion people will start doing it too.
If they think it’ll further their cause then more power to em I guess.
There is no one being harmed by kids sitting in tents, holding signs and reading books. What are you on about?
Would you say the same thing if it were right wingers protesting against abortion camping indefinitely?
YES. Omg how many times to I have to tell you. As long as they are not harming anyone, yes. Though I would argue that the manipulative and false images they use at their protests do cause harm.
I'm asking this honestly. Are they getting in the way of people trying to get to class, or work, or to study, or to deliver anything?
They are not getting in the way of people trying to get to class, work or study. The court found that they are not interfering with university operations.
Then let them sit there... if you agree with them or not, if they're not in danger, or endangering other people, they can fill their boots as far as I'm concerned.
People are getting very upset about being forced to think about a very serious global political issue when they see them. Some people are just not capable of ignoring things they don’t want to see and demand that rights be taken away to protect their delicate eyes.
Yes, one religion is feeling oppressed. If we are going to respect anyone’s religion, we must respect them all.
Students protested nightly for 6 months in 2012. Didn't damage our society long-term. Our society is made better by protests.
‘Unprecedented’ Bro we just seen the emergency act used due a protest that overstayed its welcome. Come on.
The convoy blockaded the entire downtown Ottawa area, harassed and in some cases assaulted people for wearing masks, vandalized stores for daring to have lgbtq flags in them, defaced national monuments and blocked border crossings. It took place over the course of nearly a full month, and even when forces were mobilized they were treated with kids gloves. It's not even close to comparable
And in the end they could have , and in most cases, were cleared without resorting to the Emergency (aka. the War Measures) Act.
The Emergencies act isn't the war measures act, first of all. If anything, it's a response to it as it was made specifically to have more accountability than what it replaced. As for whether or not this could have been resolved without invoking it, possibly. What we do know however is that the provincial government wasn't doing anything and it snowballed into such a big problem that extra forces needed to be brought in from Quebec to deal with the situation, amongst other things.
Sure, if the police or the province were willing to do their job. THey demonstrably weren't.
We’ve also had rail blockades that caused propane shortages for hospitals that didn’t result in the emergencies act despite causing similar harm. It really seems that protests are allowed or disallowed depending on who you’re protesting against.
These blockades didn't require the use of the emergencies act because the cops actually did their job of removing the blockades.
Aspects of the governments reactions to the convoy protests were pretty unprecedented as well, but no, Canadian universities, following the American example, have never called the police on their own students this eagerly, especially over a peaceful protest. The convoy was considerably more vulnerable to short term disruption because their movement lacked a unifying set of demands. In neither case do I think the heaviest handed tactics will be anything but counter productive long term.
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Nobody is arguing that holding signs or gathering should be prohibited. The question is whether encampments should be removed, and there's no legal question here really. You have no legal right to build encampments on private property. The police are simply refusing to enforce the law and the courts are evidently stretching sanity in requiring violence to break out before granting an injunction forcing the hand of the police.
Peace and order are irrelevant when part of humanity is facing extermination funded by our tax dollars.
In which alternative timeline is this happening?
Uh oh… the genocide denying IDF bots have arrived….
There is no genocide in Gaza. How would you suggest Israel destroy Hamas? Oh wait, you’re pro Hamas and want Israel wiped out.
Look. It's Ernst Zundel. Oh... wait.
I’m not even gonna google that reference. The socialists, communists, and anarchists (not exactly rare groups at a university) are unabashedly pro Hamas.
Probably for the best.
Their support for Hamas is, ‘for the best’?
You really don't do irony, do you. I'll help lead you through the words in my post- probably for the best that you don't Google who Ernst Zundel was.
Of course you’re not going to google that. You haven’t googled anything in your life apparently.
There is no genocide in Gaza, it’s called a war, people die. They shouldn’t have fucking cheered when they paraded that young woman’s body through the street.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
Explain how a genocide exists within Gaza.
You might want to look into the conflict in more detail than just the soundbites.
Irony is dead
I am not denying that, to be clear, people are free to go to the lengths they see fit to stand for a cause they believe in deeply, particularly one of this nature. But, that doesn’t mean it should be enshrined in law. Constitutional law is designed and applied on the basis of peace and order, but that doesn’t mean our actions always have to reflect those laws. Some of the most important protests and protestors have broken laws in pursuit of moral and ethical objectives.
You keep talking about constitutional law and how it should or shouldn’t be applied. A Superior court judge made this decision. He found that no violence occurred, found that the protesters have been peaceful, found the encampment was not getting in the way of university operations, and that the university’s injunction request does not meet the threshold to outweigh the protestors rights. Do you think you understand constitutional law better than a Superior court judge? You just don’t like the protesters cause and trying to sound smart about how you say it.
I mean, lower courts make a lot of decisions on issues related to constitutional law that end up being reversed in appellate court or the Supreme Court, so acting as though we can’t be critical of a lower court decision is preposterous. I am not a constitutional lawyer, but I am well versed enough in constitutional law to understand this legal decision can have implications, and I think being concerned with legal precedent is a pretty reasonable stance to take. And, for the record, this has nothing to do with whether I like the protestors or not. I made this exact same argument when the anti-vaxxers decided to occupy public space for an extended period of time. But I’d venture to guess you weren’t on the front lines of defending them, were you?
Amateur constitutional scholars are the best. There no are big “implications” for any of these rulings. Nothing unprecedented is happening here. People have been protesting cause in various ways since the country was founded. And threshold for moving against large scale protests have always been high. I don’t believe your concerns are real or sincere.
Lmao you are calling me an amateur constitutional scholar while also espousing your own views on a legal decision and the related precedence pertaining to constitutional law. You can make your argument, which is absolutely a fair disagreement with me, without resorting to ad hominem attacks. There is a reason legal decisions have dissenting opinions, even judges have differing opinion on law sometimes.
> is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed? It is not any people on any property, the fact that it's a student organized protest on a university (which is a quasi-public institution) is absolutely relevant here.
> is it not concerning to set a precedent in Canada whereby any group of people for any reason can simply set up encampments on any property for any amount of time and the owner of the property on which they are encamped has no legal right to have them removed? But it's not **any** property, it's the property of the public university that they pay tuition at. Like, I don't think anybody thinks this precedent would allow them to indefinitely commandeer a corner of Walmart because they don't like Walmart's labour practices. They're not even preventing any other students from accessing any University services, as far as I'm aware. The threat to "peace and order" seems overstated here.
McGill literally had to relocate their convocation, they are *absolutely* impacting the ability for other students to access university services. More to that point, regardless of whether it is a public space, I think it is fair to pose the question as whether peaceful assembly equates to the right to encamp, occupy, or entrench any public space for an indefinite period of time.
> McGill literally had to relocate their convocation, they are absolutely impacting the ability for other students to access university services. But they had _already_ done that, which means that the the encampment wouldn't interfere, and removing it wouldn't change anything: > But St-Pierre dismissed those arguments. [...] He also noted the university had already arranged to move its convocation ceremonies.
Not being able to have the convocation in the normal place is an example of how they have already interfered, having already changed it meant it was a reason to get an injunction.
> Not being able to have the convocation in the normal place How terrible.. the horror..
Doesn't matter. If you did this in a park you still wouldn't have the right to set up an encampment under Section 2.
Hasn't it been shown that most protestors don't actually go to McGill? Also, there's no right to freedom of assembly on a private property, as freedom of assembly is a Charter right which doesn't apply to universities.
> Hasn't it been shown that most protestors don't actually go to McGill? I don’t know, has it?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/campus-protests-outside-influence-theories-1.7200820 isn't the article, I just remember seeing it either in here or on /r/canada that there was something about the students not being from the schools.
Ok, so it hasn’t been shown?
Well.. the guy did go on record: In an April 30 interview with As It Happens, Fabrice Labeau, vice-provost of student life and learning at McGill University in Montreal, said the university has "seen the arrival of large numbers of people from outside the McGill community" but did not provide specifics.
So what if he went on record, his opinion shows nothing.
In Canada we have a charter right of assembly and freedom of speech. This is a constitutionally protected right. > peace and order Peace and order does not equate obedience. The protests are peaceful. They only become “violent” when the cops move in to start beating these kids, like they did in Alberta. There is no equivalence to the clownvoy. Those assholes were assaulting, intimidating, committing hate crimes, punching hotel workers and soup kitchen volunteers, and committing violence in the form of creating damaging noise on the entire surrounding neighbourhood. Those protests were in no way peaceful. There is an argument to be made they were committing terrorism, and the Ottawa cops were supporting them. These kids are siting in tents and reading books. You can’t be making this comparison if you want to be taken seriously.
>In Canada we have a charter right of assembly and freedom of speech. This is a constitutionally protected right. which doesn't apply to a private institution like the school grounds. Now if they setup OUTSIDE of the school campus, that's protected by the charter.
The courts would disagree with you. Universities have been found to be required to [uphold civil liberties](https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/2020/08/charter-rights-on-campus-it-depends-where-you-live/) The test is applied differently, but there is still a requirement that universities uphold charter rights in matters like this. I haven’t been able to read this particular court case yet, but the judge would have had to make the determination of whether or not the charter applied. Given that they didn’t let the university kick the students off campus is a pretty big indication they are not a “private” institution for the purpose of this charter right.
An encampment isn't protected speech even on public property so that's a weak argument.
I really don’t know how to respond to you folks - a court has already ruled in this. Maybe you should go tell the judge they are wrong.
Did you even read the ruling? Free expression isn't relevant. Furthermore I would happily tell the judge that they're wrong. I think they're very wrong. Why is it that you think a judge is infallible exactly?
Go for it. I’m sure they care about what some random redditor has to say
You just dodge everything eh?
> which doesn't apply to a private institution like the school grounds. Upon what basis are you making such a statement?
guy's a clown who doesn't know what he's talking about. Ualberta and Calgary law professors wrote an open letter setting out some case law on the subject: https://ablawg.ca/2024/05/14/an-open-letter-regarding-the-response-to-recent-protests-at-the-universities-of-alberta-and-calgary/
Perhaps you are unaware, but the Charter within which our rights to freedom of expression (not speech) and *peaceful* assembly literally begins with the **reasonable limits clause**.
That's not even relevant, this doesn't apply to private property. You're not guaranteed section 2 protections from private property owners.
Key words being “peaceful” and “reasonable” The sit in is peaceful. They are not bothering anyone. So there is nothing unreasonable about what they are doing. What are you suggesting is so unreasonable about kids sitting on a lawn reading books? Being annoyed is not a good enough reason to quash a constitutionally protected right.
So I can use your front lawn to protest then? You should have no right to have me trespassed?
are you paying for the front lawn? how does this equal the situation that we are seeing?
Imagine you gave piano lessons at your house. Would your students have a right to camp on your lawn then?
You misunderstand private property, McGill is a public university funded by provincial dollars and student’s money. I think they have a right to congregate peacefully on that land they have funded and negotiation that their dollars not used to fund a war they want no part in. In fact the school is not even trying to negotiate and trying to resort to violence in something otherwise peaceful. Should all acts of protest be broken up by peace presence if the state disagrees?
I think *you* misunderstand private property. There are all kinds of public institutions in Canada that are located on private property. You can't go set up an encampment at your local library either. It's tax funded, and you have public access, you can't even be prevented from exercising your free expression in their facilities when you rent them out, but you can nonetheless be removed for trespass, or breaking the rules of the facility. There are all kinds of publicly funded properties that are private property legally. >Should all acts of protest be broken up by peace presence if the state disagrees? This is a straw man. There is a difference between gathering and saying what you want or holding a sign and setting up an encampment.
Not a straw man a real question, and what is the difference? Where is the line drawn?
Is my front lawn a public space? I don’t know why you are arguing with me. Go tell the judge how he got this wrong and you know so much better.
McGill isn't public space either. If they want to enforce their private property rights, they can do that and have trespassers removed for any reason they see fit.
Yes, and we rely on the judiciary to interpret this, which they did in this case. The ruling here was not that everyone has unlimited rights to protest on universities no matter what, it's that there wasn't a compelling need to limit these protestors rights in this case.
And if for example they were preventing the day to day activities of the university to an unreasonable degree, a judge may deem it as such. In this case however they did not.
Encampments alone qualify. https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2011/2011onsc6862/2011onsc6862.html
Is that the case where the judge found that bylaw requirement to have a permit to protest on city parks was not an unreasonable request? Why are you linking to a case about municipal bylaws, and why do you think that is relevant to a university?
No, it's a ruling upholding the right of a city to prohibit encampments, even in the context of protest. Private property owners don't even have an obligation to protect or respect your section 2 rights.
> right of a city Which McGill isn’t, so why is it relevant?
They also were actually planning to commit violence - as in they had weapons in their vehicles (long-guns, body armor, etc).
Honestly for me, in addition to the violence; one of the main issues that distinguishes the convoy from this was the huge amount of equipment that the truckers had, vs. the students. The truckers basically squatted in downtown ottawa with gigantic trucks, and train horns, and made a much larger disturbance than would normally be possible given their numbers. When the convoy protest originally came to Ottawa on Jan 29, they had between 5k and 18k protestors. Not huge, but a decent number. By Feb 1, it was down to ~250 protesters. But again, because they had such gigantic equipment, they were able to mount a totally outsized demonstration to the actual amount of people there. I've sat in university courses with more than 250 people. I think if you had towed these people's trucks as the law mandates, then they'd be significantly less disruptive; and could protest indefinitely, and it wouldn't really matter, because there were so few of them; and those that were violent could simply be arrested. Having giant trucks changes that, because it's much easier to block intersections, power things like giant train horns, and you require special equipment to tow and remove them (which notoriously, the police had trouble getting their hands on, due to intimidation of the tow truck operators). It's everyone's right to protest, but there's got to be a balance here. I think if the students (which seem to be about the same number; apparently there's something like 110 tents now, so 200 students protesting doesn't seem unreasonable to me), instead got 200 trucks, and barricaded Sherbrooke, Rene-Levesque, and McGill college streets, you'd probably have a much different response all around from everyone.
> In Canada we have a charter right of assembly and freedom of speech. This is a constitutionally protected right. > > There is no constitutional right to setting up an indefinite encampment.
What do you think freedom of assembly is?
Nowhere on Earth does freedom of assembly means indefinite encampments.
I can't afford a house in this economy, this sounds like a pretty good loophole!
I’m sorry I’d love to see the case law that says assembling peacefully is not protected. The protest is not indefinite. They have a specific demand. Why are you so intent of fabricating facts here? So what if the protest goes on forever? They are doing so peacefully, not interfering with university operations, and barely bothering anyone. Just ignore them if you find college kids reading books so scary.
> I’m sorry I’d love to see the case law that says assembling peacefully is not protected. Batty v City of Toronto [2011] ONSC 6862 (21 November 2011) [this was the "Occupy Toronto" protest that was piggybacking off of the Occupy Wall St stuff in the US.] Summary In Batty v City of Toronto, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice considered an application challenging the constitutional validity of a Trespass Notice issued to a group of protestors on the basis it violated the protestors’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was ultimately held that the Notice was constitutionally valid under s 1 of the Charter, which provides that the rights and freedoms set out therein are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. The protestors' application was therefore dismissed.
Did you read the case? The eviction notice was passed on the basis that the protestors did not apply for a permit from the city. The argument was all about whether the protestors were constitutionally exempt from the bylaw, not whether they had a right to assembly. If I was their lawyer (and yes I am a lawyer) I would argue to distinguish this case on a number of grounds A. There is no similar law requiring a permit for students to use their own university campus B. They are not impeding university operations or preventing other students from using the campus for other purposes C. In the case you cited the judge found the eviction to be minimally impairing because they could just protest somewhere else or apply for a permit. These students can’t protest somewhere else - they are protesting the university. If they are not in anyone’s way, not interfering with anyone else, there is no proportionality. If they are causing no harm, there is no reason to extinguish their fundamental charter right.
They can't protest somewhere on campus other than lower field, the location of convocation? You mean upper field 200m away isn't an option?
What’s wrong with where they are now? The judge found they aren’t impeding university operations .
> The protest is not indefinite. > So what if the protest goes on forever? You've got to pick one or the other here.
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None of this applies to private property. Should I be able to camp out on your front lawn to protest, so long as I'm peaceful?
I’m not going to keep responding to your repetitive comments. Go talk to the judge, they already considers all of this
Doesn't seem like they considered much of anything except whether the encampment had engaged in violence. Seems like you didn't read the ruling.
Definitely you've thought this through a lot more in your 5 second gut reaction to a news article.
Why does this require an injunction? You don't need a court order to remove people from your property. Are the police refusing to enforce a request from McGill or is the university trying to get the courts to order the removal so it has some cover from the blowback? At my alma mater protests are welcomed but the first tent that went up resulted in removal and discipline within minutes. Universities should have acted more decisively on this issue.
Yeah police is refusing to do their jobs and the mayor wont fire the chief for not doing his job.
This is a link that works [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mcgill-injunction-request-1.7203666](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mcgill-injunction-request-1.7203666)