Allison Hanes: Is McGill being hung out to dry? (2024)

Last week, the shiny glass headquarters of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec were splashed with red paint.

Although protesters denied it, it was widely assumed that the vandalism was connected to the pro-Palestinian encampment that had taken root across the street two weeks earlier, demanding that the Caisse divest from some $14 billion in holdings that protesters say could be supporting Israel’s war in Gaza.

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Regardless of whodunit, the ugly red stain was the last straw for Quebec Public Security Minister François Bonnardel.

“We’re starting to see the consequences of this passive approach,” he fumed, in thinly disguised criticism aimed at the City of Montreal and Mayor Valérie Plante’s wait-and-see approach to the demonstration. “We expect all our political leaders to denounce this kind of excess and the occupation of public space.”

Within 36 hours, the fortified cluster of tents was gone from Victoria Square. Montreal police moved in at dawn Friday and roused the dozen or so protesters sleeping on site. They were herded outside and brought back one by one to collect their belongings. Only one person was arrested, a man alleged to have shone a laser in the eyes of a police officer at an earlier rally.

But that was that. The tents that had sprouted in the plaza in late June were ousted without major incident. Existing laws and regulations were applied with no one having to turn to the courts for a special order.

Yet the tarpaulins, canopies and wooden sidewalks that have monopolized the lower field of McGill University since April 27 have been left to fester, despite the administration’s various attempts to dislodge them and repeated pleas for police, the city and the province to help.

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McGill appears to have been left to its own devices to cope with a vexing quandary, even as tensions in the nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas rise. The question is why.

The camp at McGill was the first in Canada as a wave of demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian cause took over university campuses across North America. Now it is the last left in the city and the longest-running in the country.

When the tents first appeared, Premier François Legault called the occupation “illegal” and urged their swift removal, although he said he’d leave it up to Montreal police to decide when and how. He later toned down his comments and has said very little about the situation since.

A second site was later established at Université du Québec à Montréal, but campers pulled up stakes in early June after just a few short weeks. The administration had obtained a partial court injunction to unblock campus entrances and exits while talks with the protesters had reached a mutually agreed-upon dénouement.

The camp in Victoria Square that was set up on June 22 was Montreal’s third pro-Palestinian encampment and the city’s shortest-lived installation.

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At first Plante indicated the site would be tolerated because it was a form of political expression — but oddly suggested that tents erected in parks and elsewhere in Montreal to shelter unhoused people were not. (That was a hypocritical head-scratcher, given it is hard to think of a more visible manifestation against injustice in this city than marginalized Montrealers without a place to live being forced to camp rough. Perhaps if the unhoused had hung out a sign denouncing the housing crisis, it would have been deemed OK.)

After Bonnardel’s outburst, Plante changed her tune.

“You can’t occupy a public site permanently no matter what the cause,” she said in explaining why Montreal police and city cleanup crews finally went into Victoria Square. “Public space must remain public.”

(For good measure, a group of tents put up by the unhoused in Parc des Faubourgs was also evicted on Friday, completing the clean sweep.)

But when asked if the police would soon be going in to clear the McGill encampment, as university president Deep Saini has repeatedly begged, Plante turned the tables.

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“This is where I find the dean and McGill University have failed compared to other universities that were able to find a solution and a peaceful way, because that’s what people expect — that it will be a peaceful way out of it. I expect McGill University to revise their strategy,” Plante said. “Everybody expects from the dean of such an important institution — it’s McGill University — to find the right path, because right now their reputation is being tainted, by their incapacity to find a way out.”

If the criticism wasn’t needlessly harsh in of itself, Plante went on to blame McGill for attempting to get a court order to get rid of the camp in the first place. The university sought an injunction in May, although a judge didn’t see the urgency and rejected it. Before that, two McGill students unsuccessfully sought a legal order that the court also rejected.

“They chose that path, to go in court, and now it’s locked to this decision that will be made by the court,” Plante said. “I think it’s important for people to understand that. They took that path, so now they have to be accountable for that.”

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Plante’s comments are not only curious, they’re completely disingenuous.

For starters, Montreal police — who report to Plante and city council — have declined to dismantle the McGill protest camp without a court order to enforce. Even though the tents are on private property, Service de police de la Ville de Montréal spokespeople have said the campus is a de facto public space, so it won’t intervene. (This excuse now rings hollow in light of Plante’s insistence Friday that protests can’t permanently monopolize public places.)

But Plante’s finger-pointing at McGill is also perplexing given that UQAM went to court as well. And so did the University of Toronto. In fact, an Ontario court last week ordered the U of T encampment to be cleared. Demonstrators there left of their own accord to avoid a clash with police.

McGill was among the first to turn to the justice system for relief. Bonnardel said at the time he supported the injunction request, even after the judge denied it back in May for being “ill founded.” But a lot has happened since. McGill has another court date this month to try to get that make-or-break injunction.

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And it’s not like McGill hasn’t sought to negotiate an end to this impasse. The school offered amnesty to campers who may have violated university policies if they left voluntarily, as well as a process for reviewing its investments. But the pro-Palestinian protesters dismissed the olive branch as “laughable.”

The silence of the Quebec government as the deadlock drags on has been deafening. The dousing of the Caisse headquarters was a red line that prompted a strong reaction and immediate action. But an ad for a summer camp at the McGill protest site showing militants bearing machine guns? Not so much — other than Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry voicing her dismay on social media.

Police have stood between the opposing sides when pro-Israel counter-demonstrators have shown up. They watched as a dummy resembling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hung in effigy from the Roddick Gates. McGill staff have been followed and endured rallies outside their homes.

Demonstrators who stormed McGill’s James Administration Building in June were hastily ejected by riot cops.

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On Friday, police used chemical irritants to disperse demonstrators angry over the Victoria Square ouster who took out their frustration on McGill. Slogans were spray-painted on university buildings, according to Saini, a window was broken and a security guard was allegedly assaulted.

But the encampment remains firmly entrenched.

“This needs to stop,” Saini said in another statement that seems destined to be ignored — even as activities on McGill’s campus risk becoming even more of a flashpoint.

Over the weekend, the group Palestine Action Montréal urged protesters to “escalate” their activities beyond “symbolic action.”

“We know power won’t move unless we strike fear in the heart of the ruling class and pose a threat to their reproduction of capital,” it said. “We will not disavow any actions taken to escalate the struggle, including militant direct actions.”

Perhaps that not-so-thinly veiled threat will finally prompt a show of concern from authorities.

Since the beginning, McGill has been walking a tightrope between the rights of protesters to peaceful assembly and its own private property rights. It has gone out on a limb trying to balance respect for free expression with the concerns of some students and the wider Jewish community that its campus had become a hotbed of antisemitism, intimidation and hate speech. It has tried carrots and sticks. It has attempted talks and legal remedies.

But one of Quebec’s most renowned and respected institutions has been left to navigate these rocky shoals alone, while being held to a dubious double standard that it is somehow responsible for this unpredictable predicament over which it has no control.

Is the university a convenient foil for politicians who fear risking their own hides by taking a strong stand? Or is McGill being hung out to dry?

ahanes@postmedia.com

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