Dear McGill community members,
Earlier today, in close collaboration with the City of Montreal and police, the University began the dismantlement of the encampment on the lower field of McGill’s downtown campus through the engagement of a qualified security firm. The downtown campus is closed today to protect the safety of our community.
While the situation is currently ongoing, I felt it important to provide you with an overview of the situation at hand, which has led to this morning’s developments. Please note that these efforts are being undertaken with extreme diligence, while prioritizing the safety and well-being of all. That is why I ask you to follow the guidance of McGill’s Emergency Operations Centre, which is providing updates on this web page and through email, and to refrain from visiting campus today. Staff who provide essential services should remain home as well, unless called to campus by their supervisors.
McGill will always support the right to free expression and assembly, within the bounds of the laws and policies that keep us all safe. However, recent events go far beyond peaceful protest, and have inhibited the respectful exchange of views and ideas that is so essential to the University’s mission and to our sense of community.
People linked to the camp have harassed our community members, engaged in antisemitic intimidation, damaged and destroyed McGill property, forcefully occupied a building, clashed with police, and committed acts of assault. They also hosted a “revolutionary youth summer program” advertised with images of masked individuals holding assault rifles. The risks emanating from the camp have been escalating, steadily and dangerously.
Why we acted to dismantle the encampment
Montreal fire safety officials, police, and McGill staff had long been denied access to the camp. Given the growing risks and the impossibility of knowing what was happening inside, the University engaged a firm to investigate the activities within the encampment.
What they found led the University to determine that the need for the camp’s dismantlement was urgent.
- Few members of the McGill community are in the encampment: Most people are activists from external groups. One organizer of the encampment came to Montreal from outside the country shortly before tents were set up on April 27. Unhoused individuals now make up most of the few people who are sleeping in the camp overnight.
- There are significant health and safety risks: Two drug overdoses occurred in the camp since July 6. Syringes are visible, and illegal narcotics have been sold there. The camp is infested with rats. There are fire risks, including a propane canister and flammable materials next to the tents.
- The encampment is a magnet for violence and intimidation: The camp continues to attract protesters intent on violence, as the multiple incidents of vandalism on July 5 show. Certain people in the camp are planning to cause further damage to McGill, for example through vandalism.
This camp was not a peaceful protest. It was a heavily fortified focal point for intimidation and violence, organized largely by individuals who are not part of our university community.
Moving forward
These last few months have been extraordinarily difficult for our students, faculty and staff. The dismantling of the encampment is an important step in restoring our healthy campus climate, and renewing our focus on teaching, learning and research.
To be clear: this morning’s developments – and my longstanding insistence that the encampment must go – were not about limiting speech. They were about an illegal occupation that intimidated and endangered our community, violated our policies, caused serious property damage, created major health and safety risks, and fostered a steady escalation of violence.
Peaceful, legal expression will always be protected at McGill. And indeed, it is thriving. At symposia and student events, in classrooms, libraries, green spaces, and cafeterias, McGillians have engaged respectfully and responsibly with intractable issues – and with each other – for more than two centuries. I have every confidence that we will continue to do so.
As always, I undertake to keep the community apprised of any major developments as they occur.
Sincerely,
Deep Saini
President and Vice-Chancellor
McGill University