Private property or public space? Encampments spark debate over campus status
CTV
After four weeks that have featured torrential downpours, blistering heat and two failed legal bids to have them removed, pro-Palestinian protesters remain encamped on McGill University’s downtown campus.
After four weeks that have featured torrential downpours, blistering heat and two failed legal bids to have them removed, pro-Palestinian protesters remain encamped on McGill University’s downtown campus.
Quebec Minister of Higher Education Pascale Déry said their continuing presence is an affront to the rule of law.
"These encampments have to be dismantled," she told reporters this week in Quebec City. "It is not the appropriate place. Again, we are talking about private lands that are currently occupied."
McGill, which last week failed in a bid for an injunction, has also labelled the encampment an illegal occupation of its property.
But as protesters angry over the mounting death toll in Gaza have erected tent cities on Canadian campuses in the past month, demanding that schools divest from Israeli companies and cut ties with Israeli universities, the legality of their actions remains a subject of debate.
Experts say the nature of a university means the answer is not as clear-cut as the minister and McGill suggest.
Constitutional lawyer and Université de Montréal instructor Frédéric Bérard says that while a campus belongs to a university, it shouldn’t be understood in the way a private residence belongs to an individual.
Saskatchewan’s first jackpot winner of the year was revealed in Regina on Thursday.
The Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) is going overseas to research transit safety.
B.C. Premier David Eby says a wave of extortion crime in the province is a “terror attack in slow motion.”
A music teacher has been arrested in connection with a sexual assault investigation involving his school-aged student.
West Edmonton Mall was locked down on Thursday afternoon as a result of a weapons complaint.
An Alberta First Nation is advising its band members to take precautions when crossing into the United States, even though centuries-old treaty rights should protect them.
Two murderers including gangland hitman Dean Wiwchar have been charged with attempting to escape from a British Columbia pretrial centre last month.
An investigation by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit details what happened after a mentally unstable man bought a rifle in Sudbury, then exchanged fire with police in Latchford before he was shot and taken into custody.
New charges have been laid in the investigation on Chesham Avenue after chemicals capable of making explosives were discovered at a home earlier in the week.
The stepfather of Lily and Jack Sullivan, who have been missing from their Lansdowne Station, N.S., home since last May, has been charged with assault, forcible confinement and sexual assault.
A tribunal has revoked the licence of a Toronto doctor found guilty of misdiagnosing patients, violating consent and carrying out unnecessary and non-evidence-based procedures leading to harm.
For the third time in just under a year, Pierre Poilievre’s political fate will be in the hands of voters this Friday — though this time, it’s a small group of partisan supporters who appear likely to give him another shot.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says he doesn’t foresee logistical challenges in gathering up banned firearms through a federal buyback program, despite the refusal of several provinces and police forces to help.