On Monday, union leaders from across Ontario descended on the University of Toronto campus, vowing to physically defend the students.
“Our job is to put our bodies in between you and whatever the administration brings to you,” JP Hornick, president, Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU), told a rally by the protesters and their allies. “If the police come, we will be your human shields. We will be your line of defence. And I promise you that we will be here for as long as it takes to make sure that you are safe.”
Laura Walton, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), pledged not only her union membership in defence of the protesters, but her own maternal instinct.
On Saturday, in response to the university’s trespassing notice, the OFL’s Walton issued a call to all unions to support the encampment, and on Monday she was joined by four past and present union leaders, including Sid Ryan, former head of CUPE; Fred Hahn, current president of CUPE; and Carolyn Egan, president, United Steelworkers (USW) Toronto Area Council.
Walton said that, in her mind, support for the protesters is undeniably linked to labour issues. “If the university administrators can get away with trampling on your rights to protest and dismissing your legitimate demands, then employers everywhere will feel emboldened to do the same,” she said.
It’s not all that different from the Convoy Protests in 2022. People being upset about a problem and having a get together to have a shared emotional meltdown in a location that will obviously accomplish nothing. The Canadian government couldn’t dictate border crossing policies to the US and mask mandates were done at the provincial level. Antivax protests happened throughout the Pandemic and were largely ignored. The Convoy Protests on the other hand interfered with some Canadian’s rights to freedom from “discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.” Imagine being an Asian person living in a neighbourhood taken over by a “China Virus” kind of group. They also interfered with people’s rights to mobility within the country by blocking roads, and did things like jam emergency response numbers which if it were allowed to continue could have taken away people’s fundamental right to be alive.
So it’s kind of a pickle for a government when there’s a group when a group of people exercising their rights is taking away other people’s rights. Through action the government may be infringing on one group’s rights, but through inaction may be infringing on another group’s rights.
Ultimately the Emergency Act was invoked and the Convoy group was removed from Ottawa.
So this protect needs to be given the same consideration. Does the university administration have any influence over foreign policy? I think the answer is clearly no. Two subway stops from U of T there is an Israeli Consulate. So why are they protesting at the University instead of at the Consulate?
Obviously the focus of this “protest” isn’t to effect any kind of change. It’s a social get together that allows some kids to have a shared emotional tantrum. While I’m sure this may be fun and could be cathartic for those in attendance, much like the Convoy “protests” makes it a little less about exercising freedom of expression and closer to having a social gathering on someone else’s property. Have the set up bouncy castles like the Convoy idiots has at their Protest?
And like how we considered the treatment of Asians in the community the Convoy occupied, we also need to consider the rights of people in the U of T community. Is there an ethnic or religious group facing discrimination from these protesters? Is people’s freedom of movement being affected by this protest?
This is Canada we don’t just give the loudest people all of the rights to the detriment of everyone else’s rights. Everyone’s rights must be considered. And given that this “protest” (much like the Convoy “protest”) more resembles a social gathering than an actual protest (it’s happening two subway stops from the Israeli consulate!) the property rights of the University and the rights of Jews facing discrimination from this group might carry more weight.