McGill makes new offer to pro-Palestinian protesters occupying its downtown campus

Morgan Lowrie
Tue, June 11, 2024 



MONTREAL — Montreal's McGill University is proposing to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students as part of a new offer to members of a pro-Palestinian encampment on its downtown campus.

McGill said the offer it extended Monday includes a review of direct equity investments in entities that earn most of their revenues from the production of military weapons.

Pro-Palestinian protesters have been occupying McGill's lower field since late April, demanding the university pull investments from companies complicit in what they describe as the genocide of Palestinians and sever relationships with Israeli academic institutions.


"Yesterday, the university extended an updated offer to members of its community in the encampment, going beyond previous proposals," the school said Tuesday in a news release.

"This continued effort to reach a peaceful resolution to the encampment, which has been in place on the lower field for over six weeks, comes in addition to the university’s renewed suggestion to appoint a neutral third-party mediator to facilitate discussions."

The university said it also offered to disclose more investments to include holdings below $500,000, to support Palestinian students displaced by the war in the Gaza Strip, and to grant disciplinary amnesty to any McGill student or employee participating in the encampment prior to June 15.

Spokespeople for the encampment could not immediately be reached for comment, and as of Tuesday afternoon had not indicated on social media whether they would accept the offer.

McGill says its offer of amnesty doesn't extend to those involved in the occupation last Thursday of a McGill University administration building, or to anyone who commits acts such as destruction of property, vandalism, or harassment. Police said they arrested 15 people during that protest.

The offer is the school's latest attempt to convince protesters to dismantle the dozens of tents they've erected on the lower field of the campus. Quebec's Superior Court denied McGill's injunction request to clear out the protesters in May, ruling that the university's lawyers didn't convince the court that the situation was urgent or that it presented a health or safety risk.

Since then, McGill filed a request for a different injunction to remove the protesters, which has yet to be heard.

Montreal police have said they have no plans to move in on the encampment as long as no crimes are being committed, despite the school's past requests for officers to clear the field.

In its news release, McGill said it urged protesters, who have rejected prior proposals from the university, to discuss the latest offer through a skilled and impartial mediator, adding that it hoped for "a peaceful and satisfactory resolution for all."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 11, 2024.

U of T says pro-Palestinian protesters rejected latest offer

The Canadian Press
Mon, June 10, 2024 

TORONTO — Negotiations between the University of Toronto and protesters behind a pro-Palestinian encampment appeared stalled Monday as the school said its latest offer had been rejected and demonstrators accused administrators of not taking the talks seriously.

In a letter posted online, the university said the proposal sent last Thursday offered expedited processes for considering the protesters' demands around divestment of companies profiting from Israel's offensive in Gaza and greater transparency on investments.

Administrators also confirmed the school doesn't have any direct investments in such companies, including any that produce armaments, U of T president Meric Gertler wrote.

U of T has said it will not, however, cut ties with Israeli universities, as protesters have demanded.

"The proposal we have made is commensurate with or more comprehensive than the agreements that have resolved encampments at peer institutions," he said. "Unfortunately, the encampment participants have rejected this proposal."

Gertler said the university has met with protesters about twice a week over the last month and is open to meeting with representatives of the encampment again "when there are productive reasons for doing so." U of T will also continue to pursue an injunction that would allow police to clear the encampment, he said.

Protest organizers noted that despite regular meetings between the two sides, Gertler himself has not participated nor met with any of the students involved.

Instead, the university president has been "sending proxies with no decision-making power in his place," Erin Mackey said in a news conference Monday.

"How can there be any dialogue when there's no dialogue actually occurring?" she asked.

Mackey suggested negotiations could not happen in good faith given the university's request for an injunction. "These negotiations are severely power imbalanced," she said.

Demonstrators also took issue with Gertler's comments on what he called "escalations in online rhetoric and imagery, vandalism, and other disruptive behaviour" related to the encampment.

Sara Rasikh, another spokesperson for the group, said the university's portrayal of the encampment as hateful and disruptive is untrue.

"Portraying our camp as a source of hate or disruption not only makes us less safe, but it also attracts agitators – the same agitators that U of T claims to oppose," Rasikh said.

Students set up the encampment on May 2 to call on the university to cut its ties with Israel over the ongoing war in Gaza.

Protesters said they were joining students at other universities in Canada and the United States in setting up camps to call on their schools to disclose ties with the Israeli government, divest from Israeli companies and terminate partnerships with Israeli academic institutions that operated under parameters they opposed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2024.

The Canadian Press