Student Suppression By Any Means Necessary, with Jeremy Appel

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Welcome back to Blueprints of Disruption, where we help tell the stories of the grassroots and hopefully provide some motivation for people to push back against the very things we are seeing unfold right now. Just this week, the White House sent out fascist threats to really anyone mobilizing against the genocide in Gaza and cheered for the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student.

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who has been detained by the Department of Homeland Security for supporting Palestine, even though he is a permanent resident. This horror show of an administration has also made promises and signed executive orders to withhold funding from campuses who allow Palestinian solidarity protests, expel U.S. students, and deport anyone else. It has been enraging to witness all of this. I'll be honest though, north of the border,

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We aren't faring much better. Just last week, we heard from Yves Engler about his arrest for taunting a Zionist online. We've also extensively covered the many arrests and cases of police brutality visited on activists in Toronto and Ottawa. Our politicians are encouraging this heavy-handed police response and malicious prosecutions of peaceful protests. Federally, the conservative deputy leader, Melissa Lantzman,

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is a rabid Zionist who is explicitly called for exactly what Trump is doing right now. Liberals, not to be outdone, have appointed genocide denier and a regular visitor to Israel, Marco Mendicino, as our new Prime Minister's Chief of Staff. Now, how big a role the Feds have to play in all of this is a discussion for another day.

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th,: 2024

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Move!

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They just tear gas they just tear gas and

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Wait, are you firing at them? you firing at them? Firing at them, no.

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We just had an explosion here. They just tear gas people. Wait, sorry. This is for what again? That was a pro-Palestine protest. Oh, they're like the anti-genocide protests? Jeremy Appel, a journalist based out of Alberta, is with us today to explain the politics and planning behind the violent police evictions like the one you just heard. You'll also hear how enthusiastic the province, the school, and the police were to work together.

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to shut down student encampments by any means necessary. All right, Jeremy, we've had you in a couple of times before, but you just dropped two pieces that had me particularly enraged. It has to do with the University of Calgary's student encampment for Palestine. And we reported on it at the time, albeit briefly, because there was a lot of encampments going on, but...

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Alberta's response, you both at the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta were particularly heavy-handed and the encampment short-lived. And I feel like now we know why. Obviously, we knew that there was a green light of sorts from the university. Just one look at their statement after the fact tells you everything you need to know. We'll link all of this in the show notes, including Jeremy's pieces.

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Can you take folks to maybe how the university got to that position even before the encampment started? You know, I want to clarify that there's no reason to believe that anyone other than the universities made the decision to call police to take down their encampment. As I understand it, the U Calgary encampment was the shortest lived one in Canada.

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Even the one at York University in Toronto lasted a night. The one at the University of Calgary did not. By 11, 11.30 PM, it was dispersed. The same day it was erected. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we're talking less than 24 hours. What I found through the documents I obtained through a frame of information, and this wasn't a secret,

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nada. like mid to late April,: 2024

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from the outset, from emails I obtained from their sort of senior executive team, so the president and vice presidents, as well as their communication staff, was that they had internalized this pro-Israel narrative from the get-go that these encampments were anti-Semitic, that they were making Jewish students and faculty unsafe, and that

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We can't listen to what they have to say, right? The approach was completely one-sided from the outset. So I got an email from a pro-Israel organization in Calgary, like a week and a half before the encampment went up saying, please do everything in your power to make sure this encampment doesn't happen. Out of all the hundreds of pages of documents I got, a lot of them were repetitions and there were lot of redactions, but

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of the pages I got, this was the only external email that got a response from the president of the university, which was sent after they tore down the encampment. Was it just a card that said, you're welcome? No, it was, um, essentially agreeing saying, yeah, know, anti-Semitism and hate speech.

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and violence won't be tolerated on campus, know, after police inside, you know, conducted violence against this encampment. Another example is one of the communications staff members at the university while they were preparing for the encampment, the possibility of an encampment, sent out this documentary on YouTube put out by this group, Students Supporting Israel, that has

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chapters at various campuses. You know, I suspect their membership is probably less than 100 people, but I don't know. This communications employee said, look, this documentary just came up on YouTube. It includes a bunch of instances of campus antisemitism from UCalgary. And he lists a bunch. I mean, you know, I kind of laughed the first time I saw it because it was like,

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These students came to campus in the days after October 7th and they saw the rocks on campus painted with Palestinian flags. were the examples they were using? Yeah, yeah. This pro-Israel group, Students Pro-Israel, had its status suspended for harassment, which again, this communication staffer, uncritically accepted, wasn't fanciful.

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was unfounded and not maybe because they were harassing Palestinian students. And this was just relayed to the senior executive, other communication staffers in campus security without any sort of, we should look into this, see if these claims are true. was just like, this is just for your information. This is what's happening on University of Calgary. So they sort of set the stage in that way.

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And what was interesting too, because I did story last year on documents that I got from the University of Alberta, which basically the University of Alberta, which is in Edmonton and the University of Calgary's encampments went up the same day. Then before the first day was finished, University of Calgary tore its encampment down. And then on day two of the University of Alberta encampment, Danielle Smith is asked about

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what the Calgary police did at the U of C encampment the day before. And she said, I think it was great. I, and I think that university of Alberta might want to look into doing the same. And, know, in her very, in Danielle Smith, she has this way of talking about things where, that she honed as this like media personality, where it's just like, I'm just asking questions, right? I'm just, you know, saying maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't. Hypotheticals.

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Of course, the government can't direct police, right? It had to be the universities issuing a trespass order and then calling the police to enforce it, right? One more thing about UFC, I forgot to mention that's important, is that on April 30th, their executive team, it's unclear who on that team...

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issued a directive that said, essentially, encampments aren't allowed, no temporary structures are allowed on campus, and that you can protest, but not overnight. Only during business hours. Yeah, exactly. And this was sent to all students and then also handed out to the people at the encampment.

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But what was interesting is a difference I noticed between documents I got from U of A and what I got from U of C was, U of C there was this like obsession with tracking social media posts, both to identify when this encampment was gonna come up before it actually did. And then while it was up, looking at positive and negative comments and how many views they were getting.

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And it struck me as really unusual. you know, I mean, I think working communications for the University of Calgary probably pays quite well. And they're here, like, making graphs of, like, impressions on social media. They're not going out to the encampment or talking to anyone there. Heaven forbid. That's a lot of resources the administration put in, you know, from

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from getting that letter and deciding they were not going to allow this before they even saw what shape it would take. And they can't even stick to a narrative, right? Like outwardly or inwardly they're saying, yes, we know this is gonna be anti-Semitic and dangerous. But in the statement they issued afterwards, it was all the bureaucratic reasons. You know, we had a set of rules here at the campus and you do have a right to protest, but you know, within these very fine.

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limitations that the administrations that we just that we just invented out of thin air less than two weeks ago, right? This is actually this is April 29. So this is the day before the university president and the entire senior leadership team. So all the deans got this email from this proposal group saying don't let this happen the day before they had already laid the groundwork for not letting it happen by creating this policy. And in these internal emails, I got

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a message from Cory Hogan, who's kind of, he used to work for the Alberta NDP when they were in government here. I think he's worked for the federal liberals before and he co-hosts this podcast that's quite popular. you know, as always, well, to defeat the right, we have to be more right-wing. I know the type. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, mean, Cory Hogan says in this email that I obtained. To the University of Calgary.

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Yeah, specifically to their director of external relations who was this is after the encampment was torn down. And so she's in contact with the government that's asking them for a timeline of events and these sort of things. And she asked them, what university policies did these students violate? And Hogan was sort of like outdoor spaces policy.

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and the Souther policy and this directive that we just completely made up a week before and didn't. But he said what he said was this directive is just clarifying what's in these other policies that I mentioned. But a couple of University of Calgary law professors looked at this and they're like, no, it actually substantially changes.

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the other policies because those other policies have a list of things that are expressly prohibited on campus and temporary structures in overnight protests aren't one, which means that amended these policies. So that had to be done transparently and it wasn't. And they argued therefore that policy was invalid. And that was the basis, of course, for them calling in the police. Now,

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In going over all of these documents, did you find any indication that the university encouraged or anticipated such a heavy-handed response? And when I say heavy-handed, we haven't really talked about what that clearing looked like. I mean, you do in your piece. You know, they used pepper spray. There is a video that we'll link in the show notes, folks. They used pepper bullets. Pepper bullets and, sorry, and grenades. And the footage is incredible.

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a line of, you know, riot gear police with large shields and batons at the ready. And, you know, they use their usual tactics of charging from a line and making lots of noise. Like, it's very intimidating. It happens in the middle of the night. So it's dark in the middle of a university campus. knowing that they greenlit this, plotted this, you know, wanted this, the university administration, they wanted this for their students. But

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Was there any indication they knew it would unfold like this? Because they show no remorse. The only thing I got, the only hint of regret I could find was at the very end of the statement from the university afterwards, he writes, I should have got the name there, but I'm not good with names the way you are. Ed McCauley. Thank you. Are we talking about the president? Yeah. Yeah. So there is no satisfaction in a situation like yesterday's.

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This is not an email I wanted to write. Like that was all in my combing that I could find that he felt any level of remorse at how it went down. But they had to have known by encouraging the police the way that they did. Because another one of the items that you published there is just the statement from the police, I believe to a member of the provincial government that, you it was really helpful to have.

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UFC totally on board. we got her done because we basically had them on side. they had to figure. that was the day after the encampment torn down. The Premier, Danielle Smith's Chief of Staff, Marshall Smith, who is not related to her, sent a text. He was texting with the Chief of Police and just telling them, great job to you and all.

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your members and the chief thanked him and said, yeah, mean, UCalgary set it up. And after that, it's easy. And then he puts them back. It's well, relatively easy. you have any communications between those folks and the university? Like we see the police talking to the province or, you know, at least being congratulated by them. And then they rinse and repeat and do the same with the University of Alberta, not the same.

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police force, but I imagine they had similar supports. Yeah, I mean, I don't have documentation of that, but I would be surprised if it wasn't the same thing here in Edmonton. Interestingly, the only communication between the university and the government that I got in these documents was after the encampment, a spokesperson for

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the Ministry of Advanced Education emailed the Director of External Relations at University of Calgary and at University of Alberta, asking them for a timeline of events with emphasis on how many times a trespass notice was issued, when they were issued, and whether the protesters knew that the cops were being called to campus.

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That was sort of the scope of the Advanced Education Ministry's inquiry into what happened, again, with the Calgary Chief of Police, according to his handwritten notes of phone conversations from the day of the encampment, the day after, and then a few days after that when the provincial government announced it was ordering an investigation by Alberta's police watchdog.

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He did note a phone call with the minister, Rajan Sani of advanced education, saying that she expressed her support. In sort of, I guess, these police notes, T slash C means telephone call, right? And this says T sees with an S at the end. And so I asked the police about that.

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Were there multiple calls? Why did there need to be multiple calls if the minister is just saying, great job? And they said, no, no, no, it was a typo, or not a typo, but like a handwritten error. And that was just one phone call and she called him. He didn't call her. And then U of C and U of A both launched third-party investigations into what happened at the encampments. U of C's was like a 20 page document that

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an accounting firm was commissioned to write that got basic facts wrong and is not worth considering. wonder how much they paid for that. Do we know? No, I don't know that. It might be public. It all adds up, right? A command center, these useless reports, like all to infringe on the charter rights of their students. But the U of A got a retired judge.

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to write theirs, who wrote a report that was like more than 100 pages. Now, the retired judge, Adele Kent, is the sister of Peter Kent, Canada's former global affairs minister. And when I saw that, I thought, how hard is it to get a judge in Alberta that doesn't have family connections to either the federal or provincial conservative parties? Probably pretty hard.

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That's how they get the job. Yeah. And then that was my conclusion. Actually, it's probably pretty hard. And I think though, Adele Kent's review does contain valuable information in it that helps sort of lays out what happens and when it's just her conclusions were obviously predetermined, which is that, yeah, university had no choice and they acted appropriately, but here are some minor things they might want to change in the future.

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There is one thing in there that a professor at the University of Alberta pointed out to me, it's notes that on May 3rd, so like a week before the encampments went up, a bit less than a week, the Minister of Advanced Education met with the heads of all the universities in Alberta and told them that if an encampment is set up, we've got your back.

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So implicitly encouraging the universities to make them go away. And like all of this promised impunity as well, I'm sure just fed into the police mindset that they could clear it so violently and not face any blowback. And, one of my planned questions to you, but you've pretty much answered it unless, you know, we can find a different example that the universities themselves, the admins.

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although you've uncovered a lot more, so let it percolate. Haven't really received much blowback for any of this. You the reports seem to clear them. What about student responses? I mean, that must have an effect on the students organizing on campus to have that happen to them or their comrades. So that's one of the reasons they do it that way, right? To send a message and intimidate others, either other campuses or repeat.

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of such an attempt, but has there been any kind of reason for the university to question their behavior in terms of pushback? A lot of people wrote letters to the police. You gave an example, I think 1,500 letters or so were written by community members objecting. And the universities as well, from alumni saying, including one alumni who apparently

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was participating in like an advertising campaign for UCalgary. And they're like, yeah, don't use my likeness anymore. I don't want to encourage people to give you money after what you did to your own students. There was another, this didn't make into the story, but there was one guy who was like, look, I don't even agree with these students. But there was no reason to authorize that level of police violence against them.

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So there was a lot of blowback from alumni and there was lot of criticism of the police, there's always criticism of the police. never amounts to anything. The Calgary Police Commission, especially the Edmonton Police Commission, are completely useless in terms of getting some sort of police accountability. yeah, mean, the students themselves, I mean, I think they're still doing

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what they can. I think they've realized that encampment, doing encampment again, may be more trouble than it's worth because they know what the university is capable of doing to its own students. In the case of UAlberta, the university did ultimately agree to disclose its investments and have, this is the university's board of governors because they're responsible for this not.

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administration. Sometimes that doesn't matter. Ask York. Yeah, I don't doubt that. That of course, I'm sure administration makes lots of decisions that should be gang made by the Board of Governors. Though also the U of A, and to a lesser extent, U of C boards are stacked with people who've given money to the United Conservative Party.

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ments, I think, going back to: 2023

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That's a victory. mean, they can count that as a victory. Actually, one of the hardest parts to read in the first piece in this saga was the quotes that you got from some of the students who were lamenting at the loss of potential. And that was tough because, you know, we examined the encampments and talked to people there and

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whether or not you got a divestment from the university wasn't like the entire measure of its worth, right? Those students at the University of Calgary and Alberta, even though they had like a measure of success, they didn't get that chance to bond in, although I'm sure there was some trauma bonding that occurred just from that short period of time, but they didn't get to build the networks and the skills and the kind of audacity that came.

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the encampments grew in length, know, and just the amount of lessons people were able to learn within the encampments is like a value you can't measure. And that was something that folks really leaned on after being there for so many months and cleared, you know, without being able to say they got a divestment, they were still able to point to all these other gains that the movement received through that encampment. But yeah, unfortunately, like, I don't know if the UFC could

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can say that now, it's heartening to see that they're still active though, and that they're looking just for other ways to intervene. But how hard for them to go to a school knowing, especially what you've uncovered now, like reaffirming that they were kind of plotted against before they could even demonstrate what they were about. And, you know, they mentioned sending.

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the demands that they had two days before they set up the encampments and getting no response from the university until afterwards. So all of what you tell me about they had these preconceived ideas that they were just disseminating amongst the entire university admin and they had clear non-antisemitic demands, like pretty peaceful boilerplate demands from encampments that, you know, follow

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norms. Well, by any reasonable definition of anti-Semitism, but according to the, know, IRA definition of anti-Semitism, you know, everything is anti-Semitic if someone who is pro-Israel says it is. So yeah, so say advocating for disclosing and divesting and an academic boycott of Israel, they would say, oh, this is anti-Semitic. It holds Israel to a double standard, even though it doesn't because

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all the countries they like to bring up as what about examples like Sudan or the Congo, the university isn't investing in those. And if they are, then you should support the demand to disclose and push to divest from those if they exist. But of course, you know, these people aren't operating in good faith. Yeah, I found remarkable to the university president's message to the students.

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after he tore down the encampment, just being like, you were just about to respond to your demands, but then you put up the encampment and yeah, we did what we had to do. I'd like to meet with you, but also I think what we did was great, stunning in tone deafness. And by the way, that was, I don't know if it was written by Corey Hogan, but it was certainly approved by him. It sounded like it. Yeah. It had his tone, didn't it?

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But did they go after students? I mean, beyond the police violence, like that wasn't enough, but we've seen some universities like the University of Vancouver Island, or rather Vancouver Island University, promise amnesty to the students as part of the communications back and forth around the encampment. And then many months after the fact, suspending, know, out of the many that participated, they've really honed in on to Palestinian students and suspended them.

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Did University of Alberta or Calgary take that route or had they just done enough damage? They didn't suspend any students as far as I know. I believe in Calgary there are three charges against people who aren't currently students but are alumni. Ewan Thompson, who is sort of one of the main characters in the UCalgary stories. He supplied you with some of the documents, right? Yes, he did. Some of the...

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most crucial documents, especially in part two. is very good at FOIP. His charge got dropped in about a month ago. And these are trespassing charges, right? So they're tickets. It's not a criminal charge. In the case of U Alberta, I'm not sure. I think all the charges may have been dropped. But at the same time, you have at UCalgary, two

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uh, people including Ewan and also, uh, Katie Anderson, who is a student, a PhD student at UCalgary and also got her undergrad and master's degree there with concussions. And those have long-term effects, especially, uh, I think Katie's is much more severe than Ewan's. I meant to ask you about that because university administration, again, I keep pointing to their statement. There was a lot of back and forth on

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What is an injury? What is a serious injury? mean, but his statement is just plain and simple. There were no injuries or no injuries were reported, but that was a lie. Well, so the way they put it, though, it wasn't a lie because they said there were no injuries reported directly to us. So no one came to university administration saying I got a concussion. Well, why would they? Why would they? And even that statement is like, if you do have an injury,

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Uh, you should, uh, file a complaint with the police. like the police never told the university that there had been injuries. No, in fact, in all this back and forth, the university said that the police told them. They're like, no injuries have been reported to police and no injuries have been referred directly to us. But we know based on the emails I obtained from them, that these communication staffers who were getting paid like.

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probably six figure salaries to monitor social media, made the university's senior executive team aware of a tweet from Katie, where she was talking about how she was diagnosed with a concussion. So they did know that there was a serious injury at least one instance, but they said, oh, well, none were directly reported to us. And the police say none were directly reported to them. you know, problem solved. And there was another person I couldn't...

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get a hold of them, but I had heard there was someone who had their ribs injured. Another activist, Annette Lengill, who's also alumna of University of Calgary, was hit in the face with a baton. She didn't have a serious injury from it, but I mean, again. Were they wearing body cams? Yes, but yes, UN...

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has been trying to get a hold of their body cam videos. I imagine that's why his charges are dropped. This is what we see. This is one of the patterns we've seen that if there is charges on Palestinian solidarity activists, while there's also levels of police brutality that have likely been recorded, that they still go through the process of tormenting them with charges, but that they ultimately get dropped before anybody gets access to the body cam footage.

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So that doesn't really surprise me. I want to go back to a point that you've mentioned a few times and it's just kind of set off a red flag because, and again, I just keep going back to that really shit statement from the university because I feel like they should have just said nothing. So you talk about them monitoring social media and all of the communications that went back and forth and in the letter,

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that he sends out to the university, it says, he's talking about the police's response. And he says, their decision to enforce a trespass order and how, he puts emphasis on this, is based on assessment of risk to public safety as determined through things such as protester actions, communications, including social media monitoring and analysis.

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So knowing that they were the ones probably doing the bulk of social media monitoring and all these communications about the encampment before it even started, which formed the police assessment, they're tipping their hands that they're the ones that essentially predetermined how the police would respond and the police responded violently. It's horrendous that this man can still have a job after openly admitting this. And all of these students, especially

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You mentioned something like Katie Anderson, who's had like years and so many thousands of dollars paid to this university and to have a diploma from an administration that would treat you that way. I mean, I'm not proud of my own York diploma at this point, and I wasn't wrong by them at this level. So that's hard for these students. you were you involved with the York and Cameron? No, not not on the ground. I'll say that much like you supported it, but you weren't like.

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Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and I had been there, but it was very, very, very short. Like you're talking about hours difference, because although they did last another day, it was like the crack of dawn that they showed up at York and dismantled it. Yeah, which is, you know, like the University of Alberta. And the Board of Governors is the same kind of makeup. Like everything you were describing is like, and these are universities that we kind of know intimately or whatnot. So I imagine this is repeated to some level.

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across many of the post-secondary institutions, educational institutions. It's a pattern. I'm very grateful you uncovered these kinds of things that I don't imagine there's very many outlets that would have or are looking into this. Yeah, mean, the breach has done some very good work on this and many other topics as well. Mainstream media in Alberta,

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particularly the Calgary Herald reporter Bill Kaufman here in Edmonton, Johnny Wakefield at the Edmonton Journal, as well as people at the CBC and, you know, CTV Global did good coverage like they did of when it was happening, you know, documenting what they were seeing, talking to the people who organized the encampments, asking the cops difficult questions, as well as the universities. But

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At a certain point it stopped and you can infer from that what you will. I think there are multiple things going on in that regard. Some of it, think particularly at the newspapers, is certainly pressure from above to just kill the story. But I also think that it's also, and again, especially at the newspapers, which have been gutted by the US hedge fund that owns them.

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There's also limited resources to actually dive deep into these things. then, you know, if you're like a beat reporter that covers crime, for example, I mean, you've got a million other things to report on, right? Once the next big story comes, like it's almost old news, but you pressed. mean, what made you look into this so hard? Well, I mean, I saw right after, you know, I went to the U Alberta encampment.

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when it opened, I also went when they made a call out because they suspected cops were going to come tear it down that night. And of course, they did at the crack of dawn. So I had left by then. You know, I noticed just through people I was speaking to at the University of Alberta encampment that admin had taken a very hands off approach to it on the first day. They're like, yeah, we have to technically issue

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issue you these trespass orders. But if everything remains peaceful as it is, you don't have to worry. We'll just let you do your thing. But then we saw after UCalgary and the Calgary police's like really aggressive display of force there in the premier publicly egging the University of Alberta on, it became clear that that was going to happen again. She encouraged it.

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Right? wasn't just, yeah, it's explicitly. And it's not even, I feel like I don't need to add allegedly at all. And yeah, I mean, you see it, you know, I mean, it's a matter of opinion, whether the way she worded it can be considered like she wasn't dire. She wasn't telling the police what to do. She wasn't telling the university what to do. She was like suggesting that if they want to, they can write reminding them that public and no university wants the encampment, you know, like no.

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from all the admins that they may say the line that they appreciate charter rights and that it's a healthy democracy to have this, but they don't really want it. They want any excuse possible or any permission possible to just tear it down. If we're not gonna face blowback and not even the province is gonna bug us, nobody's gonna bug us about this for sure. I'm getting it out of here. Yeah, and what made me want to take a more dogged approach to it

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was the fact that you saw U of T encampment lasted multiple months. McGill, UBC, McMaster was voluntarily taken down pretty quickly, they- McGill. Yeah, but they got some concessions, same with Windsor, right? But in these cases, it was just so quick and it was such a sharp contrast. And giving the premier's public comments, I knew that there was something-

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happening behind the scenes that should get out there. so and I knew that mainstream media was going to forget about it quickly. So I filed freedom of information request. I also filed them with the cops. But because the premier or the public safety minister, I should say, ordered a police watchdog investigation of both police services that

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gave the police an opportunity to be like, yeah, sorry, we can't give you any records because they're part of an investigation. that ongoing, that investigation, those investigations? No, no, no. So that investigation is over and it wasn't an investigation actually. And part of the documents I got from the police chief, his handwritten notes was a few days after the encampment and a couple of days after the U of A encampment was torn down, public safety minister calls him to say that

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the government is ordering an investigation from Acer, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team, right? The police watchdog. It's actually undergoing a review now. Of the system itself? Yeah, because there have been many instances, nothing to do with this, but there have been so many instances of it recommending criminal charges against officers. And then the Crown Prosecution Service just saying, no.

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Oh, like we hardly ever get even rest. It's the SIU over here and we hardly ever get any recommendations for anything. I mean, but I guess too many need an overhaul. But half an hour later, the chief logs a call from the premier's chief of staff saying, don't worry, it's not going to be an investigation. It's actually going to be a limited probe looking squarely at whether there were serious injuries. Oh, yeah. Then we get this.

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bickering over what a serious injury is and quantifying her pain. Yeah. And so basically under the police act in Alberta, a serious injury is one that has long lasting consequences. So that excludes a lot. Like if you get hospitalized, that doesn't mean you've had a serious injury, if it's like a sprain or something, say. But something like a broken limb.

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or a broken bone would be a serious injury. A concussion would be a serious injury. about trauma? And yeah, so it is very limited, but it's even more limited when the ACER is only authorized to look at serious injuries and not the other aspect of what ACER is mandated to do. And that's allegations of police conduct that would

43:22

bring the justice system into disrepute. And that has a lot of public interest. They weren't allowed to look at that aspect. Who would be responsible for looking at possible collusion between the province and police? That would be the ethics commissioner, I believe. Now, based on what I've seen, again, there's no evidence that the province

43:51

hold the police what to do. The only thing that comes close to that is a phone conversation the chief logged the night of the encampment getting torn down from the justice minister who asked him. He just wanted to know what was happening because his constituents were like, what the fuck? my theory is, I mean, the justice minister, Mickey Emery is a practicing Muslim.

44:20

nese, of Lebanese descent. In: 2021

44:49

I think he has a lot of Muslim constituents. If anything, he was just trying to get the chief to explain to him what was going on and maybe trying to get him to ease back, which if he did would be inappropriate. You're not allowed to do that as a cabinet minister. For good or for bad. Yeah, exactly. But I think he was just,

45:18

responding to the desires of his constituents. But at the same time, know, I mean, he's a cabinet minister. Well, he died to a known in the morning he was going to have to answer questions, right? Like he was going to have to face people either in his cabinet or constituents on the phone and have to answer like, what the fuck just happened at the University of Calgary? And, you know, even for his own position of power, he needs to look like he knows what he's talking about.

45:48

So, I mean, that makes sense. But also it's like Rachel Notley, for example, represents the writing that the University of Alberta is in. At least until the by-election, which is coming up soon, that Nenshi is going to run in and win. But even though he lives in Calgary, famously. But, you know, it's like I can't even conceive of Rachel Notley calling up Edmonton's chief of police.

46:18

in saying, what the hell is going on? I'm getting calls from my constituents. Like it just wouldn't happen. Why not? Well, I don't think she would have that level of access to the chief of police. And my point is that not it's not like any MLA can just call it the chief of police when their constituents are having questions about a police action. Right. But this yeah, this is the justice minister. It seems that it was the universities that were

46:46

asking the police to come on to their property, is sort of by the Calgary police chief's own admission in his presentation to the Calgary Police Commission. He was like, yeah, mean, universities are kind of a gray area because they're sort of private property, but they're also kind of public property. But, you know, calling the chief of police to this public or private property and telling them to enforce this trespassing order.

47:16

which is within their right. That doesn't mean it was right to do it. And also the way they arrived at the consideration that people in the university were breaking the rules is very questionable. And so I don't think the provincial government needed to engage with the police until afterwards and then helping them cover it up.

47:45

That is what we have evidence of. With the University of Alberta, the report that came out, which by the way, came out conveniently hours after I reached out to the university for a comment for the piece I wrote in December, then suddenly they dropped this report that they'd been sitting on since October. But the report did have some useful information in it.

48:14

I think there is evidence that the province worked with police and the universities to cover up serious injuries at the University of Calgary. Serious injuries, I mean, serious injuries as defined by the police act, like long lasting injuries. Concussions with long-term implications. Yeah. And, you know, and, uh,

48:43

not to mention the psychological injuries of getting hit in the face with a police baton might not have gotten you a concussion, right? So it might not be a serious injury in that regard. But again, the psychological trauma of that is real. Yeah, folks really need to watch the footage of this clearing to get an appreciation. We can talk about the physical injuries and

49:12

their lasting impact. But just it stays with you even as an observer. I can only imagine what it was like for the students. How many students were there approximately when it was cleared? There seems to be quite a decent amount. Like I know at York University, it was a very small amount of students that were were ushered off. was a relatively small number. I think it was probably 40. That's students. Yeah. Okay. But compared with like,

49:43

150 at the peak, the encampments peak, right? During the day. Yeah. Yeah. No, they, it was a model then replicated, you know, in terms of timing of when to, you know, take over the encampments to do it in the middle of the night. But, the university of Toronto there and the police there use similar language where, you know, they were waiting for a call. It was, it all played out in the public. Like we aren't going to move until the university tells us to. So.

50:11

Although it happened months and months later, the police were clear that they wouldn't do anything on a university campus unless the administration gave them the okay, you know, that they absolutely wanted to pursue the whole trespassing nonsense. Well, and then in Montreal, the cops were like, yeah, we're not going to do it without a court order, right?

50:35

I remember Neufeld being asked about that, I think, at the police commission meeting. And he was just like, yeah, we didn't want to get to get it to that point. The Montreal encampment went on, you know, for months and we weren't going to wait for a court injunction. Of course, that time though, Montreal, at the time the Calgary encampment was torn down, the Montreal police hadn't.

51:05

gotten an injunction, right? Nor had the University of Toronto. Yeah, it was a bit of a litmus test too. You we know these university administrators, like, I don't know if you can find evidence of what's admissible there, but like, they're talking to each other too, just naturally, the same way police chiefs, they meet as an organization. And so how to deal with these encampments are the best way or what you can get away with.

51:30

was likely a conversation that they were having, at least, you know, using these examples to formulate their own plan of attack. And, you know, once you give police the green light, they're like kids in a candy store. They know nobody's gonna bug them about this, and they've got everybody cheering them on. It's a recipe for a disaster, and that's exactly what you got. But, you know, from the university's perspective, and, you know, from a Zionist perspective, not that I have one, but to play devil's advocate,

51:59

It's the best move for them to take it down immediately. And so I think a lesson learned, whether we do encampments again or not or any kind of occupation, it was those vulnerable moments when you're first setting up and trying to build critical mass, particularly on that first night. There was a few that.

52:20

kind of lost in those moments. But you know, don't want them taking hold. You don't want them learning from each other. You don't want to make it like into this example of what could be or should be. Because, you know, some of them started to become that not just a protest, but an alternate way of organizing yourselves on campus and behaving. And that's just not jiving with their narratives and with their prerogatives there. you know, moving quickly, I...

52:48

I imagine U of T admin were like, we should have fucking done that. You know, they put up a sign that said, don't make any encampments here. And they put a fence up that pretty much gave the encampment an exterior wall to hide behind. And they made all the wrong moves. So I imagine at some point there's going to be a conference of university administrators just trying to figure out like, okay, they try this shit again. We're totally doing the U of Calgary's way.

53:16

because yeah, especially without any kind of blowback for these folks. So let's hope there's some blowback from your piece. Knowing you're under a microscope a little bit more or it's not all gonna happen, undercover perhaps can act as a bit of a deterrent. Have you had any official responses from some of the key players in your piece, pieces? No, I mean, the first piece was...

53:42

You know, my questions were geared specifically towards the university itself because it was sort of about how they laid the groundwork for what happened. I got an email back from one of their comms people, their comms director actually, Dean Parthenesis, I believe his name is, who said, you know, because this is based on a FOIP, I'm gonna need more time than your

54:11

giving me to get an answer. was like, look, I'm publishing this piece on Saturday. Is this the first time a reporter has called him? Like, he needs 30 days to respond? Yeah. Anyways, and I said, look, if you can't get the university's answers to these questions to me, that by, you know, Friday night, then I will update the piece with comment.

54:41

from the university once it's already out, which is what I did in the second piece with comment from the police chief, because I, again, didn't have it by the deadline, which I had extended for the police, because I was like, all right, I'll give them extra time. You didn't. Well, yeah. You're a softy, Jeremy. Well, I think it was it was important to, you know, they have a lot to answer for. And then after the first piece came out,

55:11

and I didn't have comment from the university. I reached out to Dean from the university and I got an email a few days later just being like, hey, like just a reminder, if you get me answers to these questions, I'll update the piece with them. And I got a bounce back email saying he no longer works there. So add him to the victims of communism memorial. Definitely. man, Jeremy.

55:39

Every time I have you on I end up so enraged, but you know, it's in a very productive way, right? Not a hopeless way. I do appreciate you uncovering this and getting us riled up. So for those listening, absolutely go to the show notes. You'll find links to Jeremy's piece in The Orchard. If you don't already subscribe, go to readtheorchard.org and make sure you do, but the link will be in the show notes so you don't have to remember that either. But Jeremy.

56:07

Massive thanks for taking time to come on and explain this all to the Blueprints audience. You know, we've talked about the encampments, we talk about disruption, and so the responsible thing is also to talk about sometimes the repercussions and the players behind the scenes. And you have helped us kind of unpack and understand that a little bit more, especially on how the encampments unfolded or dismantled rather. So, mad appreciation for you and your work. Thank you very much.

56:36

Yeah, likewise. thanks so much for having me, Jessa. It was pleasure as always.