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University of Toronto pro-Palestinian anti-Israel encampment clearance injunction granted · Kvetch & Release

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  Yesterday on Ontario judge ordered demonstrators to take down their encampment, tents and other
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  structures at the University of Toronto. An injunction was granted to have it cleared.
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  Now Toronto Police Service is urging protesters at the encampment to leave the site
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  before six pm today. That is the deadline when the court order comes into
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  effect. Joining me right now to discuss is National Post columnist as well as
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  lawyer and politico Warren Kinsella, who you hear often when I'm on the air,
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  Warren, how are you doing today? Great? My friend, Thanks
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  for having me. Thank you so much for joining here. So we got
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  to the point we know that the injunction is coming here at six pm.
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  We're seeing some video right now already trickling out of tents coming down. What
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  is your expectation of what happens as we get closer to six pm. Well,
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  what's been happening since the injunction was issued by Superior Court Judge Marcus Conan
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  yesterday, just about twenty four hours ago. Is the fences are still up,
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  the hateful symbols are all around it, including the symbols of Hamas.
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  But like John, you're gonna love this. There's a little side street off
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  of the Central Court where these people have been in their legal occupation for months
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  and parents are showing up to bring Junior home and pulling up in their station
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  wagon and taking the kids home because the ten party is over. So it's
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  kind of ridiculous. I think some of them have decided, you know,
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  they don't want to get a criminal record because that will affect their ability to
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  get a job or travel to another country. But also, you know,
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  the party is over, and I think some of the hardcore people who we
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  know are not students at up will remain, you know, and try and
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  get arrested. They want to get arrested, they want to become martyrs.
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  But I don't think any of that going to happen at six o'clock. I
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  know, for my police reporting days in Calgary and in Ottawa, the cops
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  don't like to do actions like this, you know, in the full glare
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  of publicity. If something happens, my suspicion is it's not going to happen
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  till four o'clock in the morning, where you know, whoever is left is
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  sound asleep in their pup tents. So I don't think it's we're going to
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  see anything this evening. I could be wrong, but that's what I think
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  is going to happen. What does it say that it took so long to
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  get to this point here, about two months from you know, I guess
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  the start of it to actually getting this court order injunction it was denied the
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  first time around. It doesn't say anything good. Same thing at McGill,
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  same thing at some other universities. But some universities have done it right,
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  like the University of Alberta, or the University of Calgary when I went to
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  law school, you know, even York, even York which has got a
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  long history radicalism. But what is the difference between what those universities did and
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  what McGill and UFT did. McGill and UFT just sat on their hands,
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  They didn't do anything. Those other universities they called, They said, this
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  is private property, you are trespassing. Get out, or we're going to
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  call the cops. And they did, and the cops came in and cleared
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  them out. The important part, it's a very detailed judgment that Justice Conan
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  issued yesterday afternoon, you know, and he talked about free speech, He
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  talked about the charter, talked about the constitution, but he said, look,
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  at the end of the day, this is private property and the people
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  who decide what happens on private property are the owners, the owners of the
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  University Troy, and they want them out. So you got to leave and
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  if you don't leave, you're going to go to jail. So I think,
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  you know, that's what those other universities should have done first. They
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  say this is private property, because all of the universities in Canada are and
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  you need to get out. And that's that's the big difference in approach.
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  And you know, the results speak for themselves. So one group that would
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  take umbrage with that clarific with that classification of universities actually being private property would
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  be QP Ontario, which put out a post today that says that we challenge
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  the idea universities are private. They are part of our commons, they belong
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  to us all but beyond that, they are holding in emergency rally on site
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  at the encampment. It started about forty five minutes ago. I just I
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  would love to get your opinion about inviting people to a location that within an
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  hour and a half or so of the event turns into an illegal site.
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  Yeah, well, I guess Fred Hun who's the head of QP, wants
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  to go to jail. Maybe he's gonna like it there. I don't know,
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  but that's where they're going. Like, if you're in violation of a
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  clear court order like the one that was issued yesterday, you're going to jail
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  if you disobey it. It is the law and not just that. See,
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  the law of trespass is criminal and civil. So you can be charged
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  criminally for violating the trespass law that's in the criminal Code. But there's also
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  a trespass statute where you can be libel and damages. You know, the
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  University of Toronto can go after those kids. You can go after their parents,
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  you know, pulled up in the station wagon to take them back to
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  suburbia. Like it. There's all kinds of consequences that I don't think some
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  people have really factored in here, and they need to. You know,
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  QP maybe wants publicity and they're going to get it. There's you know,
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  there's more media there right now than there were for the moon landing. Practically,
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  Like there was a helicopter John flying over top of the encampment site,
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  like first thing this morning, Like it's kind of ridiculous, but it I
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  don't think it's going to be the big show that some people are hoping it'll
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  be. I think the police in Toronto are smart enough to know when to
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  move and how to move so that there is you know, nobody gets hurt
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  and there's no extra trouble. Could there be repercussions for these labor unions.
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  I see the Ontario Federation of Labor is also encouraging people to come out to
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  this rally that's occurring right now. Could this be viewed as like obstruction by
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  trying to get people to something that they're going to be trying to clear out.
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  Yeah, for sure. There's a whole range of laws that can apply
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  in the Criminal Code and elsewhere. You know, a lawful assembly, uttering
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  threats, uttering death threats, intimidation that you know, intimidation is a criminal
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  law in the Criminal Code and it's very widely expressed and it can apply here.
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  There's all kinds of things that can happen. But the thing that can
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  happen to the public service unions that have been involved in this nonsense for the
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  past few months is a lot of their members. I know you hear from
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  some of their members, and I know I do. They're saying, this
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  is not a proper use of my union. Duce, this is not you
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  know, I want my union to defend my bargaining rights and my human rights
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  and you know, safety and health and safety conditions at the workplace. My
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  union is not supposed to be re litigating a war in the Middle East.
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  So I think what's going to happen is you're going to have some members pressed
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  for legislation so that they can pull out of the unions, or at the
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  very least they can do what they can do in certain circumstances, which is
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  redirect their union dues outside of the union, you know, to a charity
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  or what have you. I think because I'm hearing for a lot of union
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  people who I know are just fed up. It's just like this is not
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  Even the ones who sympathize with Palestine, let's say, are not so you
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  know, enthusiastic about Israel that they just want this to be over. They
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  don't see this as what QP should be doing. Well, it doesn't seem
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  like it's advocating for at least all of their membership. Ore Agon, as
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  you said, those labor rights really quickly. We've got a minute left.
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  I just I want to know what your take is on the general tone and
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  mood and atmosphere of the country right now in regards to this issue as a
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  whole. You travel around often. Are things getting better? No? I
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  don't think they are. You know, just in Toronto last weekend, two
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  synagogues attacked and the Pride Parade. You know, the Pride Parade is this
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  joyous event, two million people attended it. John in Toronto, two hundred
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  thousand people participated, and a bunch of these jerks, I could use another
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  word, but it's family friendly radio thank you showed up and they shut it
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  down. And like you know, for any of these kids who think that,
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  you know, this cause is LBGTQ friendly, it's not. And you
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  know, just they should pay attention to what happened at the Pride Parade,
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  but people should also pay attention to those synagogues. Those are places of worship,
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  you know, where people are vulnerable and they go to pray to their
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  God and there'd be attacked there. That's just in Toronto last weekend. So
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  no, I think things are getting worse. And I lay a lot of
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  the blame at the feet of our politicians, our police, our prosecutors,
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  because I think they've got a lot of laws, as you know, to
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  deal with, to use to apply, as you and I have talked about
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  before, and they're not applying them, and so the bad guys are getting
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  more and more bold and more and more brazen. Well, it's something that
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  we're going to keep our eye on as always. I very much appreciate your
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  perspective and expertise. Thanks for joining me this afternoon, Thanks to my friend,
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  have a great one. Warren Consela is a columnist with the National Post.
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  He's a lawyer as well as an all around well connected politico who keeps
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  his finger on the pulse