Protesters tell city to stop tolerating pro-Palestinian encampments

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Protesters camped out in Victoria Square said Tuesday that they won’t leave until Quebec’s pension fund stops investing in companies linked to Israel, hours before counter-demonstrators called for the city to stop tolerating encampment protests.

The pro-Palestinian demonstrators say the province’s pension manager, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, has invested $14.2 billion in 87 companies linked to the Israeli state. They add that they don’t want their money invested in what they describe as a genocide, and are also calling for the Quebec government to close its office in Tel Aviv.

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“How many deaths, how many unpunished crimes, will it take until our institutions act and acknowledge the current ongoing genocide and put themselves on the right side of history?” Benoît Allard, a spokesperson for the encampment, told reporters Tuesday morning.

The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.

The encampment, set up on Saturday, follows a similar protest at McGill University, which is ongoing, and one at the Université du Québec à Montréal, which was dismantled after protesters reached an agreement with university administrators.

Around 100 counter-demonstrators gathered in another part of Victoria Square shortly after noon on Tuesday — some of them carrying Israeli flags, others with Canadian and Quebec flags — to condemn the occupation of public space by pro-Palestinian protesters. They also say there is a double standard being applied to encampments set up by people experiencing homelessness and the pro-Palestinian camps.

“Clearly, they’re using space that should be for everybody and they’re excluding people. They could protest and they can walk up and down — I have no problem with that,” said Peter Villani, one of the organizers of the counter-protest. “But they can’t say, ‘I’m locking this up and you can’t come here.’”

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While Villani said he wants the encampments to come down, he’d prefer to see that happen without the need for the use of force by police.

“I’d like to see the mayor try to convince them to take this down and, if not, well, they’ll have to do what they have to do,” he said.

Villani, a lawyer by profession, said he believes the tolerance for the encampment protests is a slippery slope away from the rule of law.

McGill attempted to secure a court order to have the camp on its grounds dismantled, but was unsuccessful. An earlier request for a court order by two students at the university was also refused by a judge.

Montreal police said last week they can only intervene if they have clear evidence of criminal code violations, and that there is no urgency to remove the encampment on McGill’s campus while the university’s request for a more permanent injunction is being studied by the courts.

Alyssa Yufe, who addressed Tuesday’s counter-demonstration, said Montreal police have treated encampments set up by people experiencing homelessness differently, taking them down quickly while tolerating the protest sites.

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Protesters at the Victoria Square encampment say Quebec’s public pension fund has invested more than $62 million in weapons maker Lockheed Martin and is the largest shareholder of WSP, a consulting firm that is involved with a rail project that serves Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.

In an emailed statement, the CDPQ said less than 0.1 per cent of its portfolio is directly invested in Israel.

“We are concerned by the ongoing conflict situation and take these issues very seriously,” media relations director Kate Monfette wrote. “We will not move forward with any new investments in war zones until further notice.”

The majority of companies the CDPQ has invested in that do business in Israel are multinationals, like Expedia, Airbnb and Google parent Alphabet, that operate around the world.

Asked about an attempt by protesters to topple a statue of Queen Victoria at the park on Monday evening, Allard said his group is a collective with differing views, but that people should ask why figures like Queen Victoria are being celebrated.

“Our struggle is an anti-colonial struggle,” he said. “The statue in question is a statue of Queen Victoria, which is a colonial symbol.”

As encampment protesters addressed reporters, police stood guard while a city worker removed a Palestinian flag from the statue and a large strap that appeared to have been used in the attempt to topple it.

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