A campus protest encampment at the University of Alberta was ramping up a day after a similar sit-in in Calgary was shut down amid the loud noise and haze of flashbang explosives as police clashed with demonstrators.
On the central grassy area of the Edmonton campus Friday, about 35 small tents were set up close together. There were Palestinian flags, both cloth versions and hand-painted cardboard ones.
Early-rising demonstrators, most in their early 20s, sipped coffee as the sun rose, chatting in camp chairs underneath an awning.
Nearby was a handwritten sign reminding protesters to keep the focus on solidarity with Gaza and to direct all media to designated spokespeople.
There were multiple handmade signs and slogans: Our Tuition Funds Genocide; Silence is Violence; Welcome to the People’s University for Palestine; and From Edmonton to Gaza Globalize the Intifada.
Clutches of summer-school students shouldering backpacks walked by, with a few breaking stride to see what was going on.
“At the very beginning yesterday, it was one tent and four people. And it has just grown and grown and grown since then,” said David Kahane, one of the protest organizers.
Kahane, a political science professor on campus, said the protest is about students holding their own institution to account in the “slaughter that is happening in the West Bank and Gaza.”
Kahane said they want answers on whether Israel — and through it the Israeli military — benefits financially through university investments. If the university is investing, those investments must stop, he said.
He said students are inspired by time-honoured protest methods and that campus protests and calls for divestment helped end the racist apartheid system in South Africa.
“They want to call for accountability from their own university,” said Kahane.
The university has warned protesters that while it respects free speech, they are trespassing.
There was no visible security staff from the university and no police Friday morning, and Kahane said he hopes it stays that way
“It’s day-by-day, waiting and seeing how the university chooses to respond,” he said.
“For the moment, I think wisely, they have simply let this peaceful encampment for justice be.
“I hope they continue on that track.”
The protest is one of several recent demonstrations on academic campuses in Canada and the United States in response to the conflict in Gaza.
In Calgary, a similar protest of tents and fences went up early Thursday at the University of Calgary, reaching a peak of about 150 demonstrators by the early evening.
The university said protesters at the encampment were trespassing and asked for help from police, who arrived in riot gear and issued multiple warnings for the crowd to disperse before starting to tear down fencing and tents.
Most protesters left but some who remained were met with shields and flashbang explosives in clashes close to midnight.
Premier Danielle Smith was asked about the campus encampments during an unrelated news conference on Friday.
She said similar demonstrations in Ontario and Quebec have already become “out of control.”
“Universities can’t allow it to get out of control and they can’t allow hate speech,” Smith said.
“There are reasonable ways to protest and the University of Calgary, in particular, has said trespass and camping is not acceptable on their grounds and I understand they removed the encampments yesterday.”
Campuses are private property, Smith said, and universities have to take the lead on the response.
“I think what they found in Calgary is that a large number of the people who were trespassing were not students. I think we have to be mindful of that. Kids are having graduation ceremonies. A lot of these kids didn’t get a graduation ceremony for high school. It’s not fair for them or their families to be disrupted.
“I’m glad the University of Calgary made the decision that they did.”
The premier said she’ll watch how the University of Alberta responds and that the province is “on standby” if they need assistance.
“There should be no room for antisemitism and no room for hate crimes. So I would say that if it accelerates and escalates out of control and devolves into hate speech then I would say the universities have to deal with that swiftly.”
In a statement issued Friday, the Edmonton Police Service said it’s aware of the protest encampment on campus and has met with the university.
“U of A Protective Services peace officers are leading the response to this encampment. The EPS will continue to respond to criminal events, matters of public safety and calls for service on campus. As always in public demonstrations, police must balance individual rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with the responsibility to enforce the law and investigate criminal actions.
“As demonstrations are dynamic situations, EPS will continue to work closely with U of A Protective Services to update our approach if conditions change. Public safety is our main priority,” EPS said.
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said it’s not something the city would intervene on.
“This is something I understand the University of Alberta and their security… and the students of the university are engaged in,” he said Friday. “I hope they’ll be able to find a resolution that’s acceptable to both parties.
“This is something that, as a municipality, we don’t get involved in because this is in university-owned land and they have the jurisdiction to work with the protesters to find an amicable, peaceful way of resolving this.”
With files from Emily Mertz, Global News