EDMONTON- An anti-abortion student organization at the University of Alberta says it feels the university has tried to make it impossible for them to hold an event it was planning because officials told the group it would have to pay $17,500 in security fees.
“We feel as if we’re being made to pay for our free speech,” Amberlee Nicol, with UAlberta Pro-Life, said. “We’ve tried to go through all the proper channels to get approval and to work with the university, but unfortunately they put a barrier in our way that they know was going to be too high of a cost for students to pay.”
Nicol acknowledged there were some problems at an on-campus event the group held last year but said the trouble was through no fault of her group.
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“Last year, unfortunately, some students decided to crash our event. They obstructed our signs with bedsheets and used loud chanting to try and disrupt our attempts to start conversations with passersby and unfortunately, campus security didn’t do anything.”
The University of Alberta’s deputy provost also said that last year’s event played a role in the security estimate.
“What happened at last year’s event was it was under-secured, I would say,” Wendy Rodgers said. “We did end up with a situation with other events going on, which became counter-protests in addition to expected counter-protests; there was no space between groups.”
READ MORE: Planned anti-abortion display causes controversy on University of Alberta campus
Rodgers went on to say the leader of UAlberta Pro-Life was quoted in a local newspaper as saying she felt threatened last year and that the university wanted to make sure she did not feel that way again.
“She should feel free to express her views but we have to make sure that’s done in a safe and respectful way.”
Rodgers also pointed out any group wanting to hold an on-campus event must go through an application process in which the security cost of putting on the event is assessed.
“Every group that wants to put an event on on campus, puts in an application and the application is assessed for whatever they might need in terms of space or in terms of security issues or risks that might be created or anything that’s going to cost any money basically on the campus or rely on campus resources for support and in this particular case, the main costs around the event are associated with security risks,” she said.
Rodgers said that UAlberta Pro-Life was planning to hold the event in the quad, a large public space that is hard to control has many access points and is difficult to control
She also said that while most groups organize rallies or events to last a couple of hours, the proposed UAlberta Pro-Life was hoping to be nearly two days.
“There’s a big time period that’s being covered here,” Rodgers said.
Nicol said she doesn’t see why there should be such a high security cost, given the nature of the event being planned.
“We’re just setting up signs and talking to people,” she said. “We were planning to do an educational display in the quad, in the main part of campus, that was going to compare pre-natal imagery with pre-born humans that have been killed by abortion in order to start a conversation about the issue of abortion in Canada.”
Nicol said while it would be easier and cheaper to organize such an event off-campus, the group has a reason for wanting to hold it at the unviersity.
“University students are also the age demographic that are most likely to get an abortion, so if we’re not talking to them about it, who’s going to?”
Rodgers said the university has tried to offer UAlberta Pro-Life options that would reduce the security cost but that at this point, the two sides have not come to an agreement.
“If they want to hold their event the way they want to hold their event that’s fine,” she said. “It costs what it costs.”
Nicol said she feels the university has failed to defend her group’s right to free speech and that the group is now talking to its lawyers about what to do next.
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