kitchener.citynews.ca/2024/06/27/university-of-waterloo-sues-pro-palestinian-encampment-for-1-5m/
University of Waterloo sues encampment for $1.5M
The University of Waterloo is suing the participants and organizers of the pro-Palestinian encampment on its main campus for $1.5 million.
The court document published on the University’s website says the school is seeking “damages in the amount of $1,500,000, including damages for trespass, damage to property, intimidation, and ejectment.”
Also it directs defendants to restore the school’s property to the way it was on May 12, including removal of all fences, tents, shelters, barriers, rubbish and more.
Participants of the encampment have also been told to stop interfering with the University’s Senate and Board of Governors meetings, and any other school meeting.
The document includes conditions for the court to allow Waterloo Regional Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, or any police service to remove the encampment and arrest the participants
They're all about to find out how their lives are going to be ruined by protesting something that Canada has little to zero say in.
Oh well. FAFO. Hope it was worth it for these losers to screw up their lives and potentially get a record.
Gotta protest something across the globe and something we have zero say in, rather than our crumbling healthcare, housing, education cuts and defunding, corruption with provincial government, corruption in federal government, low social services pay, etc.
No... Palestine only. Okay then.
Welcome to the radical left in social Academia.
It’s a highly militant, violent and regressive mindset that is anti-science and not rational in any way. This viewpoint is coming from someone who has a degree in Sociology from a Canadian University, I was forced to drink the kool-aid for 4 years. If you didn’t follow the dogma you were ostracized and penalized outright. It’s not surprising to me that so many students have taken the bait.
I punched my ticket and got the hell out of there as soon as I could but what I saw on my University campus was downright nasty.
These are the same people that are mobilizing young minds to fight for causes that have no bearing on their lives. These are the same people that are saying “objectively and excellence” is white supremacy. These are the same people who talk about “privilege” while they sit on an ivory tower wielding their money and influence.
It is honestly a disgrace.
Social issues and a mask mandate that was ending st the end of the month anyway. These are the only things that have galvanized people enough to do something. Which is ridiculous that we can't frigging come together when we all acknowledge how screwed our system is and our politicians do the bare minimum at best to remedy it or have been actively contributing to the issues.
Let me know whenever you'll be protesting those things 👍
Go protest then. No one is stopping you.
It seems rich to me that you expect people to protest for causes you approve of, when you won't even do it yourself. Who are you to decide what is acceptable to protest over?
Yup.... not to mention Palestine isn't the only place with brutal conditions for people in the world.
If only they cared this much about something positive they actually could have an impact on. Like the Greenbelt, or the science centre. Something that affects the lives of generations of future Ontarians.
Good. Meaningless protests.
These are no longer protests, these are encampments.
Next they’ll be launching attacks and saying it’s their land
They'll build a wall and call it an open air prison
But then claim it was a paradise once the illegal encampment is removed.
It’s coming. Look what happened in Germany.
Not meaningless. It's all part of the eventual takeover.
Folks don't understand...it's about spreading their theocracy around the planet. They don't give a shit what happens to the people in Gaza...they just make good fodder to bring sympathy to the cause.
About damn time. These people would probably cry if they were told how to invest their company’s money if they were intelligent enough to have money, or a company.
You don’t get to dictate how someone else spends their money. You don’t get to worsen someone else’s quality of life.
Especially when Canada can’t do shit about the Middle East, and when these universities won’t even tickle the bank accounts of these companies.
You don’t get to dictate how someone else spends their money. You don’t get to worsen someone else’s quality of life
Politicians spend our money on pointless BS like it's limitless and actively work to degrade our quality of life
Good, let them be the example. They are protesting to support a group that want to kill us the west and hate us.
I mean Canada has/is supplying Isreal with weapons. Isreal has bought weapons off of us to help their military.
But if they haven't done so some other country would have.
For the most part I feel like canada has basically 0 say in this war. These protesters really picked a useless way to address their message. They should be charged. Go protest on parliament hill if you feel so strongly about it.
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6d
You said it: “unless it’s hate”. And many people feel that a component of these protests do espouse hate, particularly when chanting phrases that are inherently embedded in the annihilation of Jewish and Israeli people and making Jewish students on campus feel very unsafe.
Imagine them doing this like... Not even 5 years ago? Like do we not still do the WW2 history stuff in school? Bonkers.
Since like 40% of teenagers think the holocaust was exaggerated, I'm gonna say yeah they probably arnt teaching that much anymore.
Seriously eh? Well that's a bitch..
A little sanity from one of our nation's premier institutions.
A happy ending, finally!
The suit names “persons unknown” and seven specific people by name, and includes their email addresses.
If those 8 people leave what happens next?
They are still potentially liable for damages.
They will have to defend themselves in court first and then get stuck with potentially life altering judgements.
then the organizers have bailed and the bandwagoners will follow
Good luck collecting it.
About 200k per person.
theres usually a few champagne socialists that lead these things so i bet theres at least a few people there whose parents have the money to cough up
Even if you can’t collect. The damage from that will bankrupt them. :)
Failure to pay can make your life difficult, losing your drivers license, having your assets seized, and potential jail time as a start.
This is not how debt works. If the court rules with the university, it creates a debt of these seven people + towards the university. That is all.
Bankruptcy is the outcome. Pretty bad. But you can't go to jail over debt. Even slaving Ancient Rome abolished debtor's prison. The driver's license is creative, I wonder where you got that.
This user has such a strange idea of how debt works in Canada that it's quite obvious to me he/she isn't Canadian. You know what country takes your licence and gives you potential jail time over unpaid debt? Israel.
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5d
This is not private debt - it’s done through the legal system which can very well put people in jail.
You cannot be jailed for failure to pay a legal judgment in Canada. You can be held in contempt, which could include brief jail time for failure to divulge where your assets are but you can't go to jail for being too poor to pay a judgement.
Yes, there's a difference between "being too poor to pay a judgment" and "wilfully disobeying a court order to pay a judgment that you are in fact able to pay". Still, even pleading poverty does require that you actually come into court and so plead, and it may well be the case that the court disagrees with you about how poor you are, decides what you can afford to pay, and demands that payment on whatever schedule they conclude is appropriate.
You can't plead poverty. You can file for bankruptcy or just not pay the judgment. You can't be sent to prison. We do not have debtor's prisons in Canada.
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5d
Your stubbornness does not make you correct:
In Canada, the process for handling individuals who do not pay court fines varies by province and territory, but generally, imprisonment for non-payment of fines is considered a last resort. The legal framework surrounding this issue can be complex and involves several steps and considerations:
1. Provincial Offences Act (Ontario Example): In Ontario, under the Provincial Offences Act, if someone fails to pay a fine, the court may order imprisonment if it determines that the individual has the means to pay but has willfully refused. The court must hold a hearing to assess the person’s ability to pay before making this determination.
2. Federal Offences (Criminal Code): For federal offences under the Criminal Code of Canada, section 734.7 allows for imprisonment if a person defaults on payment of a fine. However, the court must be satisfied that the default is due to the person’s willful refusal or neglect to pay, or if the person has no reasonable excuse for not paying.
3. Alternative Measures: Courts often seek alternative measures before considering imprisonment, such as:
• Payment Plans: Allowing the individual to pay the fine in installments.
• Community Service: Ordering the individual to perform community service as a way to offset the fine.
4. Warrant of Committal: If imprisonment is considered, a warrant of committal may be issued, specifying the duration of imprisonment, which is typically proportionate to the amount of the fine.
5. Court Hearings: The individual must be given the opportunity to explain their inability to pay in court before imprisonment is ordered. Legal representation and support are often available during this process.
6. Provincial/Territorial Variations: Each province and territory may have specific laws and procedures regarding the enforcement of fine payments and the use of imprisonment as a consequence for non-payment.
It is crucial for individuals facing difficulties in paying fines to seek legal advice and explore all available options to avoid imprisonment.
Civil damages aren't fines.
Court fines are different than civil judgements. The protestors would owe a civil judgement, not a fine.
It wouldn't be court fines, it would be a civil judgement.
Just as if your phone company sued you and won. You would not be looking at jail time or losing your drivers license to it. They may be able to garnish wadges to collect, provided you have a income.
This reads like ChatGPT.
Jesus gramps, we haven’t had debtors prisons for like a century lmfao. Do you think the poor are still sent to workhouses too?
Asset seizure and loss of personal privileges are a real thing still, generally it is used in cases where wages cannot be garnished.
Revoke passports
Why?
Sounds like some social credit shit. Do they also ban you from going on planes and busses?
Valid point.
This will get thrown out just like all of the other political theatre arrests and charges
No court in Canada is going to side with the university of their students protesting peacefully.
They're Waterloo students. Just put them in eternal co-op placements until they can pay off the debt.
Maybe McGill and U of T should follow suit.
To be honest, I still don’t understand how they haven’t just brought out the water cannons yet. They’re breaking the law. Move them out.
Water canons are good but I think you could fix this by simply building a fence around their fence. You come out, we don’t let you back in, show us your student ID! No student ID, sorry you’re trespassing. Uber Eats shows up, sorry University policy now says we can’t allow these services on campus. Porta-potty company shows up, sorry I don’t see you on the list of University approved sub contractors.
The issue is that some of the university administrators are likely wackos supporting this behaviour, as such you couldn’t introduce the 3-4 temporary rules that would flip this on its head.
you could fix this by simply building a fence around their fence.
the old Julius Caesar eh, I like it
Modern problems require Ancient Roman solutions
I love this. Fighting fences with fences! Let the civil engineering students design it!
If we're gonna get the engineers involved, we can just use the cannon.
https://www.roadauthority.com/Standards/?id=ddf8f456-e9a3-4be7-818c-b2a8aa38318d
OPSD 971.103 - done!
The problem with that is you still need to man the fence and have the uncomfortable confrontation you're trying to avoid.
Don't forget, the only reason the U of T encampment has that fence in the first place is because some bright spark at the university decided to set it up and leaving it totally unguarded to deter protesters from setting up in that space.
They literally marked out and fortified the encampment location and assumed the protesters would be deterred rather than just co-opting the fence for their own purposes. It was hubris at best and subterfuge at worst.
Complicated but it would be fun to watch
This is some Julius Caesar level tactics right here
Ahh, the Caesar method.
The irony of the PR headlines that would ensue would probably only encourage a longer standoff and further reiterate the justification of their protest.
Much better than my "Baby Shark speakers 24/7" idea.
Why not both?
It's the university's property. If they want to put a fence up that just happens to surround those people, AND, they also happen to play Baby Shark 24/7 at their fenced off area, there is nothing illegal about it.
Alesia green
The dirty fucks would just shit on the street.
The other stuff is good tho
There’d be a lot of blowback and bad publicity if they did that now. The time to act was when the encampments were set up, like what York did.
I dunno. University of Alberta gave their encampment fair warning, and when they didn’t leave the police moved in and bodily removed them. There was a bit of squawking from the progressive / antisemite crowd but that lasted a day or two and then everyone moved on.
It’s not hard. You just have to make the decision to enforce the law and then get on with it.
Police in Alberta are a bit different from those in Ontario and Quebec I guess.
They do their jobs?
Not if you block the border crossing at Coutts or are currently squatting along the side of the highway they don’t.
😂
Who the hell cares? When is enough, enough? The government can have literal treason rampant throughout and in a year it will be old news. The blowback for this would be over in 3 days. Weather the storm against the idiots defending them.
Better late than never
Absolutely. Laws don't matter in Canada any more as long as you're demonstrating. Neither the police not the courts want to do their jobs. It's all politics these days. I hope this will change after the next election and it's one of the big reasons I'm almost certain to switch my vote to CPC.
The UofT one is pretty tame tbh
The Universities should have followed Alberta's example. Calgary and Edmonton encampments were setup and they booted them out immediately as every other place should have done. Look at all these other pandering Universities that tried to hold meetings. Weeks and weeks later, these "protesters" (criminals) are still there. They have no intention of constructive talks.
Same with western.
and Western!
Can anyone tell me why the protestors couldn't just leave at night and then just returned during the day like how most normal protests work
It's trendy to set up an encampment. That's basically it.
It’s hard to tell the difference between folks who take issue with encampments on university campuses generally, and those who are against any protest against the actions of Israel. I think there’s a valid conversation around protesting on campus and what that looks like, and I fully support protesting against the actions of the Israeli government.
protest against the actions of Israel.
The problem with that is there's never a suggestion of what Israel should have done in response to October 7th
I keep asking myself the same thing. If it would happen in US, the war would be full on. Why people were thinking that Israel will just let it be.
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5d
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5d
OK, that's what you think they should not do, but what do you think they should do? If you think the answer is "nothing", then you're just being dumb. Expecting people not to retaliate against an attack is silly.
They haven’t killed a single fighter?
Thats the typical cop out answer I usually see to this question. How about answer what they should have done in response and not an answer that requires a time machine? No one is claiming 30k kids were killed not even Hamas
This bullshit still? It was 30k total, not 30k innocents. Don't know what that number is now but the estimated Hamas death count was around 10k at that time. 1 to 3 combatant to civilian deaths is sadly not only normal for wartime ratio but actually quite "good" for Urban combat, particularly when the terrorists are firing from and using civilian infrastructure and innocents don't really have anywhere to go. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Why not protest against Russia. They are killing innocent people.
Yes they are, and we are sending support to help Ukraine.
i think its indisputable that innocent people are dying in both Gaza and Ukraine...
Canada has imposed sanctions on Russia and is providing military support to Ukraine. What would protests against Russia be for?
Canada has sanctioned a small number of Israelis and Israeli organizations based on their actions in the occupied West Bank. This is a very limited step and there is much more that Canada and Canadian institutions could do to put pressure on Israel.
No need to engage in whataboutism. We all know we support Ukrainians with weapons and placed sanctions on Russia. So why can't we divest and condemn Israel's apartheid and war crimes?
Speaking facts my man
How are they going to pay when none of them have jobs?
Loans. Student loans to be precise.
I don't understand why they are still there. It's private property, the protestors are illegally trespassing. Trespassing is a criminal offense, the police should be dragging them off.
Well well well if it isn’t the consequences of their own actions. When the real world meets university idealism.
Blood from a stone these radicals don't have any money
They are rich kids who didn't need to get summer jobs. Their parents have money.
They live in tents on some grass. They don't really have bills to pay.
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5d
Lotta folks ITT really don't know the first thing about the legal system
And their parents arent the ones being sued. Theyre not on the hook for the bill
The people funding them do.
Whos funding them?
Iran largely. They won’t teach you that in school tho.
Source that isnt the national post opinion section? (aka the propoganda section)
Your other comment to me doesn’t appear. It’s been reported in newspapers and in government reports. It’s one of the reasons the IRGC was finally deemed a terrorist organisation by the government. SPPSN, which has led protests in Vancouver, has strong ties to the PFLP. These things are widely reported in all national newspapers.
Someone. I'd love to know.
Someone would love to know you too
You can book flights to Tehran to meet the Ayatollah
On my todo list after meeting Netenyahoo and Putin
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6d
Quite the conspiracy theory. You have a source on that?
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network has provided funding to the canadian protests.
Funding for Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network isn't transparent. The group is a terror organization in many parts of the world and has credible links to PFLP which is a terror organization in Canada.
"This has always begged the question: did these groups [National Students for Justice in Palestine] have foreknowledge that a terror attack was imminent?"
What an insane "begs the question" lmao, I can't take this seriously. How does this get published? Who is this author??
LOL national post opinion section? XD
uses XD unironically
ooof
Just read a little. There are plenty of reports of connections.
I’m not pro Israel, but these protestors are largely antisemites or useful idiots.
There are "reports"? Okay where?
hilarious this sub goes all in on conspiracies like "Iran is funding the protesters" while ignoring the major role Israel plays influencing our politicians
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s a verified fact.
I must have missed where our government has ignored antisemitic attacks until they were so blatant they couldn’t be ignored.
Likely not considering they can't afford a history book.
About time absolute nonsense being accepted setting the stage for more idiots to act like idiots…
Nice.
I'm surprised it took this long for the University to act. They were never going to give in to their demands.
The list of co-op employers includes government contracts. They would never risk those being damaged.
That’s awesome. Likely futile but awesome.
Good. It's about time.
If the UoW wins the settlement and the defendants fail to pay, do they just garnish wages at that point?
Well most of them are jobless so i doubt they can pay that amount
Finally! Applying the law to the outrage crowd.
UofW should promise to donate 1/2 its punitive damages to Israel.
They are definitely not the leave no trace kind of campers. Where I live, they lost any sympathy to be had bybeing litter bugs.
Good!
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6d
Exiled to a lower economic class for using their free speech rights… You must love some of the authoritarian countries that use those tactics, such as Russia and China.
This take is horrific my friend. You might disagree with them, but "life-long consequences" for people that are fighting for something they believe in, something that they don't even benefit from is the kind of take we only see from the extremely fascistic.
Yes!
Welcome to reality
Israeli apartheid? How stupid is university making these twits? Arabs living in Israel can run for government and vote Give your heads a shake
Good, back to the basement!
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6d
Why stop there, let’s bring in the army and run them over with tanks. Oh wait…
/s obviously
Why so much hate for protesters? Isnt that part of living in a free country?
Love it!
That's awesome
Haaaaaaaa!!
This one will be dropped the moment the protesters promise not to ever protest on university grounds. These universities will try anything except divest from genocide.
Israel is not committing a genocide. This is a war.
W
Just a reminder that “The right to protest peacefully in public spaces on campuses is protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and international law.”
Anyone calling to remove them forcefully is un-democratic and un-Canadian. If you want to suppress certain peoples rights and freedoms, youre an enemy to democracy and very likely a fascist.
You have the right to protests you don't have the right to camp anywhere you want and erect fences blocking off public or shared spaces
Why not just leave at night and return everyday?
Ok? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t allow damaging property and harassment though. Which is what they’re being sued for.
I could bet my left leg you weren't saying this during the truckers protest.
Oh, I must have missed the part where they were peacefully protesting on a university campus, and not A. blocking critical infrastructure B. Shouting death threats to anyone wearing a mask C. Organized by anti-Canada separatists.
Freezing their bank accounts was too far in my opinion, they just shouldve had their trucks seized and moved away.
I fully agree with your statement.
I fully 100% support the right to protest (as someone who hates the AB UCP please protest them). But once you start to interfere with people's jobs and daily lives while then you have crossed a line.
I've talked to the anti covid crowd during a protest. They are lunatics but they were protesting on a street corner in Calgary not interrupting peoples lives. I fully supported their right to protest but told them I do not agree with their message and ran short of telling them they are basically losers
As is your right to do so! I give the local loonies a thumbs from my car down whenever I drive by.
“Everyone that doesn’t agree with me is a fascist” lmao lmao
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