August 15, 2024
VANCOUVER – B’nai Brith Canada is pleased after a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on Thursday granted Vancouver Island University (VIU)’s request for an interlocutory injunction to dismantle an anti-Israel encampment on its property.
B’nai Brith was the only intervenor in the case to advocate for the Court to issue the injunction.
“Justice Michael Stephens rightly stated – as B’nai Brith has been arguing since the beginning – that the right to protest on campus does not exist in a vacuum,” said Aron Csaplaros, B’nai Brith Canada’s Regional Manager for B.C. “Protesters’ rights to freedom of expression and protest must be balanced with the rights of VIU students, faculty, and staff to an environment free from harassment, intimidation, and limitation of their use of VIU’s property.”
The situation at VIU has rapidly devolved since the encampment began May 1, 2024, at the institution in Nanaimo, B.C. Slogans and symbols associated with listed terrorist entities such as Hamas have been found at the site, and some posters include calls for violence.
In its initial filings, VIU cited a July 2 decision by an Ontario court to grant a similar request by the University of Toronto. The ruling in that case, in which B’nai Brith also intervened, empowered police to end the illegal encampment on the University’s campus.
Justice Stephens’ Thursday order gives the protesters 72 hours to cease their unlawful occupation and instructed them to refrain from similar encampment activities for at least the next 150 days.
“These encampments undermine Canadian values and have no place in our institutions of higher education,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy. “B’nai Brith will continue to use every legal means at its disposal to defend the rights of Jewish students to learn in an environment that is free from harassment or discrimination.”
