It’s just what the disaster in the Middle East needed: some thoughts from the premier of Ontario (locally relevant as they may be). Doug Ford is bringing his folksy-uncle-premier bit to bear on encampments that have arisen on university campuses in the province, including at the University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa, and McMaster University.
Last week, both U of T and uOttawa told students that the encampments, a violation of university policy, have to go. The students and their allies have no intention of going anywhere, particularly at McMaster, where residents of the encampment say they plan to stick around “indefinitely” as they demand the school cut ties with Israeli academic institutions and divest from any company related to Israel and Gaza. In Toronto, university administrators are in discussions with student representatives from the encampment.
On Monday, Ford said that universities “have to make a move” in term of the encampments and needed to “move them on.” In case his intention wasn’t clear, he also said, “We need to remove these people.” One can sense a theme. But there’s more to Ford’s comments than meets the eye, more than the usual pearl-clutching and handwringing we see from politicians whenever citizens take their rights and duties as citizens seriously — more than Ford’s typical “Aw shucks, folks, you’ve gotta get outta there and back to work!” bit.
“You don’t come to Ontario, no matter what culture you are, and stir things up,” Ford said of the encampment residents. The first question, then, is to whom exactly the premier is referring when he says “you”? One can fill in the blanks, but I’m willing to bet he’s not talking about the “you” who comes from the United States or the United Kingdom. The undertones of Ford’s comments suggest that campus protesters and those in encampments are “foreign,” that they’re from “over there,” not “here.”
So what if they are? So what if those advocating for peace and justice and an end to slaughter are from somewhere beyond the borders of Ontario or Canada? Some surely are. But as a point of fact, the encampments appear to be primarily homegrown. Ford’s dog whistle might ring in some ears, but it’s nonsense — and the move is dangerous, as it threatens to whip up xenophobia or worse.
But let’s come back to another danger embedded in Ford’s folksy, “common sense” approach, whereby he claims, so confidently, that the encampments “must” go and, by implication, that disruption is incompatible with democracy. There’s obviously no nuance in Ford’s position, because he is not a man of nuance. He’s not one to think through the angles. While his approach to the issues of the day is dangerously effective — reaching and resonating with others who aren’t inclined to think deeply about the issues at hand or challenge their preconceived notions or commitments — it flattens whatever we, as a society, are trying to work through.
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Protests are meant to be disruptive. Encampments are meant to be disruptive. They’re also meant to pool power and to mobilize a collectivity toward some end. In this case, they’re meant to leverage a mix of the power of a group, democratic speech and assembly rights, and civil disobedience to draw attention to an unconscionable mass slaughter and to demand local, substantive change — however small — to undermine those engaged in that undertaking.
Ford apparently can’t handle the disruption, the challenge to authority, the expression of pluralist dissent that emerges in a healthy democracy. His comments seem intended to chill resistance, to mobilize authority against activists, to try to restore order and, in the process, restrain grassroots struggles for justice.
In calling for the dismantling of encampments, Ford sounds like a university administrator or politician from the late 1960s or early 1970s calling for a crackdown on protesters who opposed the American war in Vietnam. History has absolved the protesters, those who engaged in civil disobedience, and has made those who sought to stifle their dissent look awfully out of touch with the moral arc of history.
History will once again side with the dissenters, with the activists, and Ford and his lot will find themselves on the outside looking in. But in the meantime, the premier’s irresponsible comments ought to be denounced and then utterly dismissed.
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