U of O student wins new hearing to have guns, ammo returned

University of Ottawa student wins new hearing to have guns, ammo returned

Police seized weapons after weird comment written on exam paper

 

By Andrew Seymour, OTTAWA CITIZEN  June 27, 2013

Student in battle with U of O over his currency proposal -- METRO News

JESSICA SMITH
METRO NEWS
Published: March 12, 2012 11:39 p.m.

A University of Ottawa student was found guilty Monday of escaping lawful custody in April after he ran away from campus security guards onto an OC Transpo bus while handcuffed.

Marc Kelly has had a series of disputes with the university. In April, he was apprehended for trespassing, at which point he ran away.

“I fled the security guards to try to reach the police before they did,” he said, adding that it was to stop the guards from lying to police about him.

He was charged with mischief, breaching the peace and escaping lawful custody, but the first two charges were dropped, he said.

The judge in his trial heard about his “Blinky Blinkies” — a form of currency similar to the Internet-based currency Bitcoin — because security guards testified that he was throwing them to a crowd of students when he was arrested.

“It’s decentralized, it’s not controlled by the banks,” he said, describing the currency as electronic light pulses. “It’s an innovative idea of replacing money on campus with a campus-specific currency that would enable a market independent of society. It’s one possible solution to eradicating tuition fees.”

Since his arrest, Kelly has been banned from contacting U of O students, faculty and staff because he has developed a mass-email system that he has used to contact them about various things, including his currency, he said.

See all UofOWatch articles about student Marc Kelly

BREAKING NEWS::: Student Marc Kelly wins trespass trial - Cops, University, Crown were wrong

[Photo: Marc Kelly through the window of the SFUO-SAC office just before Ottawa Police barged in to arrest him.]

OTTAWA, December 14, 2010: Marc Kelly court decision released - victory for students and for student sovereignty over student space.

The February 2, 2010, campus arrests of mathematics-physics student Marc Kelly and student union president Seamus Wolfe at the University of Ottawa were depicted in two popular Youtube videos (HERE, HERE) and were reported in the national media HERE.

(The videos were made by student University Senate member Joseph Hickey.)

By using a student union lawyer to bargain for diversion (community service), Wolfe effectively admitted guilt to the false-arrest charge of "disturbing the peace by swearing" for saying "fuck face" under his breath to the Ottawa Police sergeant on the scene (Sgt. Mallet) who had overseen the false-arrest of Kelly.

Kelly pleaded not guilty, went to trial self-represented against the Crown, the cops, the University, and University Legal Counsel Alain Roussy who attended the entire trial, and won in a precedent-setting ruling released today by judge L. Girault at the Provincial Offenses Court in Ottawa, Ontario.

The charge was trespass despite the fact that Kelly was in the Student Appeal Centre (SAC) office of the student union consulting on the University's illegitimate trespass order against him.

The scholarship student had previously been unilaterally de-registered from his study program and exiled from campus without justification (HERE) by a vindictive administration that did not take kindly to Kelly's well known (and TV-broadcast) direct appeal to president Allan Rock, revealing Rock to be verbally abusive (HERE).

The ruling establishes what should have been obvious to Roussy (or co-Counsel Kathryn Prud'homme, who informed the police otherwise) that the student union, the Student Federation University of Ottawa (SFUO), not the University is the legal occupier of SFUO offices.

Indeed, Roussy and Prud'homme were in the possession of an agreement between the SFUO and the University of Ottawa, signed at the highest university level (VP-Resources), which explicitly stated that the SFUO was the legal occupier. (Arguably the SFUO still owns the University Centre!)

The main part of the trial had been held on December 2, 2010, where an impressive array of large men and women in and out of bullet proof vests testified or were present to testify against Kelly:

• Claude Giroux, campus police chief
• D. Levesque, Ottawa Police
• Nicholas Lavoie, campus police
• Ryan Macdonald, campus police
• Alexander Macpherson, campus police
• Brian Vissers, spy camera coordinator, university
• Nathalie Charlebois, lead investigator, campus police
• Sgt. Mallet, Ottawa Police (not present on Dec.2nd)

In addition, Roussy attended the trial and consulted with Crown lawyer Bruce Lee-Shanok, and dean of the Faculty of Science Andre E. Lalonde had been subpoenaed but was on call in lieu of showing.

Lalonde had spotted Kelly in the SAC office on February 2nd and, apparently recognizing the significant and immediate danger to the institution, had called campus security presumably in a panic.

The behaviours of Roussy/Prud'homme and Lalonde were unprofessional but so was that of Ottawa Police.

The Ottawa Police consulted only Roussy/Prud'homme and disregarded the the clear and repeated legal occupancy information provided to them by SAC Director Mireille Gervais (a law graduate), SFUO President Seamus Wolfe and teacher assistant union (CUPE Local 2626) President Sean Kelly (see video). Ottawa Police then told the SFUO president they would wait for him to produce the rental contract of the office space and then five minutes later (see video) forced their way into the SAC office without a warrant and arrested Kelly.

After that, you wonder why they didn't also knee him in the thigh repeatedly and strip search him?

In addition, Constable D. Levesque of Ottawa Police blatantly lied under oath at the December 2nd trial hearing. He said he had an excellent memory of the events and that he had most definitely watched the Youtube video but that he himself had not asked for the rental contract (see 54 seconds into the video when he clearly asks Wolfe for the rental contract). Levesque added that if he had received the contract he would have reconsidered the arrest but that he had already waited (he inferred from his notes) approximately 29 minutes (see video, less than 5 minutes passed between asking for the contract and the decision to arrest). One wonders what Constable Levesque's testimony would be like if he did not have an "excellent" memory additionally supported by an unedited Youtube video that he watched?

At trial Judge L. Girault refused to look at the video that Kelly repeatedly asked to show to the court and that would have established the many improper actions of the police and Levesque's perjury.

If judges don't show initiative in examining police behaviour then students on campuses will continue to be mistreated by Ottawa's finest only too happy to serve the Rock administration.

Nonetheless, Kelly's closing arguments (delivered after he was arrested in court at lunch recess on December 2nd on unrelated charges of failing to appear in court!) were sharp and legalistic, leaving the court little room to find him guilty.

This case is precedent setting: The SFUO is the legal occupier of its premises. You can thank Marc Kelly.

RELATED POSTS:
Our previous report of the Marc Kelly trespass trial

A link between the Kelly exile and the Rancourt firing: The link is Rock

uOttawa - A top 25 employer in the national capital region

as the banner says...


Yup... define "top" in relation to "police"...

Who gives out that prize?

Can we see the list of criteria used in this rigorous determination?

How was the data collected?

The press release did not give many details?

Ottawa RBC firebombing – Terrorism seeded by the University of Ottawa?

by Denis G. Rancourt
Former physics professor, University of Ottawa


By quoting me out of context and inappropriately (using my off-the-record critique of a leading question) the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has insinuated in at least two of its reports that the Ottawa RBC firebombing was seeded in a “political activism” course that I gave and opened to free community participation in 2006 at the University of Ottawa. LINK.

This theme was then picked up by hundreds of web bloggers who draw a link between terrorism and my Science in Society (aka “the activism course”) class of 2006.

To question the University of Ottawa as a possible origin of terrorism is a legitimate enterprise but I would not look to social justice and responsible use of science courses as the most likely culprits.

For example, by far the most significant recent high-profile act of terrorism in Ottawa was the organized and systemic stealing of Nortel pensions and benefits from tens of thousands of faithful employees. LINK.

Property damage at a neighbourhood multinational bank office pales in comparison, by any standard, not to mention the scams of user fees and of government (taxpayer) corporate bail outs of all kinds.

How many of the lawyers, judges, law makers, professional negotiators, and government officials involved in the Nortel hijacking - in the service of financiers and at the expense of employees - were educated at the University of Ottawa, in business, law, accounting, management, and professional ethics courses? Good question. Good research topic.

In many or most developed nations the Nortel violation of workers’ natural rights would have been immediately overturned by general or widespread strikes. Imagine this sort of organized finance robbery being attempted in France or any European country or even in Quebec.

What role did the University of Ottawa play in pacifying Nortel employees, in its engineering, communications, software development, and management courses?

At a time when the role of the educational system in promoting societal fascism - in which political apathy is the norm and criticism is vilified - is being reported, it is essential to ask what role the University of Ottawa is playing in society. LINK.

Instead, at exactly the time when in the national media Canadian conscience icon Ursula Franklin has called on Canadians to heed the clear signs of widespread emergent fascism, the media are echoing the police-state mantra that activists are terrorists.

Activists have a constitutional right to protest and should be celebrated for keeping anti-establishment and pro-democracy critique alive, not vilified as agents of chaos. Discourse, critique, protest, and protest actions including strikes and impediments to business-as-usual are essential elements of a free modern state.

Such activism has given us workers’ rights (e.g., 40-hour week, vacations), civil rights, students’ rights, and a (far from functional) structure of representative democracy. It is a historic truism that these rights were won by popular activism, not granted by benevolent governments. It is the threat and practice of popular activism that keeps governments in check, not majority voter opinions or corporate-financed elections. Any other view is a dream and if you share it wake up. LINK.

I am just back from Germany where the police are simply not allowed on university campuses and where there are NO campus police, as is the case in much of the non-USA world, and I compare this with the University of Ottawa with its over 900 surveillance cameras, where students are routinely prosecuted with criminal charges that would be laughable elsewhere, and where students are regularly accosted for ID in broad daylight by campus thugs with a mission to “protect.”

We do need to look at the role of universities, including the “professional” training of corporate media workers and lobbyists and communicators, in stifling and criminalizing democratic expression in its truest forms – protest, critique, resistance, non-compliance, civil disobedience, and workplace self-defence – but also in helping to create the conditions for finance-corporate fascism.

In the words of Ursula Franklin, we “must” compare Canadian society today with the conditions that led to Nazi fascism and other recent totalitarian state expressions.

* * *

U of O student found not guilty of Trespass on University property

OTTAWA, June 2, 2010 – U of O Master’s student and Senate member-elect Joseph Hickey was found not guilty today of a politically motivated charge under the Trespass to Property Act. Mr. Hickey is the second student politician in the past year to be trespassed by the Rock administration from all U of O lands and buildings.

Mr. Hickey, represented pro bono by Caroline Cyr of Crystal Criminal Law Office, was arrested and removed from campus on December 11, 2009 while booking an appointment with President Allan Rock to have the no trespassing notice revoked.

Ex-minister of Justice Mr. Rock, Vice President Diane Davidson, and their legal counsel Alain Roussy were subpoenaed to appear as witnesses but were not needed once the prosecutor Terry Callaghan, after contacting the university, reported to Mr. Hickey’s lawyer that she would present no evidence at trial.

“The university has developed a habit of arresting and charging students only to contact the Crown Attorney’s office and have all charges dropped as soon as its executives have been subpoenaed to take the stand in open court. This is another incidence of irresponsible institutional behaviour by an administration that shoots first and then avoids the questions six months later,”

said the scholarship graduate student, who is also a Teaching Assistant and member-elect of the university Senate.

“What is going on between the police and the university when the administration can repeatedly have students handcuffed and arrested and then never answer to it in court? I will work hard at Senate to get to the bottom of the university’s continuing abuse of the legal system to attack its students. Our fundamental freedoms must be protected, especially on campus”

he continued.

The U of O Senate has a vibrant history, such as the December 1, 2008 arrest of two-time Student Union presidential candidate Marc Kelly who was banned from all of campus after he video recorded a Senate meeting. Following student protests, all Senate meetings are now video recorded and broadcast online, making it possible for everyone to tune-in and watch.

Ms. Cyr will continue to defend Joseph Hickey against a criminal charge that he participated in the painting of the message “These Walls Belong to Students” on a blank campus billboard wall on December 7, 2009. A full-day trial has been set for February 2, 2011.

-30-

For more information, please contact:

Joseph Hickey
student Senator-elect, physics graduate student

Mireille Gervais LL.L
Director, Student Appeal Centre (Student Federation of the University of Ottawa)
email: case.cresac [at] sfuo.ca

U of O's Rock actuates a complete exile of math student Marc Kelly

Hemlock or exile?

Those were the only two choices provided by former Minister of Justice now university president Allan Rock.

Rock's conflict with student Marc Kelly has been described HERE and recently in a detailed report by Stephen Lendman HERE. The Ottawa corporate media have also recently reported Kelly's banishment HERE and HERE (today).

Allan Rock's recorded November 3rd 2008 verbal abuse and intimidation of Kelly was made public HERE and by mass email:


But now exile - a complete ban on associating or communicating with all 50,000 members of the university community.

The Student Appeal Centre (SAC) of the student union is leading Kelly's defense and has put out this press release:

U of O’s Rock administration exiles student from all communications

OTTAWA, April 14, 2010 – Following Monday’s arrest of University of Ottawa math student Marc Kelly and a 24 hour detention in jail, Ottawa Police have imposed an unprecedented restriction:

Under the threat of immediate jailing until trial, Kelly is required to abstain from communication or associating directly, indirectly, or electronically, with all students and staff of the university.

The arrest was for an alleged violation of unjustified trespass from the public institution, contested by the student unions, and was intended to keep Kelly from speaking at a university Senate meeting where university president Allan Rock spoke to defend U of O’s freedom of expression practices in the wake of the Coulter fiasco:
http://web5.uottawa.ca/admingov/committee-video.html?id=2&vid=305

Kelly had sent a mass email to students inviting them to attend Senate using this striking video link:
http://www.marckelly.tv/monday/

The arrest was only days after Kelly was freely allowed into the same building to speak and to introduce free speech legal expert Doug Christie.

“Marc is being treated like a terrorist and exiled from the community so that Rock can have his damage-control media show uninterrupted” said university student Senate member elect Joseph Hickey.

- 30 -

For more information please contact:

Mireille Gervais LL.L
Director, Student Appeal Centre (SFUO)

Joseph Hickey, university Senate member elect

Liam Kennedy-Slaney, student

U of O’s Rock administration used excessive force against students today

THIS MEDIA REPORT of April 11, 2010, cannot have pleased U of O president Allan Rock:

On the student satisfaction front, the only direction to go is up. A 2008 national survey of students asked "if you could start over, would you go to the institution you are now attending?" Senior University of Ottawa students gave answers that placed their school 52nd of 53 Canadian universities ranked. The report says "the data are stark and call for immediate action."...

One might conclude that the University of Ottawa has blundered into a quagmire. In polite terms, the report says the university leadership doesn't properly understand the financial impact of its decisions on student enrolment, research focus and productivity. ...

Continuing his recent policy of not saying anything about anything, Rock declined to comment on the report, although it is said to reflect his desires to do more for students. ...

But now is this how he takes it out on others?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - U of O’s Rock administration used excessive force against students today

OTTAWA, April 12, 2010 – University of Ottawa campus police assaulted and held student Marc Kelly today at the bus stop at the corner of Laurier and Nicholas to prevent him from presenting his case at university Senate; in front of more than twenty shocked student supporters and several video cameras, as Ottawa Police arrived on the scene.

Kelly is being held at the Elgin Street jail and has not yet been allowed to contact his lawyer at this time.

This only four days after Kelly was allowed into the same university building to host controversial freedom of expression speaker Doug Christie. The latter event caused the TV and print Ottawa media to report Kelly’s unjustified political expulsion by the Rock administration.

Fellow student and Senate member elect Joseph Hickey was also assaulted and thrown to the ground while being choked during the campus police action. Hickey’s complaint with Ottawa Police is being investigated against campus police member Michel Leroux.

Campus police presence was reminiscent of a terrorist lock down rather than an action intended to prevent a student’s university Senate enquiry. At the same time in the Senate chamber, university president Allan Rock expressed the university’s commitment to free speech in relation to its recent Coulter fiasco.

“Excessive force was used” expressed student witness Liam Kennedy, “Marc was not a threat and there was no need for an arrest.”

“This is off the charts in terms of political discrimination” said Student Appeal Centre director Mireille Gervais.

- 30 -

For more information please contact:

Mireille Gervais LL.L
Director, Student Appeal Centre (SFUO)

Joseph Hickey

Liam Kennedy-Slaney

For all and more recent posts about student Marc Kelly CLICK HERE.

False-arrest-unlawful-arrest double-arrest whammy at U of O – VIDEO

Here you have it. Ottawa cops acting like thugs who can’t read. SEE VIDEOS BELOW.

On February 2, 2010, student Marc Kelly was in the office of his Student Appeal Centre regarding the University’s illegal use of trespass and arbitrary denial of course registration against him when spotted by Dean of Science André E. Lalonde who presumably called the university police in a panic.

First the cops recognized the Trespass to Property Act and ask to see the student union lease of the Student Appeal Centre. The Act defines the “legal occupier” as the independent service renting the space.

Teacher assistant union (CUPE Local 2626) president Sean Kelly (no relation) explains Act to cops. Student Appeal Centre director Mireille Gervais (also a graduate student in law) explains Act to cops.

Then cops call the University lawyer who apparently responds with “the University owns all the property”. Yup, and your landlord owns your apartment but he can’t have your visiting buddy arrested for trespass… duh.

Cops take Marc Kelly from Student Appeal Centre office before student union president Seamus Wolfe arrives with lease of premises. Here, the appropriate word from the 60s comes to mind: Pigs.

In view of the basis for the arrest being the Trespass to Property Act, I would call this an unlawful arrest. Add Ottawa Police refusal to consider the central legal question of who is the “legal occupier” of the Student Appeal Centre office and you have a nice police-state atmosphere.

Surely former federal Minister of Justice and University President Allan Rock will step in and clear this mess up long before it goes to trial, and maybe coach his Legal Counsel on how answering cop questions is a context-sensitive matter…?

Then (2nd video BELOW) in a segment from a campus nightmare student union president Seamus Wolfe arrives asking the Ottawa Police Sergeant why they refused to consider the lease and why they entered student property without permission…

And, in the end, Wolfe said the F word (Fuck). He was forcefully arrested for “disturbing the peace by swearing”. Well, the video clearly shows that Wolfe didn’t disturb anything except one cop. And swearing is not illegal. Nor is being annoyed at a cop. (Arrest me!)

So it appears quite plainly that Wolfe’s arrest was a false arrest. At best the cop’s judgment is so bad in recognizing a “disturbance of the peace” that he should be sent back into training. Was a single member of the public disturbed? Can someone serve as a witness to this crime? I think a jury would find that the cop knew this was not a bona fide disturbance of the peace and would find the cop to be misusing the law and abusing his power. But hey that’s just me.

And where is Dean of Science André E. Lalonde in all of this? Maybe his judgment in making the original complaint should be questioned? Maybe the Dean could read the Trespass Act (all three pages) in order to avoid more such messes on campus? Or he could stay in his office?





RELATED LINKS:
President Allan Rock goes berzerk against student Marc Kelly
Student Liam calls on Rock to stop arresting students
SCUO students call on Rock to disarm and chalkon
Final solution applied to student Marc Kelly
Crown drops all eight criminal charges against student Marc Kelly

At U of O there is no free expression – Current cost: $1,038.19 per slogan

Will the Rock administration stop its ridiculous charade?

Or, will it continue to burden the police and the legal system with campus politics? (LINK)

This is the story of a physics graduate student criminally charged by the Rock administration for allegedly messaging an empty cement display backing wall…

This is the story of aggressive corporate protectionism of the visual campus environment against student free expression and spontaneous messaging…

***

The outdoor walkway between the University Center and the Morisset Library is a perfect controlled environment for targeted visual messaging, with high student traffic in proximity to large poster boards.

The U of O Corporation recognized this early on and installed large cement lighted display cases for its propaganda. This is what it looked like in 2006:

Avatar eat your heart out.

The U of O administration extensively uses the services of marketing and branding “experts.” It appreciates the “practical advantages” of creating the mental environment versus actually enabling personal exploration and development.

In this spirit of social engineering, in the true spirit of control, the university administration has been very protective of the cement display case backing walls that temporarily free up between installations of corporate posters.

This has not stopped some creative (and bilingual) culture jamming:

Oh oui…

Good one…

Time to take this one down:


And this is what a liberated backing wall looks like:


Some serious damage huh? Just think where this could lead. Let this go and soon you have TOTAL CHAOS and murder in the streets… It could spark independent thinking!

It will survive only long enough for the next corporate poster to be put up over it. If allowed to live its natural life...

Recently, the Rock administration of Canada’s university has gone as far as to characterize these ephemeral student messages on the cement backing walls as "damage to property" and has had one of its own students arrested and criminally charged.

At an organized student event designed to liberate the backing walls and encourage their use by students, the campus police decided to covertly gather “evidence” rather than intervene to stop the much feared “damage to property”. In a coordinated operation, more than five campus police agents gathered “evidence” rather than simply intervene in the name of protecting property. (The U of O loooves covert surveillance: LINK.)

The Rock administration then laid criminal charges and a blanket trespass notice against scholarship graduate physics student Joseph Hickey. The trespass notice was short lived because the administration was forced to back down given firm protests from the graduate student association (GSAED) and from the union of teacher assistants (CUPE-2626). (media LINK-1, media LINK-2, media LINK-3)

But now Mr. Hickey has been told by the Crown Prosecutor (who surely has other more important matters to attend to?) that the damage for which he is alleged to be responsible is valued at $1038.19, the cost of a recent cement backing wall cleanup operation.

$1038.19

Will the Rock administration stop its ridiculous charade?

And stop spending tuition money on controlling the message?

Judging from a developing pattern, expect Mr. Rock to answer from the short end of more criminal charges and more cops on campus and more Liberal speakers for a better Canada... Unless February 3rd Chalking Day makes a mark?

U of O Branding War Spills onto YouTube

The Allan Rock administration's new corporate video (actually called that in the University's own Gazette Magazine) has frightened many students and community members.

One emotional response of self-defence was for students to attempt to message the temporarily empty poster installations on the outside South wall of the Morisset Library. In response, the bare cement posting frames were aggressively guarded against student expression using campus police, surveillance cameras, Ottawa Police arrests, and arbitrary applications of the Trespass to Property Act against registered students. Quite a show of maturity.

Now the students are fighting fire with fire and appear to have launched a branding self-defence campaign on YouTube. Can they compete with the University of Ottawa's publicly funded multi-million dollar branding propaganda? Will truth trump pomp? You be the judge.

U of O Rock Administration has Competition in UK

When it comes to using the police and the courts to suppress academic freedom the Allan Rock administration at the University of Ottawa is a leader.

It strives to make U of O “Canada’s university”:
EXAMPLE-1, EXAMPLE-2, EXAMPLE-3 (go to Jan-23-2009 video), …

Here (below) is evidence from across the pond of some stiff competition. The Gee-Geez are going to have to keep it up.


Thu, January 7, 2010
.
Lecturer 'intended to harass' V-C, court finds

An academic is wanted by police after being found guilty of harassing the vice-chancellor of Kingston University.

Howard Fredrics, who worked at the university as senior lecturer of music between 2003 and 2006, was convicted at Kingston Magistrates' Court of harassing Sir Peter Scott via postings on a website, www.sirpeterscott.com.

Dr Fredrics was found guilty in his absence, having failed to appear for the hearing last month, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He will be sentenced later this month.

At the trial, Sir Peter said the site was "intended to embarrass and humiliate" him and that some of its material, such as an allegation that he was a friend of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, was inaccurate. He added that he had met Dr Fredrics only five times.

Finding Dr Fredrics guilty, Judith Jewell, chairman of the bench, said: "We believe the course of conduct he pursued in setting up this website was intended to harass Sir Peter Scott ... he ought to have known that such actions would amount to harassment."

Dr Fredrics has used the site to expose controversial practices at Kingston in recent years. In 2008, he posted a recording of lecturers pressurising students to inflate their National Student Survey responses.

Sir Peter complained to the World Intellectual Property Organisation that Dr Fredrics was infringing his right to the domain name www.sirpeterscott.com. In May 2009, it ruled that the vice-chancellor had no rights to the name.

In a statement issued after the trial, Dr Fredrics says the conviction had been handed down despite a "compelling police report that indicated there was no evidence that the site contained anything that could lead to such a charge".

The report, seen by Times Higher Education, says the "sites listed do not contain content that is consistent with any harassment".

A second charge against Dr Fredrics of threatening and abusive behaviour following an encounter with Sir Peter in Kingston last year was put on hold.

melanie.newman [at] tsleducation.com
.
[UofOWatch thanks Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for bringing this UK competition to its attention.]

[Photo: U of O President Allan Rock in Gee-Geez workout mode.]

Activist Teacher banned from campus, arrested, cuffed, and fired

Activist Teacher (aka physics professor Denis Rancourt) was barred from campus on December 10, 2008, and escorted off the premises by university police at the University of Ottawa, under the pretext of having assigned high grades in one physics course (24 students) last winter.

The story has been covered locally (Ottawa), nationally (Canada), and internationally.

The best web site for relevant background, media links, letters of support, official documents, etc., is:

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ACADEMICFREEDOM.ca
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A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+

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[Photo copyright Pawel Dwulit 2006]

U of O limits access and arrests community members to block threatening agenda items

Today (December 6, 2007) campus democracy has attained new heights at the University of Ottawa.

Two community members were arrested and all community members and all non-Faculty of Science students were barred from attending a normally public Faculty of Science Council meeting so that certain agenda items would not be discussed.

The dean of the Faculty of Science, André E. Lalonde, has used a process technicality to motion offensive agenda items off the agenda. This Code Morin technicality, which allows a vote without discussion, is traditionally reserved to remove insignificant agenda items.

One agenda item in question, to create a second-year activism course, was significant enough for 300 students to sign a petition in its support, for the university to use City of Ottawa police “services” to arrest community members on bogus trespassing charges, and for all Faculty Council meetings in the last year to be cancelled over it.

Such is the twisted logic of a dean’s understanding of democracy and collegiality, at a university that, in its Vision 2010 mission statement, calls for increased community participation in its governance, and at which its president celebrates the importance of activism in his letters to community members condemning the cancellation of the popular first-year activism course.

So the dean has cancelled a fourth Faculty Council meeting in a row. As a result, there has not been a regular Faculty Council meeting in over one year and academic program development has come to a stand still.

A short history of cancelled meetings…

> April 5, 2007: Dean cancels meeting because student Council member Severin Stojanovic persistently complaints about dean’s illegitimate veto of his agenda item to consider approval of a second-year activism course. Meeting lasts 20 minutes.

> May 22, 2007: Dean cancels meeting because community member and independent reporter Karen Dawe refuses to stop video taping the proceedings. Meeting lasts 5 minutes. (Dawe was arrested by City of Ottawa police today, outside the Council meeting room.)

Stojanovic spearheads a campaign to have the Faculty By-Laws respected by the dean. VP-Academic, Robert Major, intervenes twice to claim that dean’s veto is legitimate. Administrative Committee claims that it has no power to force the dean to follow Faculty bylaws in running Council meetings.

> November 6, 2007: Dean cancels meeting after Stojanovic complains that proper process was not followed, that would allow new agenda items to be proposed. Meeting lasts 0 minutes.

Community member Jane Scharf legally submits an agenda item to discuss adding five community member representatives to the 40 or so member Faculty Council. The item is refuted without valid reason. (Scharf was arrested by City of Ottawa police today, outside the Council meeting room.)

New student Faculty Council member Daniel Cayley-Daoust submits an agenda item to discuss why the first-year activism course was not offered in the fall 2007 term.

> December 6, 2007: Dean has now added Stojanovic’s agenda item but the item is immediately motioned off the agenda as meeting begins. Stojanovic objects. Dean cancels meeting after Stojanovic refuses to leave the room. Meeting lasts 15 minutes.

Physics professor Denis Rancourt was to present the activism course item to Council and objected to this “dirty trick” being used to filter out unwanted agenda items (while being surprised that it took the dean eight months to decide to use a Code Morin procedural tactic to his ends rather than blatantly ignore the Faculty By-Laws). The dean would not let Rancourt make his point about misuse of the Code and instead asked Rancourt to leave. Rancourt used his academic collegial right to stay and make his point.
.

***

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As the 2010 of Vision 2010 approaches at Canada’s university, we must wonder what the next Faculty Council meeting has in store for us. It does not look promising, as none of the tenured professor Council members saw anything anomalous in illegitimately invoking a Code Morin technicality to remove rather than discuss student and community supported agenda items…

Yet another milestone in applied democracy at the U of O!

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[Photo credit: University of Ottawa]

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RELATED AND FOLLOW UP:

December 17 = rabble.ca feature

December 12 = IndyMedia - meet Gilles Patry

December 12 = IndyMedia - Scharf's second arrest

December 8 = IndyMedia - Nye arrest with pictures

December 8 = IndyMedia - Dawe's reaction to violence

December 7 = IndyMedia - Scharf's report

December 7 = IndyMedia - Rancourt's report