Protests against the university dismantling the Graduate Students’ Association’s (GSA) community garden culminated in a demonstration in front of Premier Kathleen Wynne at MacOdrum Library, with two students being led away in handcuffs Dec. 5.
According to the GSA, the university started dismantling the community garden without warning, prompting protesters to occupy the garden and forcing work to be stalled for the day.
Protesters later took their placards to the library reopening ceremony, which saw Ontario’s premier, Mayor Jim Watson, and Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi talk about the virtues of having more student space to study.
GSA vice-president (academic) Justine Mallah and GSA membership co-ordinator Samantha Ponting were detained by campus safety at the library.
Ponting said she was led away from the library to Robertson Hall, where she was released. Neither Ponting nor Mallah were charged.
Justine De Jaegher, the GSA’s vice-president (finance), said the GSA would like a proper plan from the university for moving the garden before any action is taken.
“We’re just going to be . . . making sure that our garden stays the way it is, stays intact even though some of the fence is already taken down, until we get some response from the university on our memorandum of understanding that we sent them about this move,” De Jaegher said.
Most of the metal fence around the community garden, which is on a plot north of Leeds residence, had been dismantled and was lying in a trailer. There was one contractor on the scene when the GSA executives and other students got there.
The contractor said he had been told to wait by his boss. Campus safety officers were soon on the scene, but left after an orderly conversation with the protesters without trying to clear them out. The protesters then started placing the fences back around the garden.
De Jaegher said the metal fence the contractors were dismantling are the GSA’s property.
“We need a plan with the move. We want a memorandum of understanding about how the move is going to be conducted, where these things are going to be moved, we want a date for when it is going to moved,” De Jaegher said. “We had no idea it would be today.”
