EDMONTON, Alberta, April 27, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The University of Alberta’s pro-life club is seeking a judicial review to overturn the university’s decision earlier this year to charge the club $17,500 for security before permitting it to stage a pro-life event in the school’s central quadrangle.
The club is also seeking a review of a 2015 university decision to take no action against dozens of pro-abortion counter-demonstrators who obstructed and threatened a similar pro-life event that was permitted without a security fee the year before.
“The university wants to have their cake and eat it too,” the club’s treasurer Cameron Wilson told LifeSiteNews. “They had plenty of security at the event in 2015 who stood around and did nothing to protect us, and then did nothing to investigate those who obstructed us. Now they want to charge us $17,500 for the same non-protection.”
“They are sending a message that pro-lifers are fair game. It is an invitation to our opponents to go further,” Wilson added.
John Carpay, the president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which is acting for the U of A pro-life students, said the charging of a fee violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and fundamental Canadian values.
“It’s simply unfair to punish people conducting a peaceful action for the potential bad behavior of those who oppose them,” Carpay told LifeSiteNews. “If you live in a high-crime area you don’t pay extra to the police for protection. It’s covered in the taxes we all pay.”
Carpay added that the pro-life students had all paid “their fair share” of the costs of campus security in their tuition fees. “They shouldn’t have to pay again.”
The university, however, claims it has an established policy that when an event “poses risks to public safety and where, therefore, security is required to mitigate those risks… the student group, as the proponent of the event, is responsible for the costs of mitigating those risks.”
In the fruitless discussions with the university that led up to the application for a judicial review, the pro-life club asked the university for a list of other student events for which security fees had been charged. “We’ve heard nothing back,” said Carpay. “They’ve had two months.” LifeSiteNews has asked the U of A for the same information without a response by publication time.
The University of Alberta has a history of non-protection. When anti-life vandals destroyed $3,000 worth of signage advertising one event, many of the perpetrators boasted of their involvement on Facebook and other social media, but only one was charged and fined $50.
At the event last year the pro-life display of graphic images was obscured by counter-protesters, and pro-life students were prevented from talking with passersby, while security personnel stood idly by. Before the event, university president Indira Samarasekera warned that the university would investigate and punish anyone who attempted to disrupt the event, but security personnel took no pictures or video.
Despite photographs and video provided by the club along with the names of some members of the pro-abortion contingent, the university took no subsequent action. U of A pro-life students wonder why they would pay $17,500 for this level of security.
According to Anastasia Pearse, head of the National Campus Life Network, several universities have charged security fees before permitting controversial activities.
Carpay said, “It would be one thing to charge for an event carrying inherent risk—the serving of alcohol, or bungee jumping, but if you have to pay big bucks to express a minority viewpoint, this is an obvious infringement on free speech.”
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