Growing pro-Palestinian camp at Victoria Square in Montreal targets pension fund

The pro-Palestinian encampment at Victoria Square near Old Montreal has gotten bigger since it was erected Saturday afternoon.

The protesters want Quebec’s pension fund manager, Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (CDPQ), to divest from companies the campers say are complicit in Israel’s conflict with Hamas. According to the protesters, there are 87 such companies. The campers also want the Quebec government to close the Ministry of International Relations and la Francophonie office in Israel.

“(The camp) is open to anyone who agrees with our demands who wants to support us,” said Benoit Allard, spokesperson for the group, Divest for Palestine Collective. “Multiple coalitions, collectives, organizations, unions who’ve asked the government to, first to all, shut down that bureau and also to establish sanctions against the state of Israel. None of these demands have been met yet.”

Allard said that is why the 50 or so protesters have now set up the first pro-Palestinian gathering of its kind in a public space. Until now, such encampments have mostly been on university campuses across Canada and the U.S.

The first encampment in Canada — established at McGill University in the latter part of April — is still in place. Another one at Université du Québec à Montréal was dismantled at the end of May after most of the protesters’ demands were met. Another one at the University of Toronto also remains standing but a court process to remove it is underway.

One Victoria Square camper, who gave her name only as Zoya, said it was important to move the debate outside the academic milieu to engage the broader population.

“Academic institutions aren’t the only institutions that fund the state of Israel,” she said. “There are the banks, there are the pension funds here that we’ve situated in our demands.”

On Sunday, the encampment was confined to the square, not blocking the streets or sidewalks. Montreal police say they are evaluating the situation. Some passersby complained about the encampment but most say they have no objection to it as long as it remains safe.

“This is not hurting anybody,” passerby Safyaa Pashir Sherif told Global News. “This is just people coming out, expressing their personal opinion, and I agree that everybody has the right to express their opinion as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

Global News has reached out to the CDPQ as well as the Quebec government, but there was no response by deadline.