Voices from the ground: a glimpse inside Canada's student encampments

This Matters

Guests: Journalists Samira Mohyeddin and Christopher Curtis

Student protests that first erupted across the United States have now spread northward, igniting across Canada, including campuses at University of Toronto, McGill University, University of British Columbia and University of Alberta among others. The students say they want to end a war that’s claimed more than 34,000 Palestinian lives, according to local officials, destroyed or damaged every university in Gaza and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The recent Israeli offensive against Gaza began after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants which killed almost 1,200 Israelis with dozens still held hostage. The students are specifically calling for universities to cut all financial and academic ties with any Israeli company or campus that supports the military or illegal West Bank settlements based on international law. In this episode we take a look at what's going inside the University of Toronto and McGill University campuses through the eyes of two independent journalists, Samira Mohiyeddin and Christopher Curtis, co-founder of The Rover, who have been reporting from within the encampments.

Audio sources: CBC News, Samira Mohyeddin, Christopher Curtis, Lance McMillan

This episode was produced by Julia De Laurentiis Johnston, Paulo Marques and Saba Eitizaz

With files from Marco Chown Oved

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