“The request for an injunction is rejected for lack of demonstration of an emergency,” we can read in the decision of judge Chantal Massé, rendered this Wednesday at the Montreal courthouse.

Canadian universities, including McGill University, remain public institutions funded not only by the students who are bravely protesting and asking for accountability but the universities are also funded by public funds. It is therefore imperative that these institutions remain accountable for misuse of public funds in order to fund genocide.

The support of so-called progressive institutions, media, and politicians for violent state repression is becoming increasingly explicit in response to mass mobilizations around Palestine solidarity. One of the most alarming local moments was the political-class consolidation around the demonstrable lie that a pro-Palestinian rally, including an anonymous climbing Spiderman, was specifically targeting Mt. Sinai Hospital. This false claim was repeated and uncontested on this panel and promoted by two of the most prominent participants at the Summit, Jagmeet Singh and Olivia Chow. The purpose of this lie is to repress dissent in the name of “safety,” a strategy that has justified police violence from protests to picket lines. Progressives attack conservatives as spreading misinformation, but close ranks across the political spectrum in service of colonial-imperial state projects.

The CDPQ December 31, 2023 year-end report includes over $14 billion of investments in companies complicit with Israeli war crimes and genocide. This represents just over 3 percent of the CDPQ total holdings of $434 billion.

The CDPQ had investments totaling $1.5 billion in seven companies listed in the United Nations database of companies engaged in certain Israeli settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT).