Following a callout for an international coordinated student strike for Palestine on Nov. 21, McGill students initiated a process that, if successful, would mandate a week-long strike of all Students Society of McGill University (SSMU) members, which encompasses all undergraduate students. This would have been an unprecedented mobilization of over 24,000 students striking alongside tens of thousands of university and CEGEP students in Montreal.

On Nov. 5, students submitted the first draft of a motion for a Special Strike General Assembly (GA) in solidarity with Palestine, in accordance with guidelines outlined in the SSMU Constitution. The strike was prompted by Israel’s relentless genocide in Gaza and increasingly escalatory violence in Lebanon, leading McGill students to continue to demand:

1. Complete divestment from all companies complicit in Israel’s Genocidal war on Gaza, 
2. Halting the construction of the Sylvan Adams Sports Science Institute, including severing the associated research partnership between McGill and Tel Aviv University. 
3. Demand that our university immediately cut ties with any academic institutions, research partnerships, corporations, and individual donors complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.
4. For McGill to immediately cease contracts with private security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance firm SIRCO, ending all racially-motivated security surveillance, harassment, and physical assault on students.
5. For McGill to enact a strict policy preventing Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) and Sûreté du Québec from being present on campus.
6. For McGill to immediately cease any disciplinary cases and political tribunals against students involved in popular organizing, political activity, and demonstrations, and provide amnesty to all students who engage in similar protests going forward.
7. Demand that our university cease its use of Islamophobic tropes and anti-Arab rhetoric in its communications regarding protests on campus

 This motion would have aligned with the SSMU’s mission to uphold human rights, social justice, and equity on campus as stipulated in the Divest for Human Rights Policy and Harmful Military Technology Policy and would have leveraged student democracy as facilitated through a strike vote.

However, on Nov. 6, the SSMU Steering Committee denied the facilitation of a GA due to alleged legal constraints due to the injunction placed on SSMU after the Policy against Genocide in Palestine (PAGIP). On Nov.8, following repeated attempts by a SSMU Political Campaigns Coordinators to get clarification on this decision, SSMU President Dymetri Taylor falsely asserted that the SSMU Steering Committee could not proceed with the Special GA for a strike vote claiming: “The necessary language to be changed would result in the Strike no longer having anything to do with Palestine.”

Despite the Political Campaigns Coordinator insisting that the injunction’s limited scope was specific to the PAGIP and did not prevent consideration of a strike motion, Taylor continued to obstruct the democratic process. 

Taylor continued to make vague and misleading claims about the legal review of the injunction on the PAGIP, which he claimed prevented students, legally, from enacting the GA. After encountering this, students requested to meet with the steering committee to rework the language of the motion in order to better adhere to these “legal constraints.” However, they were consistently ignored or rejected by Taylor.

Taylor continued to misrepresent consultations with legal counsel by alleging that, “[The legal counsel] have informed [SSMU executives] that actions such as striking would be against the injunction several times.”

Finally, on Nov. 21, Taylor acknowledged his errors, admitting  to making “incorrect assumptions” and “misrepresenting the SSMU’s legal limitations,” writing, “I failed to adequately consult our legal counsel or my fellow executives before making such a definitive statement.” At this point, 16 days after the policy was first submitted, a strike was no longer possible due to the continued obstruction of these processes and constrained timeline.

Due to Taylor’s incompetence, the mass strike mobilization in Montreal for Palestine lost 24,000 potential striking students. Similar to the failings of last year’s PAGIP, SSMU’s bureaucracy has cost the student movement heavily. 

On Nov. 27, an anonymous ex-SSMU Board of Directors member leaked the SSMU legal review of the injunction regarding the PAGIP. This is the legal review Taylor was referring to throughout the many email exchanges with the Political Campaign Coordinator regarding the strike motion. 

The leaked legal review highlights recommendations for the SSMU following the approval by the Quebec court for an interlocutory injunction against the 2023 PAGIP:

• The safeguard order does not prohibit the adoption of a new policy, although we suggest that SSMU obtain our opinion on the content of the policy prior to adopting it;
• SSMU may make public statements in support of Palestine in terms other than those used in the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine; 
• SSMU and its executives may organize and participate in activities, workshops, and events and otherwise publicly show support for Palestine and Palestinians.

It is crystal clear that SSMU is not restricted from making “public statements in support of Palestine.” Students have had enough of  SSMU’s “bureaucratic constraints”. Students are rightfully outraged by how their representative union blocked legitimate democratic processes meant to represent their collective will. At the present moment, Gazans are preparing for a second winter under siege and bombardment. Taylor’s actions unilaterally blocked a historic mobilization in solidarity with the liberation of oppressed people going through one of the most brutal genocides in history. 

We demand that the SSMU Board take accountability for their actions, which have undoubtedly hindered student democracy and mobilization for Palestine. SSMU executives must represent the fact that Palestinian lives are non-negotiable for the student body. It is well beyond time to raise our standards and start pushing for material actions on this vital front within the student movement. SSMU has the ability to make change, and we will not be fooled by false constraints. If SSMU executives can not fulfill student demands, they must be held accountable. Taylor, specifically, must take responsibility for his negligible and damaging actions.