To the Executive of the Trent Central Student Association,

Your refusal to participate in the March 24^th demonstration against the Progressive Conservative party’s changes to OSAP funding is an act of cowardice. This is not a moral judgement, merely a statement of fact.

In pulling out of the March 24^th demonstration you have given the Ford government exactly what they want: You have given up.

Do you want to know why the police went after students on March 4^th? It’s because they want you scared. They want you to give up. They want you to roll over, or kick rocks, or simply look the other way so they can continue to do as they please.

It isn’t a victory, or even a calculated retreat to not participate in the March 24^th demonstration. If anything, it’s a failure to rise to the occasion. I need you to understand this: If you refuse to do something as straightforward as attend a demonstration, it means you’ve already lost.

Dave Smith does not care whether people mass outside his campaign office. In all likelihood, he won’t even be there.

Writing postcards is a hollow substitution. It will sway neither MPP Dave Smith nor Premier Doug Ford because neither of them will read even one. They pay people to throw out letters like that the minute they cross their desks. It is a fundamentally futile gesture; all you will accomplish is to make a few more baskets of paper waste.

If anything is accomplished, it will not be because of you. It will be because other CFS Ontario locals showed up and put themselves on the line regardless.

I am not trying to make you feel bad about this, but if you are, maybe that's the point. The government wants you to back down. They want you to give up, to stay home, to limit your action to performative gestures which they can ignore.

I will not pretend that protest is easy. I will not call anyone a bad person for not wanting to go to a demonstration, though I submit that it is a failing on the part of the body representing undergraduate students at Trent University to fail to advocate for them in this instance.

The TCSA represents the entirety of the Trent undergraduate student body and wields more political power than any one of them. To not leverage that power isn’t just cowardice, it’s a failure to honour your mandate.

I have been involved in organized demonstrations since I was 14 years old. No offence intended, but by that I don’t mean the piddly things which pass for protest here in Peterborough. All throughout high school I was bike-locking myself to bridges, spray-painting government buildings, shutting down city blocks and picking fights with cops.

I did this in service of any number of causes. I’ve demonstrated with Black Lives Matter, and alongside Indigenous land defenders. I’ve been involved with the Extinction Rebellion and Student Climate Strike movements. Many, many times I have organized high school walkouts, sit-ins, and demonstrations against the government of Premier Doug Ford. 

I raise this fact to show that I know what I’m talking about.

I need you to understand that I know what I’m talking about so you listen when I tell you why your excuses are poor. 

1. I don’t know why you raise the point of international student safety. OSAP is a domestic financial assistance program for students residing in Ontario. It is open only to Canadian Citizens, permanent residents, and protected persons.

The changes to the OSAP program are not an international student issue, and while we domestic students should be grateful of any international students who extend us their support, we should not expect it of them by default.

It is fine for international students to not participate in demonstrations against the OSAP changes. Nobody is entitled to hold that against them. We are, however, entitled to criticize our student union for using international students as a scapegoat to justify their inaction. Either the TCSA does not understand the thing they claim to be fighting for, or they are simply looking for an out. 

International students are not an excuse to not mobilize Trent’s undergraduate population, which overwhelmingly comprises domestic students from Ontario.

2. Students of colour are not children incapable of making their own decisions. I need you to really understand this fact.

It is massively condescending to make a unilateral decision to give up advocacy of any substantial form and use students of colour as your excuse. Obviously I am concerned for the safety of students of colour when the Toronto Police demonstrate their willingness to use bullying and violence against student demonstrators, but the fact remains it is not your place to determine the acceptable level of risk for students to take.

That decision is theirs and theirs alone, and if you respected them as people instead of an abstract category by which to signal your moral high ground, you’d understand that. It isn’t fair to use students of colour as an excuse for your own institutional apathy.

You are not the first people to worry about the safety of protesters. What happened on March 4^th is not without precedent. There is a playbook for these things. Generations of demonstrators, organizers, and activists have enshrined their knowledge in websites, zines, and written documents that are readily available if only you look. It is okay if you didn’t know this, though not knowing is not an excuse to not learn.

Neither of the reasons you provide are substantial enough to justify your about-face on these demonstrations. I am not minimizing the actions of Toronto Police, but in refusing to demonstrate because of the police’s treatment of protesters, you are doing their jobs for them.

There is no such thing as an entirely safe protest. Protest, by its nature, demands you put your body on the line, and that is in large part from where it derives its power. 

There is nothing wrong with being honest with students about the potential risks of protesting. It is not your place, however, to make that decision for them. You are not anyone’s parent. We are all adults here; start acting like it.

Students of colour should be permitted to make informed decisions about their participation in organized demonstrations, especially in instances where they have a stake in the subject of protest.

As a student union with literally millions of dollars at your disposal, it is your responsibility to provide material support to people demonstrating. Chartering a bus is a good step, but you need to go further. 

Provide PPE like goggles and respirators to protesters in case the police use crowd control weapons. Hand out first-aid kits for people with training and provide them with red armbands so that people know who they can go to if they need help. 

Find the biggest, whitest guy in your contingent and stick him between you and a cop. Make human chains. Coordinate your movement. Leave no one behind. Assure students that if they are detained by police the TCSA will pay their legal fees.

None of this is revolutionary. 20 years ago, Trent students were padlocking themselves together in the President’s office to protest the sale of Peter Robinson College. Some were beaten, some arrested, but at that time the student union had their backs. Why are you leaving your membership behind now?

Your staff, your event space, and your direct line to every undergrad through their email gives you the unique ability to organize and train large numbers of students on protest safety. If you don’t feel sufficiently equipped to do that, that’s also fine! There are plenty of people in the undergrad student body who have actual protest experience and can instruct their peers on best practices for safe and effective demonstration.

You are not the first students to have mobilized in this fashion and by God do I hope you will not be the last. I understand your concerns, but I need you to know that they’re not exceptional. Your messaging as it stands—a link to a PDF on the OFL website and a reminder not to talk to cops—might cover your own asses, but it sends the message that any students who do choose to demonstrate on the 24^th are on their own.

What happens if a student gets arrested, or worse, on the 24^th? Is that not your problem because you told them not to go? Are they fending for themselves if they need to pay bail or legal fees? 

It’s irresponsible of a student union to abandon their membership like this. Other CFS locals will be back at Queen’s Park on the 24^th, so why is Trent’s so reluctant to do the same?

Either way, your time, money, and labour are better spent on efforts that can muster an actual mobilization, not grand (but futile) gestures. The police targeted students on March 4^th because they were scared. The Ford government is scared. If you don’t take advantage of that fact you are giving up all your momentum.

And while you are not the vanguard, there is power in understanding that you belong to a revolutionary tradition. That also requires you shoulder the responsibility of that legacy. Cela nous concerne tous—may you never forget it.

I urge you, the Executive of the Trent Central Student Association, to reconsider your decision to abstain from the Queen’s Park protests on March 24^th. You have at your fingers a unique opportunity to demonstrate your material commitment to the student movement you claim to support and to set yourself apart from the feckless apathy of your predecessors.

History will judge you. Maybe that sounds mean, but it’s the truth. Whether or not you’re there, some of us will be on the front lines.

Solidarity forever, and I hope this lights a fire under your ass.