Terry Newman: The TDSB should know that protest rallies are not spectator events

On Wednesday, secondary students from the Toronto District School Board were taken on a field trip to the Grassy Narrows River Run, near Kenora, Ont. The event was communicated to parents as an educational opportunity for the students to learn about the issue of mercury contamination affecting the First Nation. The permission slip sent home stated that, “while at the event, students will not be participating in the rally itself; instead, they will observe and learn from the presentations and discussions.”

But that’s not what actually happened. We now know from parents who have called in to speak on live radio, posted on social media, or spoken personally with journalists, that students taken to the event by their teachers did, in fact, participate in the event, exposing them to other activist causes, possibly endangering their safety. This should’ve been expected by the TDSB. One does not simply “observe” a rally.

A concerned parent, who took video of the protest, told me that they went to the rally with their child for two reasons — they wanted to support the Grassy Narrows cause and they wanted to see if students would actually be passive observers in the rally as promised by TDSB.

The parent, who asked not be named for fear of professional repercussions, had hoped this would be true, that, perhaps, alongside the rally there would be educational workshops or Q&A where students could ask questions about the unresolved mercury poisoning of the Wabigoon River system, keeping students separated from the rally itself. But the parent’s past experience with the TDSB made them highly doubtful. “What does it even mean to observe a rally, anyway?” they laughed.

According to the parent, the rally got off to a great start. All of the official speakers, according to the source, were educational, with the exception of the last speaker who, to their credit, began with a useful safety warning about following the marshal as they walked through the streets to protest, but then followed up the helpful piece of advice by reminding everyone in the crowd to only use rally-approved chants, including asking them to repeat one of them — “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”

When the crowd, which included TDSB students, did not repeat the chant loud enough the first time, the speaker asked them to repeat it, the parent said. Funny. This pre-approved chant was not mentioned on the permission slips that went home to parents.

The rally had other non-Indigenous, non-Grassy Narrows related chants and imagery. Pro-Palestinian supporters were reportedly there handing out their own materials and chanting their own slogans.

A video of a woman who was recorded at the rally using a megaphone to blast the pre-approved chant was shared on X by concerned parents who were at the rally to support Grassy Narrows First Nation, but did not approve of the co-opting of the event by pro-Palestinian activists and any influence they might have on their children or any harm that might come to them by interacting with them. Rallies aren’t “safe spaces” for students. Students can easily get lost in crowds, or, worse, get caught up in potentially dangerous protest activities.

When I questioned TDSB about whether or not student participation in the rally and their exposure to other activist groups was pre-approved or considered safe by the TDSB, they responded, via email, that they understood that “some students may have been negatively impacted by what they saw and heard,” but were “not aware that students would engage with any issues outside the main focus of River Run.” They then stated that “in general, students should not be participating in organized protests as part of a field trip,” and that they would review their “field trip procedures to provide guidance that upholds the safety and well-being of students.” Did they not have procedures before this trip?

This isn’t much of an explanation, but it does tell us how much the TDSB understands about the nature of rallies. But rallies are not passive events. They are calls for communal action. The word implies participation. They are not spectator events.

There’s also no guarantee that can be given by any school board that rallies will only be attended by those who care about the specific issue. I’d say it’s almost an impossibility for some causes, especially now since it’s become a tactic of the pro-Palestinian cause to attempt to align themselves with Indigenous groups, claiming to be on the same anti-settler-colonialist mission.

A few questions remain about this event. Were the main organizers aware of all of the pre-approved chants? If not, and if they disagree with the inclusion of the last speaker’s chant, why was the last speaker not stopped on the stage before they had the chance to ask the crowd to repeat it? By their own admission, TDSB pointed out that students should not have been participating in the protest as part of a field trip for reasons of safety and well-being. Then how did it happen in the first place? How was the TDSB ever convinced that one could simply observe a rally?

National Post